347. If Time Were Money, Would You Be Broke?

Most people track their spending, monitor their investments, and think carefully about where their money goes. But how often do they apply the same level of attention to their time?

In this episode of A Wiser Retirement® Podcast, Casey Smith sits down with time management expert Megan Sumrell, Founder and CEO of The Pink Bee, to discuss why so many people feel overwhelmed and what they can do to take back control of their time.

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Ep 249. How Smart Financial Planning Led to Living on a Catamaran Full-Time

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The Pink Bee

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Transcript

Time Management Meets Money Mindset

SPEAKER_03 0:00

If you manage your money the way you manage your time, would you be broke? Today we're digging into why your calendar might be sabotaging your future and how to fix it. Stay tuned.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Welcome to a Wiser Retirement Podcast, where we cut through the noise and bring you real, honest conversations about investing, retirement, and building lasting wealth. No sales pitches, no gimmicks. Just insights to help you stop guessing and start planning your financial future.

SPEAKER_03 0:29

Welcome to Wiser Retirement Podcast. I'm Casey Smith, president of Wiser Wealth Management. Today I'm joined by Megan Somrel, CEO, founder of the Pink B, which focuses on time management and planning. We'll be discussing if time were money, would you be broke? Hey, Megan. Hi. Well, thanks for joining us. You know, I will admit I know that Pink B is uh designed for women, but uh I'll admit that I'm a procrastinator and uh I work best in the in the 11th hour with my back against the wall. If someone's shooting at me, I can do a pretty good job of getting out of the situation. Um but um you know I we were talking before we got on. One of my favorite TED Talks is is one of the most viewed. Uh you I don't remember the gentleman's name who did that.

SPEAKER_04 1:14

Uh I can't think of it either, but I know exactly what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

He spoke at the Charles Schwab conference maybe a couple years ago, but he he did a TED talk of uh basically the whole thing is about procrastination, but it's the fact that he wanted to do a TED talk. He wanted to say, I did a TED Talk, but and he talked about his journey to get there and he was working on his outline, but then he got distracted by doing a walking tour on Google Earth through Egypt.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Uh as one does.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

That's right. Um, so anyway, thank you for joining us. I you people who who are regular listeners, uh, this is episode 347, might be going, why are we doing one on time management? And that's because I think there's a direct link between time and uh money. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 2:01

Yes. And there are so many correlations that I see in terms of really good financial management that translates so well into time management. And sometimes having having that parallel can really help hit home some core time management principles as well. Because it's it's hard when it comes to time. You can't see it, right? You can't log into your bank account and easily see what's in there. So this is where sometimes I think people overthink it. And there are some really great parallels with financial management and time management.

SPEAKER_03 2:31

You know, our um office is over 80 plus, I think it's 87% women, uh, not because I set to design a firm that was made up of all women, but but just because we we uh put out a job offer and we hired the most smart people, the best smart people, right? And they um uh they they they rose to the occasion, interviewed well, and got the job. And what's interesting is Tiffany here in our office, especially, uh, she wakes up at, I think it's four o'clock for a 425 or 430 or 425 arrival for burn boot camp, which starts at 4:30 in the morning. She does it seven days a week, uh, won some award recently for like the most consecutive ever at Burn Boot Camp or something. Uh, and then she uh goes home, takes care of the kids, sends husband off to work, and then um comes in here and and works hard, leading a team all day long, and then goes home, does dinner, does homework, and then goes to bed, wakes up, does it again. And you have to be really, really good at time management to do that. And somehow still manages to talk about shows on TV with uh other girls here, Mike. How do you I don't have time for TV? How do you even know? You know, how do you how do you have time to watch these shows? So I feel like I feel like I'm surrounded by um people who are really good time managers. So I'm hoping maybe I can learn something as we get through these uh these questions here. Awesome. I just know how to delegate. That's that's my superpower.

SPEAKER_04 4:02

That's a great superpower to have.

Busy Is Not The Same

SPEAKER_03 4:05

So what what do you think uh what what do people misunderstand most about being busy? I use that in error quotations.

SPEAKER_04 4:12

Yeah, I think the biggest misconception is that being busy and being productive are the same things. Uh and I think a lot of people wear a busy as kind of a badge of honor, like, oh, I'm just so busy. But if you were and not not saying they're not, but being busy, meaning in motion, in action, is not the same thing as truly being productive. And the way I like to define being productive is getting the most important things done in a stress-free way. And I know a lot of women and men as well that can collapse into bed at night exhausted because they've been, quote, so busy all day, but yet they have that sinking feeling because they know the thing that mattered most actually didn't get touched.

SPEAKER_03 4:54

So in that case, people are probably bleeding time and they don't even know it. So is that I can only imagine that's like doom, you know, do the doom scroll. You know, you're just scrolling forever. That that's probably some of the things that they get us. Maybe some people's emails or text messages, maybe. Um but what what do you see people that are bleeding time on and probably don't realize it?

