Full of Greats

This is my journey to apply the book, Unf*ck your finances. The book is about personal finances but I’ve added actions specific to working for myself. If you want a bit more context, the prelude pieces are Hope can be scary, Why do we never talk about personal finance?, and Getting my shit together: the plan for the next quarter. Three days ago was money day. I registered for GST, split my business and personal expenses, and defined my bookkeeping rituals (most people call these standard operating procedures). I’m not done but the skeleton is there. Let me tell you about my bookkeeping rituals. Some of these build on existing rituals and some are being built from the ground up. These will undoubtedly change but it’s a good starting point for the new financial year. Credit to Emily Volz for her financial foundation series, Mike Michalowicz for his Profit First concept, and many others whose frameworks I’ve frankensteined together that (hopefully) works for me. Feedback welcome! See all of the rituals here.

This is my journey to apply the book, Unf*ck your finances. The book is about personal finances but I’ve added actions specific to working for myself. If you want a bit more context, the prelude pieces are Hope can be scary, Why do we never talk about personal finance?, and Getting my shit together: the plan for the next quarter. Two days ago was money day. I registered for GST, split my business and personal expenses, and defined my bookkeeping rituals (most people call these standard operating procedures). I’m not done but the skeleton is there. Let me tell you separating business and personal expenses. The accounts Here’s my set up: Business transaction account Business savings account Personal transaction account (IO) Personal transaction account (The Regulars) Personal transaction account (IRL spending) Personal savings account (Sacred) Personal savings account (Buffer and more-than-monthly expenses) The system I cover all business expenses and submit expense claims. Invoices will be paid into the business transaction account. When this happens: I transfer the GST to the business savings account I transfer 30% of the remainder to the business savings account — this is income tax and profit savings I transfer expense reimbursements to IO I transfer the remainder to IO as my pay When funds come into IO… I hold funds in the account to cover upcoming fixed business expenses I transfer funds to The Regulars to cover upcoming direct debits, known bills, and other scheduled payments I transfer funds for discretionary spending to IRL Spending All card payments and one-offs are put through IRL Spending which is then fed by the account it comes out of. Any business expenses are claimed and paid when the next invoice comes in. Why do I do it this way? It’s simpler to run the books with fewer transactions for reconciliation. Eg. 15 expenses show up as one expense reimbursement transaction on the bank reconciliation I can simply reconcile the IO debits to the list of fixed business expenses and immediately spot any discrepancies I can simply reconcile The Regulars debits to the list of fixed personal expenses and immediately spot any discrepancies I can assess my variable spending in isolation — without any data manipulation or adjustments — just by looking at the transaction history of IRL spending Because I have I can never spend more than I have available, because it wouldn’t be available to me What I actually had to do Open a new business transaction account Change around ~25 personal direct debits / scheduled transfers to The Regulars Separate my outgoings spreadsheet into two spreadsheets Update my runway calculator to reflect a business and personal runway This took a couple of hours. It feels good.

This is my journey to apply the book, Unf*ck your finances. The book is about personal finances but I’ve added actions specific to working for myself. If you want a bit more context, the prelude pieces are Hope can be scary, Why do we never talk about personal finance?, and Getting my shit together: the plan for the next quarter. Yesterday was money day. I registered for GST, split my business and personal expenses, and defined my bookkeeping rituals (most people call these standard operating procedures). I’m not done but the skeleton is there. Let me tell you about GST. GST Registration There are 3 ways you can do this: Call the ATO Access the Business Portal Get a bookkeeper or accountant to do it for you When I called the ATO, I received a very kind but overly unhelpful automated message saying that they’re busy and they can’t take my call. In the week leading up to the end of financial year, I shouldn’t have been surprised. I called twice more, just in case there had been a mistake. There hadn’t been. I would have given up, except that I had promised myself (and stated publicly in a few places to keep me accountable) that I would register for GST by 1 July. I decided to try the Business Portal path. Accessing the Business Portal…isn’t straightforward. I’ve had an ABN for a few years but that’s not enough to get you onto the Business Portal. You need an AusKEY or MyGov and something called RAM (not the computer kind). I tried AusKEY first. It turns out that this is a Chrome or Firefox add-on that gives you a unique identifier to access your account. You can also run it off a USB stick. The USB option is probably more secure but I was more worried about getting it working. I had to verify my identity first. That was ok. I filled out the form. I had the ID I needed. I installed AusKEY. And…it didn’t work. I attempted to log into the Business Portal but AusKEY didn’t come up as an option. I tried in two browsers. I probably should have tried resetting the computer but I was on Focusmate and I didn’t want to kill the call when there was another option. I ignored the troubleshooting suggestions and decided to give the MyGov option a try. RAM stands for Relationship Access Manager. I just followed the pages that came up, downloaded an app, verified my identification again, and it worked. The Business Portal is not the prettiest or most user-friendly thing. There was an instructions page that saved me. And so I registered for GST. The whole process took me around 45 minutes. I’ll probably only ever do this once in my life. Thank goodness. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about how I split my business and personal expenses. The day after I’ll talk about how I defined my bookkeeping rituals (most people call these standard operating procedures).

This is my journey to apply the book, Unf*ck your finances. The book is about personal finances but I’ve added actions specific to working for myself. If you want a bit more context, the prelude pieces are Hope can be scary, Why do we never talk about personal finance?, and Getting my shit together: the plan for the next quarter. The next thing I’m doing from the plan I made a few days ago is to understand where my money is spent. I want to start noticing where I’m spending my money The questions I want to ask are: Who do I spend with? Do I agree with their supply chains, their culture, the way they do things? I’ve just added these questions to my weekly reflection questions. Another part of this is making a habit of questioning my purchases. I’ve gone through my fixed expenditure in past posts but I haven’t talked about variable expenditure. I’ve used YNAB in the past but I’ve been manually keying and it was taking more time than it added value. I also refused to use adjustment transactions so I would go to extreme (and unnecessary) lengths to figure out discrepancies and get accounts to reconcile. To do this: 1. I’m splitting my business and personal finances. This should have happened earlier. 2. I’m splitting my personal fixed costs and my personal variable costs. I’m doing this by using separate accounts. What this means is that I can review one account to see my variable discretionary spending. More on this in future articles. For now… I want to set up a system to help me notice where I’m spending my money The other thing I’m doing is setting up Pocketbook. I’ll categorise the June expenses to date (and see how long it takes) and see what my backwards looking discretionary spending looks like. 90 minutes later I did not expect that to take 90 minutes. I went through 30 days of expenses, creating custom categories as I went. I made a bonus discovery: I accidentally doubled up on a payment and I’m $800 richer than I thought I was. YAY! If 30 days of categorisation takes 90 minutes, I would hope that I can keep a weekly run through at around 10 minutes. I’ll let you know when it happens on Monday. A reflection on historical data I’ve had a flick through the last 30 days. Without historical trends to look at (I cannot express how tempting it is to go back and categorise a few more months), the biggest question I have for myself is: Is it in line with where I want to go to be spending $500 (AUD) on eating out in one month?

This is my journey to apply the book, Unf*ck your finances. The book is about personal finances but I’ve added actions specific to working for myself. If you want a bit more context, the prelude pieces are Hope can be scary, Why do we never talk about personal finance?, and Getting my shit together: the plan for the next quarter. The next thing I’m doing from the plan I made a few days ago is to understand where my money is invested. Despite having debt and being bad with money, I’ve been saved by the country I live in. Here in Australia, employers are required to contribute to your retirement savings. If your salary is $100,000 pre-tax, they will put $9,500 into your superannuation account. Because I’ve been working since I was 15, I have a good amount in retirement savings. I lost some to not caring but it’s now all in one place. Side note: If you’re Australian and you haven’t consolidated your superannuation, please take the time to do it. You could be costing your future self tens of thousands of dollars. 100% is in the High Growth investment option (note: different funds have different names for their options) The major holdings (as at 31 May 2019) of this fund include BHP, Woodside Petroleum, Rio Tinto, Oil Search, and Santos. There is another investment option: Sustainable High Growth The investment strategy of this option is: “To invest in a diversified portfolio of Australian and international shares selected on the basis of sustainable investment criteria (and the application of some negative screens), together with Australian Listed Property.” Their screening criteria is here. There are other ethical funds in Australia (this article is older so the rates may note be up to date) but I’m not willing to do a massive research project at this stage. I’ve just rolled my entire balance and any future payments from High Growth to Sustainable High Growth. One day, I may also do a research project to find the right fund and investment option to suit my combination of ethical preference and required rate of return…one day.

