Just Say NO; A Remedy For Controlling Your Time

I’m busy.

VERY busy.

But that makes no sense, right?

For those already in retirement, don’t many of these retirees complain about being bored? For those who aren’t retired but are thinking about the future, isn’t being bored one of the greatest fears?

For me, I am actually retired, yet my schedule is more full now than it ever was when I was working a full-time job.

Similar to most others, I feel like I need more time.

All Work And No Play

I’ve worked hard my entire life. In junior high & high school I came home each afternoon and immediately hit the books & studied well into the evening and on weekends in order to achieve high grades. In college it was more of the same – I chose a challenging major (engineering) and while most of my peers enjoyed an enchanting college experience, I spent most of my time at the library. And in my 20-year career I continued to work hard, including lots of overtime, working many weekends, and even some very odd shifts on occasion.

I’m not ashamed to admit any of this, but I’m also not trying to brag; just stating facts.

All this to say that I am definitely not a slacker and I know what hard work & being busy looks like because I’ve been there before. If anyone desired more free time & flexibility in life, that was definitely me. And that’s what I thought I would experience once I retired…

Striking A Good Balance

That first summer of retirement in 2023 was idyllic – my family & I travelled internationally for the first time and I spent most other days at home taking it easy, decompressing, and simply enjoying all the little things in life that I never previously had time for.

Although I was admittedly one of those people who “retired FROM something” instead of “retiring TO something”, I still had a high-level idea for how I wanted to fill my time in retirement. One of my plans was to explore new hobbies and interests. Another big plan was to spend more time with my family, especially my kids, which meant volunteering to participate in many of their activities. I also wanted to focus on my health and getting into better shape physically.

After that initial period of celebration, I decided to implement my plans and established a new routine in short order. While my kids were at school, I spent time editing & producing a podcast (Mile High FI), exercising (usually a 2 hour walk on a nearby trail), and on most days striking up random conversations with my wife (that could vary from just a few minutes to surprisingly sometimes turning into hours). After school I drove my kids to their activities and eventually even started coaching some of my son’s sports teams. Despite all of this, I maintained enough flexibility in my schedule to account for one-time and/or unplanned activities such as urgent medical issues, running errands, or volunteering at my kids’ schools.

My new routine felt seemingly well-balanced, both in terms of scheduling and impact. I had the right amount of activities each day to keep me busy, while not feeling overwhelmed. I was held to a schedule (a weekly podcast release and my kids’ school calendar), but felt this was beneficial since it helped me to not lose track of time. I also felt like everything I was doing was positively affecting others (spreading the message of Financial Independence via podcast and being more involved in my kids’ lives). All the while I was simultaneously becoming healthier and strengthening my relationship with my wife.

It felt like I had enough time to be very productive, yet still had enough space to rest, recharge, and most importantly, just think & reflect. Ironically, I found that this more leisurely pace actually increased my productivity because it put my mind more at ease without putting as much pressure on myself.

Life was good for many months and I thought things would continue this way assuredly for the unforeseeable future.

But that’s when other things started to creep in…

Collecting New Tasks

I slowly started adding new endeavors into my life, thinking that I could easily handle more without any ill effects. After all, I was still doing way less than I had been during my full-time career… at least so I thought.

