11 minutes

Your private learning intention

Five lines you write for yourself: the work, the question, the first step, the expertise you are missing and how it is paid for, and the date you will look again.

What you’ll be able to do

Write a private learning intention that names the work, the question, a first step inside your own authority, the expertise you are missing and how it will be paid for, and the date you will revisit it.
Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What should happen next?
Draft a private learning intention for your work, including the work this is attached to, the question underneath it, the first step inside my own authority.

Five lines, kept by you

A learning intention is a short private note you write to yourself after you have found and narrowed a focus. It is not a development goal, and it is deliberately not built like one: no rating, no reporting line, no due date anyone else enforces, no audience. Its whole purpose is to survive the six weeks between deciding something matters and having any time for it.

Five lines do the work. The work it is attached to, named specifically enough that you could put your hand on the document. The question underneath it, written in the words you would use with a colleague rather than the words you would use in a memo. The first step inside your own authority, small enough that a bad week cannot defeat it. Whose expertise is missing, and how they will be paid for it. And the date you will look at this again.

The fourth line is the one people skip, and it is the one that most often separates learning from circling. If your focus concerns people with disabilities, families, interpreters or a community organization, the people who can answer your question are not a resource to be consulted for free. They are advisors with professional expertise, invited and compensated as co-designers, reviewers or advisors — and told afterward what changed because of what they said. Arranging that takes lead time, which is exactly why it belongs in the note at the start rather than in an apology at the end.

A private learning intention

Five lines you write for yourself and keep. Nothing here is collected, counted, compared or reported. Replace the example wording with your own, keep it where you will see it, and change it whenever the work changes.

The work this is attached to The eligibility instruction sheet my unit mails with every application, and the two-week response window printed on it.

The question underneath it What does that sheet assume about reading, translation time, housing stability and energy — and which of those assumptions did policy actually require, rather than habit adding them?

The first step inside my own authority Read the policy text beside the sheet and mark every requirement the sheet adds that the policy does not require. Two hours, this month, no approval needed.

Whose expertise is missing, and how they will be paid Three people who have used the sheet, and one community organization that helps people complete it. Arrange advisor payment through the unit's existing budget before asking, allow lead time for scheduling and interpretation, and tell them afterward what changed.

When I will look at this again Six weeks from today, in my own calendar. If the question has moved somewhere else by then, follow it there and rewrite these lines.

Replace each line with your own, keep the note where you will see it, and put the revisit date in your own calendar. Do not send it to your supervisor, and if you lead a unit, do not ask to see anyone else's — offer the time, the budget and the access instead.

Browse and download only. Staff notes are not typed or saved on this page.

What makes an intention real rather than aspirational

It names a document, decision, process or meeting you could put your hand on today.
Its first step fits in the hours you actually have, not the hours you wish you had.
It names someone outside this building who would notice if it went well.
It names the expertise you are missing and how that person will be paid, before you ask for their time.
It has a date on it, in your own calendar, and permission built in to change the whole thing on that date.

Offer the time, not the paperwork

What you can change

If you lead people, you control whether learning here comes with hours, a small advisor budget and access to the right meetings — or with a form to fill in.

What to watch for

Do not collect, review or ask about individual intentions, and do not build them into check-ins or development plans. The moment they are read by someone who evaluates the writer, they become documents written to be read, and the honest lines drop out.

Your next step

Tell your unit plainly what is available — protected hours, materials, payment for advisors, access to the meeting where the decision is made — and let people come to you by name if they want it.

The five lines, in short

The work

A document, decision, process or meeting specific enough that you could put your hand on it today. Not a subject area.

The question

In the words you would use with a colleague. If it does not have an answer somewhere, it is still a topic rather than a question.

The first step

Inside your own authority, small enough that a bad week cannot defeat it, and scheduled rather than intended.

The missing expertise

Who could answer this who is not in the room, and how they will be paid. Arrange it before you ask, and say afterward what changed because of what they told you.

The date

In your own calendar. The point is not to check whether you complied. The point is to ask whether the question is still the right one.

I wrote six weeks on the line because it felt arbitrary. When the date came, the question had moved — the deadline was not the problem at all, the mailing list was. Having somewhere to write that down is what kept it from becoming one more thing I meant to look at.
Composite DHS staff perspective, illustrative

Which learning intention is written so that something is likely to happen?

I will build my understanding of culturally responsive practice over the coming year and apply it across my work.

The partner survey my team sends each quarter: what do the open questions assume about literacy and time, who never responds, and what do the people who stopped responding say about it? First step is to read the last two rounds of responses against the distribution list, this month. I will arrange paid advisory time with two organizations that stopped answering. I will look at this again in eight weeks.

I will identify my own blind spots in intercultural work and track my progress against the continuum over the next two quarters.

I will ask my supervisor to assign me to the accessibility workgroup so that I can learn from the people already doing this work.

Try a situation

A supervisor writes her own learning intention, finds it genuinely useful, and wants her staff to have the same thing. At the next unit meeting she asks everyone to write one and send it to her, so she can support their development and refer to it in their next check-in.

What should happen next?

Collect them. A supervisor who knows what her staff are working on can protect time, find materials and remove obstacles they would never raise on their own.

Keep the intentions private and offer the support separately: tell the unit what time, materials, advisor budget and meeting access are available, and let anyone who wants help ask for it by name.

Collect them but promise they will never be mentioned in a performance conversation.

Carry this forward

An intention is not a goal in a performance plan. There is no rating attached to it, no deadline anyone else enforces, and no audience but you.
Five lines make it real: the work it is attached to, the question underneath it, the first step inside your own authority, whose expertise is missing and how they will be paid, and when you will look at it again.
People with disabilities, families, community organizations and interpreters who help you understand something are advisors giving professional expertise. Arrange payment before you ask, not after, and say what changed because of what they told you.
The revisit date is part of the tool. Most intentions are half wrong at the start, and the date is what turns that from a failure into an ordinary correction.
Keeping it private is a design choice, not secrecy. A note that a supervisor will read becomes a note written to be read, and stops telling you the truth.

A private learning intention written for one real piece of your own work, kept by you, plus a knowledge check on what makes an intention actionable rather than aspirational.

Write your five lines, keep them somewhere you will actually see them, and put the revisit date in your own calendar rather than anyone else's.

Your next step

What would make your own intention easy to keep, and what would quietly kill it?

Name where you will keep it so you will actually see it again.

Name the first step small enough that a busy week cannot defeat it.

Name the date you will look again, and put it in your own calendar today.

Name the one obstacle most likely to stop you, and what you would do about it.

Browse and download only. Course notes are not typed or saved on this page.

Mark this lesson complete

Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.