This is my journey to apply the book, Unf*ck your finances. The book is about personal finances but I’ve added actions specific to working for myself. If you want a bit more context, the prelude pieces are Hope can be scary, Why do we never talk about personal finance?, and Getting my shit together: the plan for the next quarter. The first thing I’m doing from the plan I made a few days ago is to understand how I’m spending. I started by listing all of my fixed costs and interrogating them one-by-one. Up until this point, I’ve been able to reduce my monthly costs by $372.64 (AUD) In doing this exercise, I’ve discovered a problem category: personal and professional development. Today I’ve taken the time to delve deeper into everything in this category. This category totals around $420 (AUD) per month. That’s one high ticket course or a new macbook in seven months. That’s half my rent. But it’s also more than that. When I participate in a community or program, I’m paying with my time and attention as well. I have to be comfortable with the opportunity cost. Questions I’ve asked myself include: What do I (want to) get out of this community / program? How much time am I willing to put into it? / How much time is it currently taking up? Is this what I need right now? Am I giving the other small group members the attention and thoughtfulness they deserve? If I weren’t in it already, would I pay to join? Do I still want to be part of it?

Check out the full blog post with the info here. This is my journey to apply the book, Unf*ck your finances. The book is about personal finances but I’ve added actions specific to working for myself. If you want a bit more context, the prelude pieces are Hope can be scary, Why do we never talk about personal finance?, and Getting my shit together: the plan for the next quarter. The first thing I’m doing from the plan I made a few days ago is to understand how I’m spending. I started by listing all of my fixed costs and interrogating them one-by-one. Up until this point, I’ve been able to reduce my monthly costs by $301.14. I’ve split these costs by business and personal and then looked at the groups that have emerged under each banner. A problem area did come up so I’ll go wayyy deeper into that tomorrow. Dollar amounts for line items removed but feel free to comment and ask about it if you so desire. Any dollar amounts given are in AUD. Feel free to do a cross-examination.

This is my journey to apply the book, Unf*ck your finances. The book is about personal finances but I’ve added actions specific to working for myself. If you want a bit more context, the prelude pieces are Hope can be scary, Why do we never talk about personal finance?, and Getting my shit together: the plan for the next quarter. The first thing I’m doing from the plan I made a few days ago is to understand how I’m spending. This means listing out all of my fixed costs and interrogating them. Up until this point, I’ve been able to reduce my monthly costs by $301.14. Let’s see how I go today. Feel free to do a cross-examination. These are the last costs I’ll be interrogating. Tomorrow, I’ll interrogate categories of costs. iCloud (monthly) I’m ok with this price to know that all of my photos and videos and messages are kept somewhere besides my phone and laptop. Podiatry (quarterly) The health insurance keeps this price low. It’s fixed. At some point, I will have to progress to orthotics. A cost to keep in mind. Dentistry (bi-annually) The health insurance keeps this price low. It’s fixed. I may drop down to annually in future but there are a few things we’ve been keeping an eye on so happy to go every six months. Psychology (monthly-ish) Again, health insurance has reduced the cost of this. I like going but I think I need to redefine what I want to get out of it. What I started going for is no longer an issue. Adding it to my task manager. Work Gym (quarterly) (business expense) 8 hours of focused work per week, two work marathons, and a pentathlon…this is very worth it for me. Wordpress (annually) (business expense) I’m keeping this website on Wordpress because it’s just so much better for SEO and bloging than Clickfunnels is. I will port the domain to Namecheap as soon as I can though. Clue (annually) Used daily. Very very useful for knowing when we’re all in danger. Keeping it. Readwise (annually) I love this tool and I get value out of it regularly — I’ve created a TODO to make sure I’m getting the most out of it. I’m 90% sure there are some integrations I haven’t hooked up yet. Bear (annually) (business expense) I have temporarily switched to Notion while I don’t have my Macbook. I hands down prefer Bear but it doesn’t have a PC or web version. Anywho, this annual expense isn’t for another six months but I’m sure I’m keeping it. Domains (annually) (business expense) I only have five. I think that’s reasonable. Currently using them all. Auto-renew is off for the ones that are only temporary projects. Doctor (quarterly) The reality is that I average to quarterly. This is pretty fixed.  —  No money saved today.

This is my journey to apply the book, Unf*ck your finances. The book is about personal finances but I’ve added actions specific to working for myself. The first thing I’m doing from the plan I made four days ago is to understand how I’m spending. This means listing out all of my fixed costs and interrogating them. Up until this point, I’ve been able to reduce my monthly costs by $274.14. Let’s see how I go today. Feel free to do a cross-examination. Stitcher (monthly) I have Stitcher Premium so that I can listen to a specific podcast (By The Book: Authors Tell All). I use Overcast (free) as my main podcast app so I’m really only paying this for this specific show. Thing is, I’m totally behind on the show. Keeping it for now and adding a reminder to re-evaluate in 2 months. Loan repayment monthly Yeah. This one is a fixed cost. It’s no interest (for now) so I’m sticking to the minimum. ConvertKit (monthly) (business expense) I was ready to pause this subscription. But it turns out people have subscribed to my mailing list. So I should actually keep it and email them. I will be emailing people for the rest of my life. I’m going to keep this. Cleaner (monthly) We’re paying for the ability to be pretty average housekeepers the rest of the time. Worth it, but I could cut it if I had to. Medium (monthly) I do a lot of my reading on Medium and I’m happy to pay this price to be able to access all of the articles and make my applause worth something. CityCycle (monthly) I seldom use CityCycles but I like paying this small amount to have the option. The Happiness Project Experience (monthly) I have been subscribed since the beginning (6 months ago) and still haven’t gone in and completed the course modules. I’ll keep it until the end of the year because I really want to support Gretchen’s work. I’ve added it to my calendar to actually participate in the July theme (family). Basecamp (monthly) (business expense) I use this to manage every collaborative project that I lead. I love it and I don’t know that I could ever let go of it. And, seriously, I’m tied into it for at least two projects and two teams. Minutedock $27.00 monthly (business expense) I’ll be cancelling this next week. It’s a great product but I’ve moved from charging by the hour to charging by the day. I like it to see how good I am at time estimation but I can easily get away with something much simpler (like the built in 17hats timer). Credit card repayments (monthly) Yeah. This one is a fixed cost (for now!). I‘m aggressively paying down one and sticking to minimums on the others. Rent (monthly) Fixed. We’re here for at least another six months. When we move or renew, I’ll consider moving to a 50/50 split (currently he’s bearing more because of differing income levels). Creative Cloud (monthly) (business expense) I use this mostly for Acrobat but it’s nice to be able to use Photoshop and InDesign if I need to. I checked the cost for Acrobat standalone and it’s actually the same! Spotify (monthly) I use it almost daily. Keeping it. — I reduced my monthly outgoings by $27!

This is my journey to apply the book, Unf*ck your finances. The book is about personal finances but I’ve added actions specific to working for myself. If you want a bit more context, the prelude pieces are Hope can be scary, Why do we never talk about personal finance?, and Getting my shit together: the plan for the next quarter. The first thing I’m doing from the plan I made three days ago is to understand how I’m spending. This means listing out all of my fixed costs and interrogating them. Up until this point, I’ve been able to reduce my monthly costs by $267.15. Let’s see how I go today. Feel free to do a cross-examination. Notion (monthly) (business expense) This is my current repository for working notes. I had to switch from a Mac to a PC recently which meant I had to switch from Bear to something. This was that something. Keeping it. Fuel (monthly) I send this to my partner for fuel and upkeep of the vehicle. I could stop the payment but, by sending it, I don’t feel bad about asking for rides or him driving us everywhere (I don’t have a licence). Freelancer Secrets (monthly) (business expense) Because of this course, I re-shaped how I do bespoke services and made work a pleasure to scope and deliver. I’ll switch to the annual version ASAP because I know I’ll be keeping it for more than four more months (the annual version is the monthly fee x 4). I just sent the email to support about this. Google Play Music (monthly) I use Spotify more often but I like having the option and the price is worth having that option. Keeping it. Health Insurance (monthly) I need this on this tier. I could shop around but my waiting periods would reset and I can’t afford to risk that. Clickfunnels (monthly) (business expense) Loving using this tool. All of my websites will move to here. For now, I am loving using it to experiment with and test some stuff. That said, I can only justify it long term if I have actual funnels on it leading to actual products. I will re-evaluate in 3 months. I created a reminder. Dance (fortnightly) I attend up to 5 times per week and this is where I get my cardio too. Keeping it. Microsoft (monthly) (business expense) This gives me access to Excel, Word, and Powerpoint. I use at least one of them daily. Keeping it. Sacred (monthly) This is the name I give to savings. This is only a nominal amount but the payment has been consistently going out for 9 months. It means I can up the recurring payment when I get to that point (aiming for next month!) Amazon Prime (monthly) I have this to take advantage of free shipping. I rarely purchase physical products. I cancelled it. I will re-add it next time I order a physical product in that category. 200 Words a Day (monthly) This has kept me publishing daily for almost a third of the year. Keeping it! Complice (monthly) I use this for my weekly reviews and tracking actions towards goals. It has been invaluable. Keeping it.  —  I reduced my monthly outgoings by $6.99!

