1/ I've identified 13 principles in common between managing money, and managing productivity (time/tasks), drawing from @jessemecham's wonderful book/method You Need a Budget @ynab
2/ #1: Start by aligning with the deeper purpose – you must begin by answering "What do I want my money to do for me?", from which everything else flows. Likewise, productivity begins with "What do I want my work to do for me?"
3/ #2: Replace black/white decisions w/ tradeoffs – replace yes/no, good/bad decisions, w/ a spectrum of tradeoffs betw priorities. Not "Did I meet my budget/Did I accomplish enough today?" but "Where can I pull $ from to meet my budget/What could I have done differently today?"
4/ #3: When stuck, surface information needed to make better decisions – treat feeling of stuckness/overwhelm as a signal that more info is needed to make a decision. Talk to ppl, review priorities, make a plan, but only enough to gain clarity, without getting sucked in to action
5/ #4: Tighten the feedback loop between your present and future self – treat reviews/retrospectives not as adversarial (past vs. present vs. future self), but as collaborations, fine-tuning expectations and behavior non-judgmentally
6/ #5: Manage unexpected events by turning them into consistent routines – with both money & time, unexpected events are totally predictable. Perform preventative maintenance *especially* when it doesn't seem needed, because things tend to break down at the worst possible moment
7/ #6: Create milestones to provide a sense of completion – managing continuous flows like money or time lacks built-in milestones, so it's important to create them to provide closure/celebration. In productivity, this is project completions, weekly reviews, finishing to do list
8/ #7: Make plans, but adapt them to fit changing circumstances – there are no failures, only reprioritizations. Put effort into creating a plan, but know in advance that changing it is a sign of success, not failure
9/ #8: Be honest with yourself and what is actually happening, instead of what “should be” – constant temptation is to deny reality, pretending it is different than how it is. Half the battle is just getting the current state of what is, which budget reviews and weekly reviews do
10/ #9: Create reserves between “incoming” and “outgoing” – increase the time between when money comes in, and when it goes out, building a cash buffer to ride out fluctuations in income. Same in productivity – capture tasks to create a pool of diverse options for what to do next
11/ #10: Don’t try to fully automate – instead, make it quicker and easier to make good decisions – total automation isn't possible or desirable. Instead, create systems for quickly visualizing what's happening, and making faster, better decisions
12/ #11: Don’t try to forecast the future, just make a plan for what’s currently so – don't try to plan too much for an uncertain future. Instead, optimize for present and near future, building reserves of agility, cash, and time to deploy when opportunities arise
13/ #12: Scarcity can help us be more concrete about our priorities – treat lean times as opportunities to clarify priorities. It is when we lack money/time that we tend to forget what's important and go into survival mode. This is the time to slow down and reflect
14/ #13: Let go of perfectionism, unrealistic goals, and self-punishment as the greatest enemies of progress – treating yourself harshly can work in the short term, but you will never fulfill your potential if you're at war with yourself
15/ This is why the path to performance/success leads through healing. Every harsh inner voice shouting you down is the echo of a wound or trauma from the past. You can try shouting louder or ignoring it, but true resolution lies in processing and letting go of it
16/ Mastering personal finance & personal productivity starts to look the same as the journey of personal/spiritual growth. Shifting from internalizing failures to externalizing priorities, making our ego so small that nothing can stick to it
17/ Full members-only post on Praxis, with more explanation here: praxis.fortelabs.co/you-need-a-bud…