Started editing & producing a 2nd podcast. I was introduced to someone at the EconoMe conference who was an established podcaster, but had been recently inconsistent with releasing material. We chatted & hit it off and a few months later I signed-on to edit & produce his podcast. I really wanted to help him get back on track and perhaps even take his podcast to another level. Plus, I saw it as a good opportunity for me to continue building my editing skills.
Continued to coach youth sports. I enjoyed my first-ever coaching experience with my son’s flag football team the previous spring, so I decided to do it again in the fall. My son concurrently signed up for soccer and when the team’s head coach asked for a volunteer to be an assistant, I (perhaps foolishly) stepped forward. Before I knew it, I was spending 5 days each week at the park. After taking winter off, I similarly signed up to coach two different football teams. Not only did I enjoy the extra time I got to spend with my son, I also felt like I was benefiting other kids on his teams by being a good role model and since other parents rarely seem to volunteer to coach (at least in our area).
Joined my neighborhood HOA. This wasn’t necessarily planned – there was a vacant spot on the Homeowners Association board and one of my neighbors asked if I could fill it. She knew I was retired and assumed I had extra time, plus she promised that it would be “fun” and “not much work”. Although I had a previously negative experience serving on an HOA board in the distant past, I thought I would give it another shot. I felt a sense of civic duty to help manage the neighborhood that I had lived in for over a decade, especially in a time of need.
Continued to organize local FI meetups. I don’t consider this a chore at all and it’s really one of the most fun activities I participate in (especially due to how much I value community), but it is a lot of work. I manage two local ChooseFI groups in my area and have been focused on holding consistent meetups, keeping the needs of attendees at the forefront (which has meant trying to schedule most events on weekends when the max number of people are available). The downside is that free time on weekends for me personally is tough and has come at a premium due to everything else going on in my life and my family’s life.

Even from the start I was leery about adding one new activity into my life, let alone multiple activities. I had a good thing going with my routine & the stability it brought and I was cautious about upsetting the apple cart. Perhaps against my better judgment and due to extreme optimism, I decided to forge ahead regardless. I mean, even if it did turn into slightly more work, I had never shied away from that. Plus all the numerous positives seemed to outweigh any negatives.

Not What I Signed Up For

Unfortunately things started heading south fairly quickly. While I initially enjoyed each of these new activities, each one also came with its own set schedule that I now had to adhere to – podcasts had to be released on a certain day each week, sports practices & HOA meetings were held at distinct times, and FI meetups were best on weekends due to the availability of most other attendees.

Not only was I getting busier & busier performing each of these new tasks themselves, but I no longer had as much free time & flexibility in my life. All of a sudden I found myself with a more strict schedule and intense pressure to get it all done on time. In order to keep up I started to stay up late each night and also worked a good amount almost every weekend.

It got to the point rather quickly that it felt like I was doing too much and things were starting to spiral out of control towards burnout. Life started to feel rushed and started to become a blur. It felt like I was back to working a full-time job again. In fact, it soon felt even worse – it felt like I was actually doing MORE work now than I ever was during my career!

Not only was I getting busier and more stressed but my health was also declining. While I used to exercise every day by taking long walks, I no longer had time for this. If I was lucky I could fit in time to exercise once, maybe twice a week. I started gaining weight and became more irritable and sluggish. At one point recently I even realized that I hadn’t been out on a walk in almost 9 months, which was crazy to think because it used to be something I looked forward to every day! Not only were these walks good for my health, but it also provided some free time to just think and observe the world around me (which in turn often led to much more creativity & inspiration).

After grinding it out for a while, I finally realized that this was not at all what I had signed up for.

With a Little Help from My Friend

I intellectually knew that I was in a bad spot, but of course I kept doing it anyways. Although I had started most of these new pursuits out of self-interest, I still felt a strange sense of obligation to everyone else to keep going and that I would somehow be letting them down if I ever stopped. I also felt that I was better than this and could eventually overcome my circumstances and regain control over my life – perhaps I was too egotistic.

So I kept plodding along until I had a conversation with a friend recently at Camp Mustache. She explained to me her FI journey and how focused she was on her main career, putting in long hours and so much dedication. I forgot exactly how it came up, but she also casually mentioned helping a friend update his website… nothing out of the ordinary at first, until she went on to state that she charged him $350 an hour to do it!

That statement immediately shocked me! She helped a friend, yet still charged him (and it was a very good rate to boot!) And just for context, here I was killing myself with my new schedule, but doing it all for free without earning a penny. Now don’t get me wrong, money shouldn’t be our only motivation for doing something or at the root of everything we do, but it can still be a strong factor when considering how we spend our time.

Unbeknownst to my friend at the time, our discussion really opened my eyes. It demonstrated how much she respected herself by how much she valued her time. Because time was so scarce she didn’t want to just give it away for free, not even to friends. Some may call this stingy or callous, but I consider it profound and I totally understand where she’s coming from.