This is my journey to apply the book, Unf*ck your finances. The book is about personal finances but I’ve added actions specific to working for myself. If you want a bit more context, the prelude pieces are Hope can be scary, Why do we never talk about personal finance?, and Getting my shit together: the plan for the next quarter. The first thing I’m doing from the plan I made two days ago is to understand how I’m spending. This means listing out all of my fixed costs and interrogating them. Yesterday, I reduced by monthly costs by $189.95. Let’s see how I go today. Feel free to do a cross-examination. Squirrel Street $37.95 (monthly) (business expense) This services saves me hours of keying receipts. Keeping it. Mobile Phone (monthly) (50% business expense) This includes the service as well as insurance on the phone. Keeping it. I’m not even going to shop around because I know it’s an awesome deal. Envato (monthly) (business expense) This gives me access to great graphic templates. I needed one this month. I’ve added it to my calendar to cancel it before the next payment comes out. I can always resubscribe if I need another template Virtual Coworking (monthly) (business expense) A community that I’m a part of. This gives me access to a monthly goals accountability crew and a co-working space in the CBD one day per month. I use the space for meeting rooms and get access to mentorship and the full network of people. Online community (monthly) (business expense) A community that I’m part of. This is a high-end membership fee and my hope is that it’s full of people a few years or decades ahead of me. I need to make the most of this. I’ve opened the getting started guide in another tab. Online community (monthly) (business expense) Another community I’m a part of. This community is full of people who do similar work to me. It’s nice to not feel alone.I’ll take the time to go through the repository of documents and resources that it comes with. Electricity bill (quarterly) Fixed. Physio (monthly Fixed. Home internet (monthly) Fixed. Mindhive (monthly ) (business expense) This membership allows me to contribute to public challenges. I also get to support a company that I think should exist. Keeping it. For now. Dropbox (monthly) (business expense) Most of my files are here. I would switch to iCloud but I don’t want to lock myself into an ecosystem. Keeping it. Duolingo (monthly) This gets daily use. Keeping it. 17hats (monthly) (business expense) This is my CRM and it is a dream to send quotes with because they can sign the contract electronically, set up their payment plan, and receive the first invoice…all without me touching it. I haven’t tried invoicing yet but it saves me a decent amount of brain space so I’m keeping it.  —  I reduced my monthly costs by $53!

If you want a bit more context, the prelude pieces are Hope can be scary, Why do we never talk about personal finance?, and Getting my shit together: the plan for the next quarter. The first thing I’m doing from the plan I made yesterday is to understand how I’m spending. This means listing out all of my fixed costs and interrogating them. I already had them all listed out on a spreadsheet. Now, I interrogate them. Feel free to do a cross-examination. (Added later: I’ve removed the dollar figures from the individual line items but the total that I cut was $189.95/mth with an additional $35.20/mth coming off in the next month. And this was only 13 of the 69 fixed costs that I have — I still have 56 more to interrogate!) Transport (fortnightly) This is for public transport. Yes, this is fixed. I could reduce it by walking everywhere. I could drop some good money on a bike, an ebike, a scooter or an electric scooter, but this currently suits my needs. Probiotics (monthly) I could get rid of this if I had to. But the influence it has on my wellbeing is so significant that it probably adds more to my life than takes away. Desk rent (monthly) (business expense) This is for a permanent desk at a coworking space. I’m going to email them now and switch to a casual desk. Sent. That took longer than it should have. Patreon (monthly) This is made up of: two artists that I’m supporting a training program that I’m part of a community that I’m part of (business expense) I’m leaving this as it is for now. I may consider reducing the community to the lower tier in future. I may consider leaving the training program in future. Website builder (monthly) (business expense) I’ve really got to migrate this to the other website builder (unlimited domains!) before the next monthly payment comes out. GSuite (monthly ) (business expense) This is for two email addresses: *@rosieo.co and *@rosieodsey.com I’m cool with it. Fridge and washing machine (monthly) This reflects my share of this. We leased them because we wanted the option to move overseas. I think it’s truly fixed. Invoicing software (monthly) (business expense) This can be cancelled this month because I’m switching to a CRM and Xero Business insurance (monthly) (business expense) Yeah this can’t be cancelled without being negligent. Canva (monthly) (business expense) I use it regularly enough to warrant having this. Until I have someone who does this for me, I’ll need this tool. Audio books (monthly) This is often a business expense. I currently have 25 unfinished audiobooks on my phone. Wait a sec That has now been cancelled. I’ll resubscribe when I need something else. At least this way there’s an additional barrier. Podcast (monthly) This show changed my life. I will continue to support it in this way. I also truly believe in the model of directly supporting stuff like this because people make better stuff when they’re not chasing sponsorship. Training program and community (monthly) I’m participating actively in the community. I will consider leaving in future.

This is my journey to apply the book, Unf*ck your finances. The book is about personal finances but I’ve added actions specific to working for myself. If you want a bit more context, the prelude pieces are Hope can be scary, Why do we never talk about personal finance?, and Getting my shit together: the plan for the next quarter. The final item from the plan I made two days ago was to re-read a handful of chapters and figure out any action items. Why is this an action item? Because I looked at the chapter titles and had no memory of what was in them. It was clear that I hadn’t taken any action on them. I skimmed through each of the chapters. Each heading below is a chapter. I’ve included notes and new action items (bulleted). I haven’t set due dates for these but I have added them to my keystone doc so that I’ll see them regularly. Understand how you’re spending. List my fixed costs Interrogate them: Are they really fixed? Start to become a conscious consumer. This chapter is about becoming aware of what I’m contributing to when I spend, invest, and borrow. Investigate what I’ve invested my money in. My only investments are superannuation (retirement savings) so this should be pretty straightforward. Start noticing where I’m spending my money. Who do I spend with? Do I agree with their supply chains, their culture, the way they do things? I’m adding these questions to my weekly reflection. Investigate those organisations who hold my debt. What is true in the world because they are making money? Am I ok with this? Remove yourself from temptation. Ok, so this is about setting rules and boundaries. Check check. Seek help. This was specific advice about seeing a financial counsellor. Done. Consistently monitor, gauge, adjust and track. This happens over a few different frequencies. Daily, use a tracking app. Test bank feeds with YNAB, if it’s not working, switch back to Pocketbook Move the finances check to the win the day ritual Weekly, look at the action plan, see if you’re on track, check your spending, making sure you have enough in each account Set a recurring weekly meeting with myself with this agenda Monthly, check progress against the milestones in the 90-day plan Set a recurring monthly meeting with myself. Create an agenda. Quarterly, celebrate or figure out what went wrong. Set the next 90-day plan Set a recurring quarterly day off to have this meeting with myself. Add an agenda. Annually, go through the whole process again Make this part of the four days offline Add a calendar entry a week before to prep and print any data required

This is my journey to apply the book, Unf*ck your finances. The book is about personal finances but I’ve added actions specific to working for myself. If you want a bit more context, the prelude pieces are Hope can be scary, Why do we never talk about personal finance?, and Actually finishing a book: the application. Today, I moved forward on the first few action items: Integrate, archive, or throw out the reflective exercises. Work out what it takes to reach the monthly savings goals. Here’s what I moved forward. Integrate, archive, or throw out the reflective exercises I transcribed these and added them to my keystone document. These one-off things can be super valuable. What’s amazing is that they end up tucked away and out of use because I don’t keep them somewhere that I see often. Not this time! Work out what it takes to reach the monthly savings goals Ok here are the plans for July, August, and September (numbers redacted) JULY To pay off my credit card debt by end 2019, I will: automate a monthly payment of to Go Mastercard (due 1 July 2019) call NAB to negotiate the interest rate (due 31 July 2019) call Westpac to negotiate the interest rate (due 31 July 2019) call Go to negotiate the interest card (due 31 July 2019) To set up a ready-for-anything fund (so that I’m never without options), I will: automate a monthly payment to savings (due 1 July 2019) To get the system set up and running smoothly, I will: separate business and personal finances (due 1 July 2019) set up the new bookkeeping system (due 1 July 2019) register for GST (due 1 July 2019) automate tax and GST savings (due 1 July 2019) To make this happen, I need to hit my July revenue goal and keep outgoings below the defined threshold. AUGUST To pay off my credit card debt by end 2019, I will: up the automated Go Mastercard monthly payment (due 1 August 2019) To get the ready-for-anything fund to where I want it to be (so that I’m never without options) by end April 2020, I will: change the savings monthly payment (due 1 August 2019) To make this happen, I need to hit my August revenue goal and keep outgoings below the defined threshold. SEPTEMBER To pay off my credit card debt by end 2019, I will: up the automated Go Mastercard monthly payment (due 1 September 2019) To get the ready-for-anything fund to where I want it to be (so that I’m never without options) by end April 2020, I will: change the savings monthly payment (due 1 September 2019) To make this happen, I need to hit my September revenue goal and keep outgoings below the defined threshold.  —  How I’m making sure this all happens I’m posting this here as accountability. I’ve added the action items to the calendar on the due dates. I’ve added the new revenue targets to the weekly report I send to my finances accountability buddy. More actions will come up under getting the system running smoothly, I’m sure.

