Over the past 20+ years everyone has been increasingly connecting to “The Internet”. The combined sum of all human knowledge. A resource so mindbogglingly huge and vast that no one even bothers to know how big it is anymore. It’s this big if you’re curious.
But unlike in Spider Man, when it comes to the Internet… with great power comes a great time suck. Now by time suck you probably think I mean all that time you waste on Failbook, Instasnap and TwitterTube, but I don’t.
What I mean is all the time it takes to find and learn new information. From knowing how and when to plant rhubarb to finding out what dollar cost averaging is to getting your paws on the new Half Life 3 trailer it all take time. Time to find the right information. Time to find opposing views and contrast them. Time to physically sit down and read the articles or watch the videos. Time to develop an informed and wise knowledge base.
But even if you find the little known YouTube post on “How to build a Warp Drive” that legitimately works… it’s all for nothing unless you actually do something with it. Doing can take 10x as long as reading not to mention it can often be a constant up hill battle to do whatever it is that you’re trying to do.
So today I’d like to address this and show you why one of the best things you can do to make yourself richer and happier is to solve for time.
Table of Contents
The Time Key
There are so many great writers, professional film makers and creators out there now. As billions of people come online and the “side gig” economy ramps up it’s impossible to take it all in.
Even if no one globally was being paid to do what they do you’d still have the vast majority of fantastic content creators out there uploading and posting like crazy because they just love doing it. This love is usually what translates into honest, good content and I hope this site is one of those cases.
With this explosion of good content has come a huge increase in the average person watching and learning simple and complex things on a grand scale. They’re now more than ever able to find solutions to their problems and enact change to better their lives.
Whether it’s through planned protests against the state or knowing how much to pay towards your mortgage this all needs time. You can have the best of intentions, read all my posts religiously and even take notes. But without action knowledge is useless no matter how often you promise yourself you’re going to do it.
On this site with the specific topic of finance and mortgages I know this all too well. Mortgages are boring as shit. Being in debt sucks and no one wants to “talk about it” let alone do something about it. So I try and make it entertaining, practical and quick to act on.
- Smash in a few of your expenses to the free
- Setup your Automatic, Extra Mortgage Payments
- Go live your life
However no matter how quick and painless I make it, you still need that crucial time to do it. Finding this time for many people is really hard too. They might have wanted to get their finances in order for years now but just can’t get two seconds to themselves to set it all up. So if you fall into this category of readers what can you do?
Admit That You Need Time
The first step is to admit that you need time. For something as important as changing your life for the better, for reaching out and grabbing a Big Win you must first admit that you haven’t been giving the problem due respect in the past.
When it comes to crushing your mortgage it’s actually quite a bit easier than most other habit formations as you don’t need to set aside regular times. If you want to exercise 3 times a week you kind of have to set aside 3 blocks of time every week for an ongoing period.
Mortgages and automatic repayments though can usually be solved in just one good solid sitting. Sure, you should check in for a minute or so each pay just to make sure your systems are running as intended, but by and large that’s a passive thing and can be done anywhere, any time.
Solving For Time
So with all that said, I’d like you to create a calendar event. Put it in your work or private phone calendar and call it whatever you want. MTM Time. Mortgage Busting Time. Project Kill Debt. Focus Block. It doesn’t matter.
Find 1 hour of time – during the morning preferably – and block it out. Book yourself out for just that 1 hour. During the hour:
- Put your phone on DND (Do Not Disturb)
- Close all other tabs / programs / email on the computer
- Respectfully ask others to leave you alone for 1 hour
- Focus on just 1 goal
This 1 hour period should have a specific goal and that should be the only thing you focus on. It’s not about reading more information, it’s not about researching more or learning. It’s about doing. Doing exactly that 1 thing right then. That one goal should be this:
Calculate how much your extra mortgage repayment should be and setup automatic repayments for that amount.
That’s it.
In that 1 hour period of silence and focus you should do that one task and then you’re done. Feel free to go back to your scheduled broadcast.
Make It A Habit
If you find that after doing this task you kind of liked the efficiency and process of it all, I’d recommend doing this routinely. Life is not improved through grand, single actions but through thousands of small, intentional ones done every week.
These pre-planned Focus Block times are also fantastic for both doing and planning. Planning in its own right is something that requires time and can be incredibly important. Many feel like they’re wandering aimlessly through life because, well, they are. They have no plan, no goals, nothing to aim for or achieve.
Setting aside time for you to plan and just take stock of your life and where it’s been or is going is hugely important. Plus with everyone so busy these days let’s be honest, it’s not just going to “happen” unless you block it out in your calendar and treat it like an event. A really important event!
So once you’ve achieved the above first goal keep booking in more Focus Blocks each week and see what else you can achieve or plan. No one got richer by just doing the same old daily tasks for years on end. They instead started to do new, different things to better their finances and life outlook.
When I think back to the very first year we had our mortgage, I can be absolutely sure we never would have even started to kill ours if I didn’t have free time to become aware of the problem, think about it and then solve it.
So solve the time equation and get to work mutilating that mortgage. It will be a first step in making your life richer and happier.
The benefits include: 1) How to pay off your mortgage faster than 99% of people with one hour a month of work 2) How to get rid of your debt and have the freedom to spend money on the things you love, guilt free 3) Clear outline of how to setup your expenses, mortgage and general finance 4) How offset accounts work and how to get the same result without being gouged by the big banks 5) How to cut through the crap and focus on the things that truly matter when taking down a mortgage 6) How to adjust the strategy so it works for you, even if you have kids, even if you only have one income 7) How to do all of these things and maintain a normal social life (and never be cheap).
