If you are like me, you tend to make things more complicated than they need to be. You envision things are more difficult than they are and that they will take longer than they do. This can lead to procrastination, which can lead to feeling overwhelmed, which leads to more procrastination, which leads to more overwhelm, and on and on…until you are basically paralyzed by the dread of having to tackle such a huge, challenging task. Of course, it may or may not be a huge challenging task in real life, but you won’t know for sure until you get out of the cycle of overwhelm and actually get started.
I admit that I have been stuck in my own overwhelm cycle more than once when trying to write blog posts. My husband made an interesting observation: by making a “big deal” out of writing I might be making the project more stressful than it truly is and, therefore, I might be training myself to dislike writing. Perpetually making things difficult is basically a habit you develop that reduces the joy that could be experienced from the activity. The more I “struggle” to start writing, the more I am re-enforcing the idea in my mind that writing is a difficult, overwhelming task.
- Are you training yourself to dislike managing your finances?
- Do you procrastinate reviewing spending, opening bills, paying bills, paying off debt, and working to increase your income?
- Do you feel overwhelmed about money?
Tim Ferriss asks himself “What would this look like if it was easy?” to reframe tasks that he feels aversion towards. He uses an example of podcast creators. Apparently, the fail rate of podcasters is quite high; many quit after creating just three episodes and site “the difficulty of editing” as their primary reason for quitting. Instead of quitting they could have made the process easier for themselves by:
- Outsourcing the editing (hiring an editor).
- Partnering with someone who is good at editing.
- Recording episodes in a way that requires less editing (single shot takes).
- Taking an editing class (for easier, quicker editing).
Instead of being overwhelmed by editing and limiting themselves to two options, trying to push through or choosing to quit, the podcasters had a third option. They could have spent some time brainstorming ways to make the podcasting process “easy.” Although taking the “easy way out” is sometimes frowned upon by our culture, finding an easier way may be the smartest, most efficient, solution.
In the same way Tim Ferriss identified how podcasting can be made easier, we can reframe finances and what “easy” finances could be for us. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as “do these three things to make your finances easy” because “easy” is a subjective term. What is easy for person #1 might be really difficult for person #2 and vice versa. This is a question that we each have to answer for ourselves. That being said, below are a few ideas that might help make financial management a more approachable task.
What would personal finance look like if it was easy?
- All of your information would be together in one place. Instead of needing to log into X number of accounts, you can use an aggregator service to consolidate the information from your various accounts into one convenient place. I love Mint.com for compiling my bank information from multiple accounts. After logging in, it is easy to see my budget, actual income and actual spending transaction detail as well as my checking, savings, credit card and investing account balances. This prevents me from having to log into six different websites to get an update on how the month is going financially.
- Managing money wouldn’t take much time. We are all busy so certainly if finance was easy, it wouldn’t take much time out of our day/week/month. Like I mentioned at the beginning, I tend to assume things will take more time than they do. About 45 minutes a week should be sufficient to review spending, work on a budget, pay bills, and check bank balances. It might take a bit longer at first but, once you have a system in place, it doesn’t take much time at all.
- Monotonous tasks would be automated. Although I have some reservations about relying on “salvation by automation,” once we have learned how to manage money, it makes sense to automate the more tedious tasks like paying bills and transferring money to savings accounts.
- You would have help. In the podcasting example, outsourcing the editing task was an option to make the podcasting process easier. While outsourcing the entirety of your finances isn’t really an option, there are many ways you can share the burden. You can enlist the help of a friend or family member to be an accountability buddy. You can seek out education (like Dave Ramsey’s FPU class) to fully understand how to manage money. You can find a mentor to guide you in financial management and decision making. You can talk to your partner about shouldering their share of the responsibility of budgeting and tracking spending. You can hire a financial coach to help you (wink)!
- You would just get started already. Choose an action, any action, and get the financial ball rolling. The smaller the action the better because then you are less likely to procrastinate and feel overwhelmed. I understand that sometimes that first step can be the hardest, especially if you have been neglecting your financial life, but financial management is certainly easier once you have established some momentum. So if you have been wanting to start budgeting, tracking your spending, to increase your savings rate, setup new accounts, create a debt pay off plan or start investing, try to take even one small step by the end of today.
Do you believe that money is always going to be a challenge for you?
Are you making managing your finances more complicated than it needs to be?
What have you already done to make your financial life “easier”?
What would your finances look like if managing it were “easy”?