I finished reading Unf*ck your finances a few weeks ago. I let books sit for a while before I go back through them to pull quotes and re-read my marginalia. I’ve realised that I didn’t finish the process. Here’s the overview and what I actually actioned: Do a financial detox. It’s 30 days, I’m partway through but it has been a halfhearted effort. Understand how you think and feel. The exercises are complete. I posted about them and I’ve kept the original pieces of paper tucked into the book. Understand your values. The exercises are complete. I’ve integrated these values into my keystone document. Work out your goals. Done. I listed the goals on my keystone document. It’s all downhill from here. Work out a plan. I worked out the what (monthly savings goals) but not the how (where that will come from, how much I need to bring in etc.). Understand how you’re spending. I haven’t done done this. Start to become a conscious consumer. I cannot remember what this means. Remove yourself from temptation. I cannot remember what this means. Seek help. I cannot remember what this means. Consistently monitor, gauge adjust and track. I remember reading this and thinking I should do it but I didn’t do it. My action plan Integrate, archive, or throw out the reflective exercises. I’ll re-evaluate the 30 day financial detox at end June. Work out the how of the plan Re-read these chapters and figure out action items: Understand how you’re spending. Start to become a conscious consumer. Remove yourself from temptation. Seek help. Consistently monitor, gauge adjust and track. I’ll be talking about this for the next few days. Feel free to follow along.

I discovered 200 words a day through the Product Hunt Makers Festival. The first time I tried it, I was in a cafe on the Gold Coast. I had sat down to afternoon tea before a workshop and I had some spare time. I wrote 200 words about why wearing white is risky. It took a month and a half for me to return on 6 March 2019. Since that day, I have broken the streak only once. I got back on the horse the next day. It was a bit of a mental battle. For me, writing daily is about keeping the tap on. I find that tap difficult to turn on. Maybe 18 months ago, I worked hard to turn it on. Now that it’s on, I work to keep it on. I’m lucky to be something of a working writer. I write content, strategy, and copy for a living. I get to make things. I don’t think I could sustain that work without this beautiful supportive community. There is inherent emotional risk with putting out creative work for a living. The good enough question comes up. Imposter syndrome lurks. The fraud police alerts come up on your radar. And my answer is to just keep writing. Just keep writing.

Yep.

Gretchen Rubin tells a story around this quote. It never resonated with me because it centres on her children. At least that’s what I thought. It may also be that you don’t have that sort of perception of time in your late twenties (which is where I am). But I can try to empathise. Days feel long. Days feel significant. In a day, I can find my limits. When I look back on years, very few things stand out: the relationship that was graduation changing jobs relocations a first kiss. The days were long but the years were short. In the blink of an eye (or so it seems), I transformed my livelihood, I changed my appearance, and I shifted my relationships. I have a tendency to try to squeeze every last drop out of the day. I’ve done this in the last few days. rushing through routines diving into work replying to messages as an afterthought brushing away conversation because I’m busy heading to bed completely wired. The days were long. Even if I won one of those days, I wouldn’t have appreciated it. The cost was so high that I can’t appreciate it in hindsight. The best days have margin. The significant moments will happen anyway. Making sure I actually live in them when they do is worth more than to finish a mountain of minutiae. Sunrise, sunset Swiftly fly the years One season following another Laden with happiness and tears  — from Sunrise, Sunset in Fiddler on the Roof

When we struggle, when it gets hard… It’s important to look at the situation with objectivity and figure out what the struggle is for. Are we growing? Is there something great on the other side? If we succeed, will we be proud of it and happy about it? It’s a dip. Push through. Are we trying the same thing and expecting a different result? Even if we get good at the current grind, is it yet more struggle on the other side? If we succeed, will we feel the same as we do now? It’s a dead end. Get out of there. I’m recommending Seth Godin’s The Dip. It’s a 90 minute audio book and it’s well worth listening to. Oh, a caveat if you do have a listen: …it is aimed solely at people who are creative, intelligent and want to succeed. Those who are mediocre, unmotivated or just coasting through life will probably not get much from Godin. He is not an elitist, but his message is squarely aimed at those who want to succeed or at least achieve excellence. — Richard Pachter reviews The Dip in the Miami Herald (2007)

I usually do my writing first thing in the morning. I give my best brain to the act of creation. This morning, I created for others. So now it is 7:45pm and I am at my desk completing my morning ritual (I call it my win the day routine. I don’t feel like I’m winning.) Last night, I slept much less than I should have. It was the right trade off last night. I could have avoided having to trade it off by being more prepared earlier in the week. A lesson learned. It takes a lot of effort to extricate yourself from an endless scroll. Same for a nice-to-have item on the routine and from the grab of just-one-more things. It takes even more effort when you’re tired and hungry. Again, I marvel that I operated in this state for so many years. This is temporary. Thank goodness. I will sleep well tonight and wake later than usual tomorrow morning. Things I need to remember: Buy eggs on the way home Eat dinner on the way home Wash my mug before I leave Pack that book Throw out that packet I need to go to the bathroom I wonder if I’d be better in BD Why are there so many people still here? I think I’m sleepy

Studying was never hard for me. I did quite well in primary school. Memory and comprehension continue to be pretty strong for me. I was 12 (or so) when a conversation between my mum and my teacher showed the first sign of gentle criticism. It was an essay or a short story. I had been making good progress. And I had thrown it all out and started over from scratch. This was back when we wrote assignments by hand so starting over from scratch was less common. It hadn’t seemed odd to me at the time. It was all wrong. The approach, the structure. Even writing this now the details seem fuzzy in my mind. It kept happening in other areas as well. Things seemed fine to everyone else and — out of nowhere — I would clear the decks and start over. To me, though, I was finding clean slates. I would go on to work 24 different jobs. I would go on to move house 17 times. I’m finally starting to see the pattern. When things get difficult or ambiguous or complex (as life often is), I long for the blank slate. The start over. My work — the thing I put out into the world — is getting difficult. It’s getting ambiguous. It’s complex. An opportunity presents itself.

I’m always wary when I feel like there’s “so much to do”. Because there always is. So it’s only a feeling. I’m wary because I’m curious about where the feeling is coming from. Often it’s subtle: too much sugar, I haven’t spent enough time with friends, too much ambiguity in the work. This time, I’d say it was staring me in the face. For weeks, I’ve been taking in a bunch of information. I have been binging two online courses, a podcast, and a bunch of YouTube videos. I’ve been reading (and applying!) a book. I’ve attended two workshops. If any multi-taskable moment comes about, the headphones go in and a video plays. But I haven’t been giving myself time to act on a lot of it. And where I have, it has been half-assed. I’ve created a bunch of open loops for myself and no way of actually closing them. I have 237 notes to process (think of it as emails to myself). It’s time to pack down and integrate what I’ve learned and take the fire hose away from my brain. At this stage, silence or stories would be better use of my multi-taskable time. I’ve learned a lot. It’s time to make something of the learnings.

I’m writing to you from the Lenovo ThinkPad T430. I’m used to using a Macbook and I have used one for four years. My Macbook isn’t working. It may never work again. We’re not sure yet. When I discovered the issue I discovered that I was yelling “No! No! No!” in louder and louder volumes before I could stop myself. The anger that rises against the things that come randomly is a special sort of anger. My poor boyfriend. We tried all manner of things together. Alas, his computer science degree was not enough to rescue the situation. He held my while I cried. He left for work and I let my anger rise, just watching it and letting it happen. It has run its course and I am left to set up this laptop as my own. I’ve also remembered that it might be covered by insurance. Most of my files are in the cloud and I am PC-literate. I have a roof over my head and money in savings and food in the fridge and people who love me. I have a university education and I work for myself and I do work I love. I’m losing weight and writing more than I ever have and sleeping well and reading good books and I’m in great communities. But I still don’t like how the Ctrl and Fn keys are the wrong way around.

When I say vision, I mean, where would you like to be in 6 months, a year, 3 years, 5 years even. Here’s the next question: Why aren’t you there yet? (Jaclyn Mallone mentioned this activity on an interview with Julie Stoian) The idea is to journal about this, to keep asking why, to dig deep. I learned a bunch from this. I definitely recommend you do it. I can share my learnings from it but I genuinely think you should just try it yourself. It would be different for everyone.

