Intentionality
There aren’t really any unbreakable “rules” for writing—or for that matter, for life. But this is a good one:
Intend every word you write.
Its corollary for life-in-general, of course, would be intend every thing you do.
Harder than it sounds.
The blog post by Eric Cummings on intentionality (yes, there really is such a word) in writing that got me started thinking about this is here, on one of my favorite blogs, Write to Done.