Why The Intentional Life Project Exists
Everyone reaches a point where the life they’re living no longer matches the life they intended.
For some, it shows up as drift.
For others, as overwhelm.
For many, as the quiet ache of unrealised potential — the sense that time is moving faster than clarity.
The Purpose of The Intentional Life Project
The Intentional Life Project was created to offer a way out of that drift.
Not through hacks, discipline, or rigid systems,
but through a humane philosophy grounded in truth, intention, and authorship.
It is built on a simple belief:
When you understand how your time is actually being lived,
you can begin shaping your life with clarity and agency.
About the Creator
Rob’s Story
The Intentional Life Project was founded by Rob Swaab, an entrepreneur, thinker, and lifelong explorer of how humans make meaning through their time.
For years, Rob experienced the same challenges most people face:
too many responsibilities
too little clarity
ambitious intentions that rarely matched reality
cycles of drift broken only by short bursts of friction or willpower
The Big Realisation
Despite decades of experience building companies and systems, one truth became impossible to ignore:
There was no methodology that connected time, intention, identity, and daily behaviour into a coherent whole.
Everything on the market solved a small slice of the puzzle: productivity, habits, projects, goals, notes, time-blocking — but nothing addressed the deeper architecture of how a life is actually lived.
So Rob began designing the system he needed —
not a productivity method,
not a philosophy alone,
but a complete, AI-ready framework for understanding and shaping a life.
The result is The Intentional Life Project
and the full methodology behind it, Intentional Life Architecture.
A Personal Project, Made Public
The Intentional Life Project began as a personal endeavour —
a way for Rob to bring clarity, alignment, and authorship to his own life.
As the philosophy grew and the architecture solidified,
it became clear that this work wasn’t just personal.
It spoke to something universal:
the desire to live with intention
the need to understand the truth of our days
the longing to close the gap between who we are and who we intended to be
Publishing this work is an extension of that realisation.
The Intentional Life Project is personal, but it is not private.
It is shared because it can help others make sense of their own patterns, their own seasons, and their own direction.
A Growing Body of Work
The Intentional Life Project includes:
the SHIFT pillars — your entry point
the guiding Ethos
the Conceptual Framework
the full Intentional Life Architecture methodology
diagrams, essays, reflections
and eventually, the full book and reference implementation
It is being released intentionally in layers,
so people can absorb its ideas at the right pace
and build their understanding one insight at a time.
A Note from Rob
“ A life becomes intentional when yesterday’s truth shapes tomorrow’s choices.
This project exists to help you meet that truth — gently, clearly, and with enough structure to turn intention into authorship.”
Where to Begin?
The best starting point is the SHIFT framework —
the five pillars that reveal how your time and intention shape the life you live.