I’m finally setting up my web presence. You would think that — as a digital marketer — I would have done this long ago. But the cobbler’s children have no shoes, the graphic designer outsources her own logo, and my web presence is…cute at best. I have finally set up a bespoke services pathway. And I’ve finally figured out a way to continue teaching. All that’s left is to: create the workshop facilitation / delivery pathway finish the standard services pathway set up the basic Full of Greats website clean up my main website cross-post all of my Medium articles to their native homes clean up my Facebook page (remove the IGTV crossposts), actually fill out all of the about, and create a banner graphic clean up my Facebook profile timeline and optimise all of the fields get new photos done ask for testimonials Thing is, this stuff eats into the actual work. The reason the cobbler’s children have no shoes is because the cobbler doesn’t know how to treat himself as a customer. But I want shoes.

Work takes up mental real estate as well as time. Even when I’m not on the clock, I’m thinking about it. There are jobs where I could completely disconnect unless the work was in front of me but those jobs were simple. Anything more than effectively manual labour has a different effect on me. Any work I do, I end up caring deeply about. Or I get bored and leave. To care deeply means that I’m not just committing time. I’m committing idle moments of thinking, a constant part of my attention, and all of the skills I have, not just the ones I was hired for. This is true for a job in the traditional sense of the term but it’s also true for a job as in a contract, a retainer or an engagement. I’m putting to bed a current job and I’m now thinking about what the next thing I pick up is. So what am I doing? Yesterday, I taught the last class of trimester. I was teaching entrepreneurship to fourth year occupational therapy students. I have loved adapting and developing the content for this unit but I have no engagements in place for future teaching at the university…and I kind of want to keep it that way. It is truly rewarding to deliver but the opportunity cost is high: the prep, travel, delivery, and student inquiries take time and mental real estate. In addition, I have less control over the content. The assessment, structure, and learning outcomes are pre-determined and there is little room for iteration on the fly. I want to keep up the teaching “habit” though. For the past few months, I’ve spent a half-day every week to put together a class. I’ll continue with that habit. The key differences: the classes will be delivered live online it will be smaller skill-based stuff rather than conceptual frameworks it will be for solo service providers wanting to move to online rather than relying on in-person services and word of mouth The purpose is to keep the rewarding bit of teaching by helping people be useful. Hopefully, I’ll become a better teacher. And when I teach my in-person workshop on the conceptual stuff, I can point them somewhere that they can learn the tools. And the work? I’ve been so driven by what’s available and helping in any way that I can that I haven’t thought as hard about who I would like to help and where I would like to help them get to. Here are some of the questions: What would I be happy to wake up in the middle of the night with an idea for? What would I be thinking about in my idle moments anyway? What problem would I gladly be working on constantly? I don’t fight for separation between life and work any more. Instead, I fight to choose good work.

Stuff can feel so massive when we’re tired. The magnifying glass of tiredness When we’re tired, we’re both (a) bad at figuring out what we have to do and (b) bad at realising how much that is It turns out when you make the list of things that must. get. done. today. it’s actually not that bad. Sometimes it’s easier to not have chocolate in the pantry And the same goes for finances. Sometimes it’s easier to have the guard rails rather than become a better bowler. And even if you’re a better bowler, you kind of still want the guard rails. Because bowling is a sport but, in real life, we’re just trying to get that ball down the end.

Before yesterday, I had an 83-day streak of publishing to 200 Words A Day. I also broke my Duolingo streak (which I will repair using some in app currency that I earned). I also broke the chain on physio exercises, on plan food, publishing to IGTV, publishing to Medium, publishing to Anchor, and reading. And… it’s ok. What I traded it for I woke up at 4:30 and delivered workshops on creating a clear message and becoming a content generation machine to 35 people in a rural area. And they listened. And they took notes. And they connected with one another. I think some businesses will actually start because of this. I spent 2 precious hours with Anne-Marie, a dear friend. She was the one who organised the workshops and drove me there and to the train station afterwards. I took the train and the light rail to the hotel where my partner’s work is putting on a conference. I spent the evening talking with the people he spends time with every single work day. The why behind the streak is important I keep streaks because I need the consistency in my life to drive it forward. I’m an Upholder (if you know Gretchen Rubin’s 4 tendencies framework) and I tend to tighten around routine and streaks. I let it happen because these are positive changes. But it’s always difficult when a long streak breaks. If level 1 is starting at all, then level 2 is keeping it going. It’s tempting to think that I’m building a bridge and I’ve skipped a whole section rendering the bridge unusable. When really, I’ve skipped a day of building the bridge and now I continue the build. It would be so easy to think of the whole first part of the bridge as “not counting” because I lost my streak. So now I face level 3: continuing without the gold star of the streak…doing the writing and the learning and the training and the eating and the filming and the reading for their own sake. It’s the work itself that’s important.

I spend Monday mornings reflecting. Here’s what the past week has taught me. 1. Routines are worth it The downsides are way less than the downsides of decision fatigue and chasing whims Sometimes it does feel like a chore. But then I remind myself that this is the stuff I’ve wanted the time to do my whole life: meditate, exercise, write, reflect, learn a new language. And when it seems like I’m getting too attached to the checklist, it’s because I’m hanging onto my guardrail for balance; I’ll take structure over poor decisions any day. 2. Dealing with overwhelm Reframe and rescope Just as the feeling of anxiety can be reframed as excitement (Mel Robbins did some excellent stuff around this), I’m trying to reframe overwhelm as I care so deeply. Because, usually, I do. And, honestly, the physiological signals are tremendously similar — it’s mainly where my brain goes that feels icky. Structurally, I’m going to rescope my days whenever I eat a meal. I plan my days the night before. I try to plan based on how much time I (think I) have available. Of course, things pop up and this changes throughout the day, but I rarely adjust my expectations. This can result in trying to squeeze more out of the day. But that’s just stealing from tomorrow. We’ll see how this goes too. 3. Celebrate your effing wins I didn’t know I had a great week until I reflected on it This is why it’s so important to have scheduled reflections and reviews. My memory is so coloured by how I feel today. My memory of last week was that I thought I had dropped the ball, that nothing got done, and I feel very unproductive. I actually had a great week. Here are all of the wins I found in my calendar and day book: Did a Facebook live for the first time Published 2 client blog posts Published 7 blog posts, 7 podcasts, and 7 IGTV videos Did a driving lesson Set annual and quarterly financial goals Call with a potential client and set up the group consultancy I was able to report great progress to my physiotherapist Lunch with someone I really look up to who is visiting from SF Listened to a podcast episode on personal finance with my boyfriend for date night Park run and brunch with Dad Back to back hip hop dance classes Created 2 killer workshops Can you believe I felt like it was a terrible week? Granted, I can’t see much work on there but I wouldn’t call that week “dropping the ball”. Don’t play comparison here. What I’m trying to demonstrate is that even when you’re doing really phenomenally great stuff, you can feel like it’s not enough if you don’t take the time to celebrate your wins. Take this as a casual suggestion to set aside time every week or so to reflect. Celebrate wins, apply learnings, catch loose ends

Especially at night. I’m a morning person. This means that I do not have my full faculties in the evening. And yet, sometimes, I’ll find myself on my laptop doing something or rather that feels really important and also feels like I can’t put it down. What will end up happening is I finish it enough, do my good night ritual, then go into a hurricane of getting ready for bed. This is because our bedtime is 10pm and if I’m any later, I’m keeping David up. By the time the lights are off, my brain is still in doing mode. Except that there’s nothing. to. do. So it will look for things to think about and solve. I’ve made a game of trying to isolate the feeling. Because it’s just a feeling of urgency, maybe worry, maybe anxiety. In any case, there’s nothing to be done but sleep so whatever process is running, I like to let it run. (There’s this great meditation I’ve been doing daily as part of Leo Babauta’s Fearless training. It’s around the opportunity of struggle. That’s where the next few actions come from.) First, I’ll observe it. I’m no longer the person who is doing, I’m the person who is watching the brain in doing mode. I’ll get curious about it. I’ll relax around it and allow it to be. I’m not trying to stop it, I’m just letting it run its course. I’ll be grateful for it. This is the part of me that gets so much stuff done. And I’ll savour it. Sometimes, I’ll get caught in it. The moment I notice, I go back to my observation tower. Last night, I did this for 30 minutes (I wasn’t timing myself; I have a sleep tracker) before I fell asleep. Maybe I’ll have to do it again tonight. Or maybe, I’ll just keep clear of the laptop after dinner