The Decision

Although I had already been thinking about it for a while, I finally made the decision to start cutting back.

While I do love to help others, especially if I believe in their mission, it didn’t make sense to run myself into the ground and have it become a detriment to my own life.

From a mental health & well-being perspective, it didn’t make sense to feel more stressed while reducing productivity & creativity.
From a physical health perspective, it didn’t make sense to not exercise and see my weight increase.
From an opportunity cost perspective, if I wasn’t truly enjoying everything, it didn’t make sense to reduce my own free time that I could instead use on alternate ventures such as spending it with my family or perhaps creating my own business, amongst other things.
From a financial perspective, it was ironic to think that I retired from a 20-year career that paid me to work and instead shifted to working even more hours without getting paid at all.

In addition, I questioned the entire premise of working hard to retire early if I wasn’t going to take full advantage of this unique, very fortunate opportunity and instead fall back to old patterns of staying busy & not really enjoying life.

Pruning My Schedule

One-by-one I slowly started to make changes:

Resigned from the HOA. My term-length was supposed to be for 2 years, but I only stuck it out for 1 year before submitting my resignation. Fortunately another volunteer was able to step in and life in the neighborhood has continued to run smoothly.
Started scheduling FI meetups differently. Instead of catering to other attendees, I started to cater to myself. Instead of always trying to organize events on weekends when most others were available (and when I was the busiest), I started to organize meetups based on when I was most available, which meant weekday mornings (when my kids were at school). Although skeptical at first of lighter attendance & how it would be received, it has gone surprisingly well and we’re cultivating a good group of regular attendees. As for the weekend meetups, I am hoping others step in to fill the void and it’ll be a good test to see how much others value these in-person gatherings.
Cutting back on coaching. This past year I coached two teams simultaneously each season, which turned out to be too much. In the future my plan is to take a hard look into whether I want to continue coaching at all, and if so, I will limit myself to only one team at a time. I will most likely continue to coach as long as possible, knowing that once my son gets a little older these coaching opportunities will become less & less available as he’ll start to work with more specialized & experienced coaches.
Stopped working a 2nd podcast. Earlier this week I officially gave notice that I could no longer help my friend from EconoMe with his podcast. It was tough and I felt really bad, but he completely understood, especially when I explained my reasoning behind it.

Since all of these changes are fairly recent, I’m not 100% sure exactly how I will reallocate this new found time, but I would like to get back to exercising more, exploring new hobbies, and perhaps even dedicating more time to improving this blog.

The good news is that I’m already starting to experience some early positive returns. I feel more free, I seem to have more openness, and I am already much more calm. I am literally sitting here writing this blog post and I am so much happier than I have been in a while, feeling like I have so much more creativity since I once again have a little more time to think, to write, and most importantly to just be.

I am hoping this continues to carry over into other areas of my life and that things start to improve overall.

Time Is Precious

At the end of the day, I’m not opposed to hard work and being busy on occasion, especially when both of those elements are required to pursue an important goal. In fact, I deeply respect those who can put their head down, focus, and work hard to achieve an extraordinary accomplishment.

On the other hand, I think it’s beneficial for all of us to take a step back from time-to-time to make sure that everything we do holds value to us; to make sure that we’re not just going through the motions and continuing to do something that doesn’t serve us out of apathy or habit. We all need to take control of our time and perhaps reprioritize & reevaluate as needed, all in an effort to open up more time for whatever serves us best.

We all need to remember that time is valuable and it’s a limited resource, so we have to use it wisely and can’t say yes to everything. I know this can be tough, but in the end I know that it’s also completely worth it.

I did this recently myself by cutting unnecessary things out of my own life and out of my schedule. I finally had to stand up and “Just Say No”.

Links/Resources

Reader Questions

Have you ever felt like you’ve been doing too much all at once? How did it affect you both mentally & physically? Did you take any action to cut back?

Leave your answers or comments below – or email us directly at info@epicfinancialjourney.com