| I was chatting with a great friend of mine a while ago and he told me about a way of thinking that really reasoned with me – so I thought I’d share it with you because it really can be quite powerful. Ironically, the concept is all about procrastination and I’ve been meaning to write to you about this since September… The entire conversation started with him telling me about a Ted Talk he’d seen about procrastination (Google: Inside the mind of a procrastinator by Tim Urban) – I’ve since watched it myself and here’s the bottom line: we’re all procrastinating at something (or many things) in our lives and the notion of whether we get it done or not is based on the concept of a deadline. So, consider this – any ‘to do’ item on your list right now either has a strict deadline or has an open ended ‘someday’ goal. We pay our mortgage on the day it’s due. A students submits their paper on the due date. An employee meets a deadline set by their boss. Things get done because there is otherwise a consequence of interest, a bad grade or getting fired (respectively). But then there are all these other sorts of goals, goals that are meant to enhance our everyday life. Goals that we imagine are high on our priority list because they mean a lot to us but they never seem to get done (or started). These goals sound more like, wanting to eat healthier, wanting to spend more time with your kids, wanting to go on that safari adventure, wanting to buy that cottage or lose those stubborn 12 lbs. But as each day goes along, we continue to procrastinate on these things because there is no perceived deadline. And sure, you can set a cute deadline for yourself but what’s the consequence if you get busy and push it out a few more weeks? Nothing, I guess. But there is a consequence if you think of it in a matter of a defined lifetime – break it down into how many weekends you have left on this earth - and this is exactly how he blew my mind when he broke it down for me: This friend of mine is 41 years old. He’s been meaning to spend more time with his young kids and thinks it might be nice for the family to have a cottage. He’s been meaning to do this for a few years now – but as he gets more and more successful in his career, he is getting increasingly busier, so the goal keeps getting pushed out a year at a time. But then he realized that if he lives to 90, he only has 2,547 weekends left. And if he’s being realistic, he knows that his kids won’t be hanging out with him much once they’re older, so really that’s more like 1,508 eligible “cool dad” weekends and then consider that we live in Canada and the weather isn’t always ideal so cut that in half for decent seasons and then shave another 10 weekends a year off where you’ll be busy with random things that get in the way of going to the cottage and just like that, he’s left with only 454 weekends to enjoy the cottage with kids. And every year he puts the cottage off is a real consequence when you think of it that way. It’s this notion of limited weekends that can really turn the dial on getting things done sooner. It’s a way for our minds to modify those open ended goals into real deadlines. And it can apply to so many aspects of your life – especially when it comes to your finances. Maybe you’ve been putting off saving more or getting your Will done – but if you start measuring your goals against your weekends, you might hop to it a little faster.
This is why financial planning is at the core of what we do – sure, positive returns are nice to see, but what percentage do you actually need to be earning each year to make your someday a reality? Having a plan in place helps you focus on those someday goals a lot more clearly and your unique benchmark is what a financial plan identifies clearly so that your cash flow leading up to and throughout retirement is exactly what you need it to be and so that your legacy plan is precisely as you intended it to be.
We all get one shot at this thing called life and we’re here to help you make sure that your finances are keeping pace with your goals – one weekend at a time.
Now you are in-the-know with Word on the Street.
Enjoy your weekend, D.
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