It’s kind of like a video game. I used to play Mario Brothers all the time when I was little and I would go to level one. I’d have to beat the Bowser at level one, then level two, level three, and I never was under the delusion that there wouldn’t be a Bowser. Right? That’s the whole point of the game is to beat the next Bowser. — Julie Stoian I was listening to an episode of Julie’s podcast recently and I really liked this metaphor. Partly because I grew up playing Mario games and partly because it’s one of those metaphors that you can keep extending. Instead of seeing it as a unique problem that only you’re experiencing, realize that you’re in a business video game, and this is your Bowser. This is level one Bowser, right? And then once you beat that, it’s going to be level two and level three. Just changing that alone will change the way you handle business obstacles. — Julie Stoian In my life, I’m facing my own set of problems but they’re good problems to have. They mean that I’m on some pretty upper level Bowsers. The great thing about the Super Mario games (and about most of the levels we play in real life) is that, if the first try doesn’t succeed, we can try again. The other thing I can see is that often when we’re heading down a new path, we try to head straight to the level nine Bowser, fail to beat him, and call it quits. It’s so important to be aware about the current Bowser, the Bowser at your level. I think the reason we move straight to level nine is because society tells the stories of people who went straight to level 27 and made it. Those people are rare and they got there against all odds. If you don’t want to play odds, start at level one. Building habits? Don’t get mad when you try to install 5 habits at once and it doesn’t work. Try doing something every day. Starting a business? I wouldn’t worry about the website until you’ve spent a few hours in Facebook groups where your target customer hang out and had a few one-on-ones to discuss the problem you’re trying to solve. Don’t know what the current Bowser is? Find a good book or podcast or online course that promises the outcome you’re trying to get. And trust their process. If that doesn’t work, get a mentor or coach (or trainer or professional).

especially when it comes to finances. We’re scared to be wrong. Well, I am, anyway. And maybe you’re like me. Currently, I’m trying to get on top of my money behaviours (more about that here). This isn’t the first time in my life but this is the first time where I’ve actually sort of believed that it’s possible. Part of this journey is facing reality. Actually looking at the numbers and looking at what it will take to pay things down. Part of it is facing the feelings about that reality. My income fluctuates. I accept that. I don’t have much in savings. I accept that. My partner out-earns me and has a heap of savings and no debt. I accept that. Each one of these and more have required a lot of work. There are many feelings of insufficiency the stupidity, not enough-ness, anger. I accept that. That bit was hard but it was concrete. The bit that came after was more difficult for me: Figure out what I want. Envision the future. Pull it back to the next 12 months. I’ve spent the last 2 days doing that. It was terrifying. In the past, I’ve been so untrustworthy with my finances. Doing this kind of work means that I’m trusting myself to pull it off, or at least give it a go. And that feels scary. It feels scary to hope because it might not go how I think it will. But I’ve run the numbers. And…it’s not ridiculously impossible. In fact, it’s quite probable. To get an emergency fund for my current comfort levels, to pay all the cards off, to save up to move countries next year. I’m still scared. But now I know what I need to do. And I kind of believe that I can do it. Hear me talk about this on the podcast.

I’m talking specifically about on your social media or online presence. Maybe it’s a preference thing. Maybe you like switching personas. But for some of us, we’ve worked hard enough to integrate work into our life that there isn’t much of a line. I freelance / consult / coach. I operate as myself, rather than as a company. And I’ve been thinking a lot about how I use social platforms. My close, meaningful relationships happen off-platform anyway. I often post personal things but they’re not private (or I wouldn’t post them). I could just make every post public, let my profiles be a representation of the (good) work I do, and not have to worry about it. After all, I’m quite proud of the work I do, it’s often the first thing people ask anyway, and it’s a pretty massive part of my life. I have shaped my work to fit me like a glove. It is more expressive of my being than my clothes are. I did consider going off social media altogether. But there are places that allow me to be generous and helpful and connected, even though I refuse to be reactive. How do you treat social media? (particularly interested in how any other solopreneurs think about this)

You can’t do everything I really force myself to look at this half of the saying. Everything I do means trading off something else. Given that, am I making the right trade offs? What are the anythings that I really want? What do I have to trade off in the short run to have those in the long run? The shorter your horizons are the less choice you have If my horizon is 30 seconds, there are less choices available to me than if my horizon is 5 minutes. If my horizon is today, there are less choices available to me than if my horizon is a week. If my horizon is this year, there are less choices available to me than if my horizon is 10. Same goes for a decade and a lifetime. When we feel like we have no choice because we’re only looking at this situation, this context, this day, this task, this job, this relationship…because we can’t see the life past what we’re looking at. You can do anything but you can’t do everything.

I like to follow books to the letter. I like to trust the process and then judge it. I like to do this because it’s often tempting to skip stuff or think that I know it. And by repeating that with book after book, course after course, learning after learning, I develop a massive effing blind spot. I did a few exercises around my feelings / beliefs / associations around money. Here’s the trick: I disengaged my logical adult self and got the inner 10 year old to answer. And holy heck did she answer. Just. Wow. The first exercise was to write down what you think is good, bad, or ok about money. As a 10 year old. I wrote that having the best was a good thing I wrote that saying “I can’t afford it” was a bad thing I wrote that cheering yourself up was an OK thing If you look at these with a very adult perspective you can argue that it’s actually not that bad. Yes there’s a healthy way to look at it. But there’s also an unhealthy way to look at it. And this is shortcut, 10-year-old logic. You can’t rely on this stuff when you’re feeling stressed, tired, and overwhelmed. Which is usually when one makes poor decisions. It was…an eye-opening thing to face. The second exercise was to imagine money as a person you were in a relationship with and describe that relationship. Also. Wow. The third exercise was to write my money values. Values is a really airy fairy word so I just went with money messages. I wrote honestly. It was tragic to look at. I can see why I’ve had so much trouble. There is so much incongruity between the messages. Here’s the cool thing about this exercise. Some of the them, I’ll just have to watch out for, but others could be really beautifully reframed. Here’s one: If it’s important enough, I’ll figure it out later. I rewrote this as: If it’s important enough, it’s worth waiting for. I value the freedom and lightheartedness that comes from being resourceful with what I’ve got. I have work to do. That’s clear. Oh yeah, and next time someone gives you an activity or an exercise to do, just do it. Trust the process. Judge after. If this had been a useless exercise then I would have, at least, gotten better at introspection and critical thinking. And I would also be justified in saying, “this isn’t relevant to me.”

If you listen to it…just be cool. This stuff is super personal. My situation is far from exemplary and I’m talking about it because I wish people talked about it more. (Don’t hate) I’ve had a long journey with money. And I’m still on it! For a bit of context, here’s what I aspire to being: Healthier than ever A great partner, friend, sister, daughter, teacher A voracious reader A prolific writer A published author Well-travelled; made a home Financially independent I feel like I’m solid or moving towards each of these except the last one. The next journey for me is to get in control of my finances. In this area, I’ve gone from drowning to treading water. Now, I want to be able to swim. I have a masters degree in accounting. I get all of the mechanics. It’s the behaviours that I haven’t got right. Keeping in the metaphor: I know a lot about swimming technique but I’ve never gotten into the habit of training. I’m really proud of the fact that I’m really resourceful. I’m a very practical and capable person. This is one massive area of deficit. It’s the one area that makes me feel like I’m faking the rest of it. Here’s how I think about it (and it’s helping): I am a grown up in so many ways. But the part of me that spends money is still about 10 years old. I’ve done a lot by limiting her ability to actually buy things (I don’t hang around shopping centres, I don’t keep card information in websites, I daily force myself to look at the spending plan to keep my executive function engaged on this) but I think it’s time that I actually just hang out with that bit of me and help her grow up a bit. I’ve read many books on this topic but I don’t think I was fully ready. I have to do things in the Rosie way, though, so this leg of the journey starts with another book. Unf*ck your finances has, in the first few chapters, convinced me to do a 30 day spending detox. I started yesterday. I’ll let you know how it goes.

For context, I am Australian. Yesterday, we voted. I do not get angry with the people of my country. Instead I am sad. Because I thought we were the same and, instead, I find out that I was different. That the circles I walk in are the exception and not the rule. That there is a whole more than half of my country that I don’t speak to or understand. Instead I am sad. My circles are full of people that are yelling and indignant and calling others stupid. It doesn’t help. Instead I am sad. I do my work. I love my partner. I make breakfast and coffee as I do every day. And I do what I can to use the power that I do have to make a better world. Many things are changing. But as those things change, many people become yet more fixed in their ways. As things change, many people become yet more quiet about their thoughts. As we divide ourselves, as we widen the divide ever more, we miss the problem. Despite this, I have hope.

I should have done a postal vote. I don’t like crowds or pressure or lines or deadlines. And by the time I make it to the polls, I may not be eligible for democracy sausage. As someone who doesn’t talk politics much or follow the news, it’s easy to consider voting a chore. Instead, I try to tap into the Australia feeling. I don’t know how to describe it well. I went to a friend’s citizenship ceremony at city hall once. When they were declared citizens, my eyes brimmed with tears. I was full of the Australia feeling. I’ve lived here my whole life so I often forget just how amazing what we have is. We have a solid health system, access to terrific produce, and the ability for anyone to get an education. One of the other things we have is democracy. Somewhere in your lineage, there were people who didn’t have that. Somewhere in the world, there are people who don’t have that. And in this world where we can often feel like we don’t have any power or control over what’s going on, I think it’s important to make the most of whatever power we do have. Whether you’re a “political-type” or not, you have the power of a vote. Make the most of it.

