According to a 2023 study by Small Biz Silver Lining, a company that offers tools for entrepreneurs, 75% of small-business owners are concerned about their mental health. More than half (56%) have been diagnosed with anxiety, depression or stress-related problems by a doctor or mental health professional.
I personally felt the weight of this when starting my own financial education company in 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. But ever since I hit my first FIRE milestone, I started to practice the habit of being voraciously protective of my calendar – literally and metaphorically. This weekly habit allows me to work 20 hours a week, while still making six figures a year and actually loving the work I get to do.
Releasing the time-sucking commitments and focusing on the activities that drive the most results toward your financial independence goals requires a few routine components:
- Spend 20 minutes on Sunday evenings or Monday mornings to optimize your schedule for the upcoming week.
- Use an online app such as Google Calendar that you can edit quickly and from anywhere. Paper planners are not efficient in managing a hectic schedule.
- Color-code your energy types. You don’t have to keep the same colors every week, but it’s helpful to see the different types of meetings you have. For example, I code health and exercise as green, social gatherings as purple, client meetings as blue and nonclient meetings as orange.
- Group similar activities together. Limit your calendar to no more than 3 types of activities in a day.
- Use a scheduling tool like Calendly or Acuity to let people know your availability, even for personal time. I’ve noticed a lot less cancellations because people have to be intentional about scheduling and cancelling time.
Decline Meetings That Feel Like A Trap
In order to build this habit, it’s critical to have hard boundaries around fewer meetings. Have you ever sat in a work meeting or a social gathering where you thought to yourself, “I feel like I’m wasting my time?” If the answer is yes, and if it’s happened on more than one occasion, you must practice when you say yes or no to adding time to your very limited calendar.
Quite simply, I decline a lot of meetings and I won’t lie. It’s hard and I wonder if I’m being a jerk. Especially as a Filipino American woman, I feel the expectation to be likable and available to anyone that asks for my time. But as my business and wealth grew, more people asked me for face time that just wasn’t sustainable without sacrificing my own freedom.
Now, I’m very strict about declining any meetings personally or professionally if that meeting breaks any of the five following rules.
First, don’t take any meeting that doesn’t have a clear agenda. If you don’t know why you are going to a meeting, you need to ask specifically and ensure that all parties should agree to the agenda beforehand. Speaking as a former HR professional, don’t ever put yourself in a position to be caught off guard, by entering a meeting in which you’re not sure why you’ve been called in.
Second, decline any meeting that should have been an email. This sounds pretty straightforward but is often underutilized. If you can accomplish the agenda with one or two emails, just make them emails. Reserve meeting time for deep-dive discussions.
Third, decline any meetings asking to “pick your brain.” This has been the hardest because I want to help. But many requests I get from strangers are cases where they either have no intention of following through on the advice or no intention of ever paying me. I learned to say yes by sharing previous content or offering consulting, for a fee.
Fourth, decline meetings with unpleasant people. Life is too short to spend it with people who don’t value your time. If one of these unpleasant people is someone you work with, address that individual’s behavior sooner rather than later. If it’s once or twice, give the benefit of the doubt that the person had a bad day. But three times or more is a pattern.
Lastly, don’t attend any gathering that is less than an enthusiastic yes for you. I used to go to social gatherings out of obligation, even if I didn’t feel comfortable around those people, and I’ve felt so much more freedom that I only go when I’m excited to go!
Imagine how much farther you could be in your finances had you taken all those meetings and put them toward your budget, investing, or meeting with a valuable money mentor instead. Money is abundant. Time is what’s scarce. The catch to having these clear meeting boundaries is that you yourself must practice it consistently.
Scheduling Self-Nourishment Helps You Execute Your Money Goals
Whenever I share my strict calendar habit to new financial education students, they often assume that it’s restrictive rather than liberating. But an effective budget requires allocating funds and time toward taking care of your physical and mental health, in order for your routine to be sustainable over the long term.
Before I practiced a regular budgeting routine and the weekly calendar review, I worked 50 hours or more a week. I would only schedule any health-related appointments when I was well into burnout symptoms. When I started to plan my personal care expenses as a top priority, I learned I could afford them as long as I planned to do them at the beginning of the month, rather than ad hoc.
Now, I allocate at least 25% of my monthly budget toward healthy activities that revive me, including yoga, dance classes, counseling and rest. Those items are nonnegotiable — both on my budget and my schedule.
Keeping a drama-free calendar means you’re enthused about what you will accomplish and who you will cross paths with that week. It also means that you’re not scheduled during every minute of every day. You have actual white space to be spontaneous or just to rest.
What does this have to do with your money plan? Absolutely everything. Remember, financial freedom is not about the numbers alone. The true test of freedom is looking at how you can spend your life as moments you get to choose out of joy instead of obligation.
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