A quick one with no real learning x

“It never feels as bad when you’re doing it. It just feels bad thinking about doing it.” That’s what he said to me as I wept into his chest. There’s nothing wrong. Not really. Well, hormones and carbs and sleepiness. A pending proposal and a pile of work. Looming deadlines. A letter unsent. But on the other side of it, the laundry is up to date, there is money coming in, I’m exercising regularly and I eat good food most meals. Some things just need to be felt. And I’m feeling it. Here’s what I’m grateful for: I know it’s a feeling. I can’t be mad if my oil needs changing or my tank is out of gas. It doesn’t mean that the car is a lemon or that the destination isn’t worth the journey. It just means that the oil needs changing or the tank is out of gas. All I can do is change the oil and refuel. And do my best to keep an eye on those levels next time. Imagine if I thought it was someone’s fault. Or if I tried to fix the situation. Or if I tried to write off the whole day. Instead, I got up. I worked out. I showered. I ran out of bacon. I went and bought some. I made breakfast. I ate breakfast. I washed up. I made coffee. I’m here. Keeping my writing streak going. And then I’ll go on to prep the slides for this afternoon’s workshop. And I will probably feel low energy the whole time. And that’s ok.

What infuriates us in other people can teach us. It has taught me many lessons. Currently, I’m pondering some such lesson. He interjected half-heartedly. Loud enough that the whole room had to give attention. But it was mumbled and non-committal and unclear. He rambled. He didn’t ask a question, he just told stories about his life. I pulled out my phone and started reading an article to drown out his waffling. Even as I did that, I was trying to figure out what bothered me about it. Whatever I don’t have space for in others, I don’t give myself space for. Who knows what room of my heart I have left untouched because I cannot bear to see its door? It’s worth noting that he’s not a bad person. He’s never done me wrong, in fact, I don’t know that we’ve ever talked one-on-one. It was just one of those things. I looked around, hoping that others were bothered by it too. No one else seemed bothered but I was steaming.We were 10 minutes past time because of his postulations, his monologue, his…What is bothering me? I left the others own their own discomfort (or lack thereof) and paid attention to my own. It has always been worthwhile to do this. What would I have done differently? I would have been clear and articulate and succinct. I would have completely hidden the need for… oh. There it is. The need for approval. Not having it. Displaying it so. damn. naively. I’ve worked so hard to stamp it down and never show it that his was too painful to watch. To the infuriating gentleman, thank you for the lesson. (This is also a gentle reminder that, if someone has an issue with you, it’s probably more about them than it is about you.)

A few years ago, I read a book that was so important to me that I wanted to follow it to the letter. I knew it would take me about 6 months to implement. While the action steps were specific, there was still a lot that relied about installing habits, making judgement calls, and navigating bits that I had no idea about. It was important enough that I saturated myself in the culture surrounding that book to ensure that I couldn’t fail. I joined their online community, I listened to the audio book version, I listened to every podcast they had come out with, I read blogs that others had written about their implementation. I made the changes but I stayed immersed in the bits of that world that I could reach, at least until I could take the training wheels off. And it worked. In around 2 months, I had a fully implemented system. A few months after that it was airtight. A few months after that I had tweaked it to suit me. Some of us don’t have the ability (or desire) to change the people we spend plenty of time around, which we would if we were to follow the conventional wisdom. But we can supplement our social lives with the culture available to us in online communities, audio books, podcasts, videos, articles, books, and blog posts. If you read a book a while back that you never implemented but wish you had, maybe give it a try. We read books so that they change us, right? How it plays out in reality It’s 6:40am “and that is time” says Sebastian, over my headphones. He’s one of 15 faces on the screen to my left. I’m in an Ultraworking Work Gym session. We’re doing 30 minute blocks of work with 10 minute breaks in between together. This is my way of getting my brain into gear on a Monday morning. It’s one of the ways I make sure I’m surrounded by people. I make sure I have time around people who: are trying to get better at something I’m also trying to get better at are much better than me at something I’m trying to get better at are passionately interested in something adjacent to my area of expertise have similar values as me but operate completely differently to me The Work Gym is a combination of 1 and 2. We’re all trying to get better at working and there are varying levels of better. I have good friends who operate completely differently to me. We would be at odds in everything except that we have similar values and common language. Where we clash and talk through it, we stretch each other. I love my solitude and I indulge in it. But I need my belonging too. Much love to those who surround me.

This piece is part 5 of a series. Now it’s time to put it all together. We capture stuff. This comes in through a variety of places: notebooks, email, social media, the reminders app, the notes app etc. It’s worth mapping all of your stuff traps. We take the stuff and translate it into something meaningful. We place those meaningful things into the bucket that makes the most sense. Actions go into the calendar or a list. Incubated items come back to us via a calendar, an email to our future self or a tickler file. (A few items go to trash). We review our calendars and lists as regularly as we need to, as the place from which we choose the next action to execute. We keep the whole system up to date so that we can trust it. It is more trustworthy than relying on our brains but we need to go all in for our brains to be truly freed of the task. There are a few things that I skimmed over and wanted to dig into before I finish off this series. Below I cover reference material and tomorrow you’ll hear about higher horizon thinking and review. Reference material I mentioned in passing that some stuff will end up as reference material. There are many thoughts on this topic but I will only talk to how I do it. If you don’t think this will work for you, find your own path. For physical items If I have something to file away, I think to myself, “what would I look under if I was searching for this?” A statement from NAB is filed under BANK — NAB. A physio receipt goes under HEALTH — PHYSIO. Spare business model canvas print offs are filed under BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS. All of these headings are just dymo labels on a manila folder arranged in alphabetical order. Even if something is a little ambiguous, I’ll still find it. If I’m looking for car registration, I might try RACQ or BARINA but I’ll eventually find it under CAR. The average person doesn’t have that many physical things any more. One day I’ll start scanning them all. One day. For digital items It’s a mess. But it’s a searchable mess. That’s the best I can manage for now.

This episode is part of a series. At this point, we’ve captured some stuff, translated it into a more useful form by: eliminating anything we don’t need incubating anything we want to look at later moving some things to reference material After this process, we were left with next actions and desired outcomes. Those actions were: done if they took 2 minutes or less delegated to the right person (and a note was added to a follow up list) deferred to a calendar or a list The next phase of workflow is review. Some also call this reflection. In short form, it might be called checking. Review Now that we have stuff on the calendar and on lists, we have to make sure that we are regularly reviewing the calendar and the lists. Most people are in the habit of checking the calendar. Some of us will have to get into the habit of reviewing the lists. The average person, if given 2 hours of blank calendar time at work, will check email and start firing off replies. The problem with this is that you’re now working on someone else’s priorities. How else do you figure out what you’re supposed to do next? Sometimes, it’s what’s front of mind because we don’t trust that we’ll remember to do it. If you make a note and put it in an in-tray for dealing with in its time, you can trust that you’ll remember to do it. Latest and loudest are not the best ways of choosing what to do. Review also has different horizons. What you review daily will be different to what you review weekly which will also be different to monthly, quarterly, and annually. Start with the daily. Execute (aka do) The truth is, we tend to do latest and loudest. But if you had a list of all of the things you could do, you have the ability to make a choice. Review the list and ask yourself which is the most important thing to be doing right now? Many people will know the answer intuitively. Use that intuition. Even if it’s off, it gets better the more often it’s trusted. If you prefer a real process, then here it is. There are four questions: How much time do you have? This will mean some things aren’t possible. How much energy do you have? Work with your body. If you’re brain dead, this will mean some things aren’t possible. Don’t try to force it. Even if you make it happen, it will be exhausting rather than satisfying. Where are you and what tools do you have? You can’t very well get the dog food while you’re at work. Given all of the above, what should you do? If it still isn’t clear, no amount of further thinking will help: just pick one and do it. It’s better than sitting here and staring at your lists. Any one of these things is better than doing a grand tour of your social media worlds or scrolling aimlessly through the news.

If you’ve been following along for the last 2 episodes, we’ve looked at our stuff and: we’ve eliminated anything we don’t need incubated anything we want to look at later moved some things to reference material We’re left with next actions and desired outcomes. If we look at the next actions, it’s time to ask another question: Will it take 2 minutes or less? If yes, do it. If it takes 2 minutes or less, it’s quicker to do it now than to have to delegate it and track or to have to add it to a list and have it on that list. This is a game changer. If you only take one thing from this whole series, this one is the most likely to give you gains far greater than the effort involved. If no, another question: Am I the best one to be doing it? If no, delegate it. Let the relevant person know what they should do and give an expectation on time frames. If you’re delegating upwards or horizontally, you can do this politely by saying “I’ll check in next week about it” or something like that. If yes, we’re going to defer it. Why not just do it now? That might be the right call, but we don’t have infinite time and usually, we’re not just looking at the one single item — we’re looking at an inbox full of them. In addition, we want to put all of the actions next to each other so that we can choose what the best use of our time is. Place (aka organise) You can defer an action in two ways. If it is to be done on a specific day, put it in the calendar. If not, place it into a list. If you’ve never had lists before, I would suggest starting with one list, and when it gets too long, separate it out into buckets that make sense for you. Another best practice I’ve seen is contexts. This could be physical contexts like at home, at work, calls, at laptop, anywhere, or at the shops. Some people do time contexts: first thing, late morning, afternoon, evening, weekend. Different things work for different people. It took experimentation to find what fit me well and I still change it up every now and then. Other tips around this: Location-based reminders are pretty good now. I’ll often add any errand-y things (eg. pick up the book order) as a reminder which will ping me when I come within 200m of a specific location. This does require you going to that place before you need to do the thing so if it’s not a place you go regularly (eg. the hardware store), you’ll need to use a different system. You can use the “put it in front of the door” system for certain tasks. Need to remember to put on a load of laundry? Put a basket in front of the bedroom door. Need to remember to call your mum first thing in the morning? Put a post it note on the kettle (assuming you’re a coffee drinker). There are many variations on this. An aside about the follow up (aka waiting for) list If you don’t have one of these lists, I highly recommend creating one. The idea is to track anything you’ve delegated to someone else. I wouldn’t rely on just checking sent email largely because of the multiple modes of communication we have — one thing might start with an email and continue with a follow up via slack or you talk about it in passing or there’s an urgent text message in there. You can do it in any app, or on paper. Create an entry with the person’s name, what you’re waiting on (in brief!), the mode you last contacted them with, and the date. Add additional follow ups as they come. eg. Sara: quote emailed 10/3, text 17/3 I look at mine when I finish up every day — it takes 3 seconds if no follow ups are necessary and it avoids things slipping through the cracks.

This piece is part of a series covering 5 phases of workflow. Check out part 1 in the last episode Translate (aka process aka clarify) Capturing will only feel good for so long. If we don’t do something with all that stuff, we’ll stop trusting the system. We have to translate the stuff that has come in into something we can actually work with. What do I mean by translate? Well, let’s look at something I might have written down. In my notebook, I have a simple note: 17hats Now I have to ask myself: What is it? What does it mean? 17hats is a software I’m thinking about using. Ok. Next question: Is it actionable? If no, there are 3 options: I can eliminate it. In this case, cross it out. I can incubate it. I can create a reminder to think about it at a later date. I can add it to my reference materials. I might create a note that says “If I want to change invoicing, proposals, quoting or contracts, 17hats might be worth considering.” and pop it in a folder called “Software” or something. (This could vary widely depending on how one does reference materials.) If yes, what is the next action? In this case, it is actionable. Actions need verbs. Doing words. This is the part that actually takes the most brain power. Capturing it? Not hard. Doing the thing? Not that hard. Concretising the physical next step that I can DO? It takes a bit of thought. Not time, mind. Thought. I’m switching accounting systems at the end of the year and I was thinking of Xero. I don’t know if it handles AUD. I really like the contracts functionality. Is there an alternative? Hm. I need more information. My next action is to Google alternatives to 17hats Next question: Will it take more than one step to be finished? If it doesn’t, move on to the next question. If it does, what does finished look like? What’s the overall desired outcome? This is another thought-heavy one. I guess I’ll be done when I’ve decided whether or not to switch to 17hats. Oh but it’s not that binary — I’ll discover a few options, surely. I’ll be done when I’ve picked which software? No, it might be a patchwork — currently I use a different system for a few different things. Maybe it’s not just a decision. Because once I’ve decided, I’ll have to implement. Ok. This is the desired outcome: Set up an overall software solution for invoicing, proposals, contracts, and quoting. Depending on the complexity of the thing, you can set more requirements on yourself. But it could be as simple as Get my iPad repaired as, for many people, this would start with researching the process and end with collecting it from the local Apple Store. More to come next time.

When I first came across David Allen’s Getting Things Done framework, I loved the concept but I thought it was a bit much. It took me another year after first reading to implement the thing. Capture In a nutshell, the idea is to keep nothing in your head. Capture everything. Either on paper or in a text document, in a notebook, or in an email to yourself. Capturing everything releases a lot of pressure on our psyche and gives us space to just be. Our brains are more like RAM than they are like a hard drive. We capture more than just the stuff that has come out of our head — this is also messages, emails, event invitations, and mail. There are so many pigeonholes now. I like to have the least amount I can possibly have. Try and count how many you have.

One of my friends recently got interested in clothes. (I think that — deep down — we all want to care about clothes in some way shape or form.) He started watching a few videos on male fashion and changed a few small things. One of those things was that he changed the way he ties his shoelaces. It turns out, you can tie them so they sit like this: 8 or you can tie them so they sit like this: ∞ He had been doing the 8 and he wanted to switch to the ∞ Like any form of behaviour change, it takes both: (a) avoid an autopilot into the old way (b) remember the steps to doing it the new way He was mentioning to me that there’s a cross-over point where you can now autopilot into either because both feel natural. At this point, it’s a bit more interesting because you have to: (a) remember to start doing it the new way (if you start, the rest of the steps will come because you know them already) (b) notice if you’ve accidentally done it the old way In one of my first sessions with Matthew (my psychologist), we were talking about quitting smoking. He said that it would be worth trying to change something smaller: could you get up on a different side of the bed? switch hands for brushing teeth? open the door with a different hand? start going up steps with the other foot? Why? Because if we never change anything then changing the addiction is like trying to climb Everest without any training. I’m sure some people could but the odds aren’t great. Eventually, the ∞ laces will just happen any time my friend laces his shoes. And I’m excited for this. Because if he can change that, imagine what else he can change.

A few months after we split, I asked my ex (who I was and still am good friends with), “I never have mood swings, do I?” He couldn’t answer me because he was laughing so hard. What a massive blind spot. I can only conclude that I must have thought the circumstances were just that bad for a few days every month. For my entire adult life. Sometimes, we have to rely on strikes of epiphany or the insight of others to see things that we need to see. It’s not always easy. I was at coffee with a friend of mine whom I respect greatly and I asked him to point out a blind spot. When he did, I got defensive. Isn’t that interesting? Even when I had asked for it, when it was pointed out, I was trying to argue that it wasn’t there. There was also the time when I knew I wanted to be healthier but I ignored all of signals around me. I didn’t weigh myself. I didn’t count cigarettes. I didn’t count drinks. I didn’t even try to exercise. The issue was that the path to making it better felt impossible. When we’re trying to make a change, it starts with what if rather than how. We need hope and belief more than we need a plan. If you have a clear plan, then you need to do the work to believe (a) that you can do it and (b) nothing can stop you from doing it. And that’s up to you to find. If we know we’re ignoring a difficult reality, it’s really up to us to do everything in our power to face it. What worked for me? I hung out with people who were healthy, who didn’t smoke, who worked out. I listened to audio books and podcasts of people who were healthy and, more importantly, who had become healthy. Eventually, I identified as someone who was on their way.

Everyone is different about reading books. I like to pick things up and put them down for a while and pick up another. What’s ended up happening is that I’m currently reading 15 books. Because of the existence of bookmarks, this isn’t overwhelming in the slightest. I remember where I’m up to without having to remember. And yet, we seem to miss this concept when it comes to projects in day-to-day life. There is no way I could across 8 clients, 3 goals, and 7 areas of life without good “bookmarks”. If a surprise 30-minute gap opens up during my day, I can flip to the next thing and move it forward in those 30 minutes. Or I could just read one of the 15 books. What do “bookmarks” look like? For each client, goal, or area of life, I have documented the milestone/s I’m trying to reach and/or what activity/ies requires ongoing maintenance. For each item with a milestone, I know the next action that can be taken. That’s it. Seems simple, but simple doesn’t mean easy. Like any other habit, it took repetition before it felt like clockwork. At the beginning it was like watching a baby deer walking for the first time. But it’s not long before that deer can do 50km/h.

First, we need to ease the pressure. This exercise will help to do that. Put your phone on do not disturb and physically out of sight. Open to a blank page of a notebook and grab something to write with. Now write for two pages. Write whatever comes to the page. If you’re all stoppered up, start with writing how you feel physically; describe the sensations in your body. If you’re still stoppered up, describe the last day. Keep writing until you reach the end of two pages. No one will read this. You don’t even have to re-read this (I recommend that you don’t until at least a few days later). This is about unloading your thoughts and easing the pressure. If you can’t write, just sit there until the next thought comes. Remember, it’s just thoughts. They can’t hurt you. Once you’re done, observe. Do you feel any different? The world hasn’t changed much. Reality hasn’t changed much. All that is different is that you have allowed yourself to express yourself in a safe place. My hope is that you feel a little less frantic. Hold onto this feeling. Now that we feel better, it’s time to face the actual situation. (This exercise was inspired by Julia Cameron’s morning pages from The Artist’s Way)