SPEAKER_04 5:18

Yeah, I mean, technology's had a big play in it. And there's the obvious ones like you message. I think people already kind of know what's going on, right? Like how much time am I spending on my phone, all that kind of stuff. But the real um one of the easiest ways, or kind of the low-hanging fruit, if you will, to really help with our time is people today are doing what I like to refer to as context switching way more than they realize. Um, and context switching is not the same thing as multitasking. So if you think about all of the different roles that you may play in your day, right? Whether it's at work or whether it's at home. Um, you know, I know I run my own business. So even inside of the business, I run a couple different roles. I am the CFO, I'm also the CEO, I manage a couple other parts of the business. But then even at home, there's mom mode, there's family time, right? There's time with my husband, there's time for myself. And what I see happening, especially with so many people working from home now or having remote offices, is that they're context switching between these roles 10, 15 minutes at a time, right? Oh, let me go handle this email where now I'm putting on this hat. And then they're getting interrupted by maybe a sick kid who's home. So now they're switching context into mom mode. Then they're trying to go back into work mode. And one of the things I have people do early on is to run a time audit with the lens of how often are you switching context throughout the day? Because every time you do that, it can take up to 21 minutes to get back to the focus that you had before you switched context. And with technology, you know, constantly interrupting us and with this kind of work life melding that we're all living in today, that is one of the biggest sources of people having their time sucked that it's not, it's not obvious like your phone is. And so usually when they do that time audit, it's when they see how often they're switching contexts, it's like such an awareness.

SPEAKER_03 7:16

So yeah, that yeah, that's like um you you have a project due, but then you get sucked into emails or a phone call, and then you turn back around and you do you do this. I what I we talked about a little bit before the show, but um, I saw uh someone talking about Elon Musk and his ability to be 100% focused. Like the brain power is a hundred percent on what he has to accomplish, which also makes him a little socially awkward because he's gonna say, No, I don't have time for that. No, I'm not doing this, no, I'm not doing that. He's just like it's just like a hundred percent focused on okay, I'm here for this, and it's time now to, you know, I'll have other time for for things for things later. Um, which is very, very interesting. Uh I I obviously uh he's done some he's doing some amazing things with SpaceX and rockets returning to pads. Uh now they're talking about like hyper reusable rockets that within a few hours can be ready to go again instead of weeks or months, which is crazy.

SPEAKER_04 8:19

Um and so to build that that that type of uh system, you have to be uh hyper focused um to to be able to he's got a brain advantage to I mean, as he says, he's diagnosed with maybe you know nerve. I I say this because I live with two. Uh I so my daughter is autistic, and so she has an ability to hyperfocus because of the way her brain is that I do not.

SPEAKER_03 8:47

And Andy, I think he has that gene um that he only needs really four hours of sleep. So like you're you you have a um uh uh Trump has that same gene. Uh there's a whole list of people. Uh, because one of the things they've been talking, I don't want to deralize from our conversation, but one of the things they've been talking about is like, can in the future, could you could you change your your own gene system to where you only need four hours of sleep? I couldn't operate on four hours. Not only would I be grumpy, you wouldn't be able to focus. But to be able to do four hours, only do four hours, feel rel rested, and then and then hit it again, you you now have a life hack on everybody at that point, uh, which is which is very interesting. Um, so you know, you think about um uh why does I don't have time usually mean I didn't choose this?

What “No Time” Really Means

SPEAKER_04 9:38

Yeah, I mean, we all, you know, time is fixed, right? There is a set amount that we have during the day, but the fact is, and it sounds very cliche, but anyway anytime we say yes to something that we're spending time on, we are ultimately saying no to whatever we're choosing not to do at that moment. And I don't want to belittle the fact that yes, a lot of people do have a lot of responsibilities. And there are things that are kind of imposed on us with our time, things we have to do. But when you really zero in and take a hard look at your calendar, most people, if they're being honest, will see that there is stuff on there that they don't really want to be doing or spending time on, but they got guilted into it, or there was an expectation, or they loved it three years ago, but now suddenly they're like, oh, every time they see that thing show up, they're groaning. So we do, you know, in the moment when you're really in a state of overwhelming anxiety, it does feel like we don't have those choices. But when we can sit with intentionality and look at our calendar, we do have the ability to take stuff off of there. We just sometimes don't like to have the discomfort and the fear of what other people are gonna think if we say no to things, if we cancel things, et cetera.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

Right. And and then how that's gonna be perceived. You have the like the whole exactly the whole social element of that too. Exactly. Like, what do you mean you won't be the PTA president?

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Exactly.

unknown 11:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:07

Um, all right. So let's give some people some real world uh advice here.

Build A Time Budget That Works

SPEAKER_03 11:13

Where what does a realistic time budget look like?

SPEAKER_04 11:16

Yeah, so I like to think of it, you know, if we're kind of relating it back to finances here a little bit, um, you can kind of think of four buckets of money, if you will. So everybody financially has their fixed expenses, right? What's your mortgage payment, what's your gas bill, your electric bill, et cetera. Well, when it comes to our time, um, everybody has things that are committed that are really gonna be hard to move off of your calendar, right? Um, and these are, I like to think of them like bills. They're typically the things that we've made decisions on that we're gonna be doing on a recurring basis. So even when I think about it daily, I do need to spend some time in email every single day. That's a fixed aspect of my time. Um, there's things I do on a weekly rhythm, both at home and at work. So, category number one with our time is really what are the things that we've decided are happening on a recurring basis, similar to our bills. And the cool thing about those is you can actually add up what are they and how long do they take. So I know when I step into every week, I already know how much of my time is already spoken for with those fixed commitments. Just as we know, hey, these are the bills that come in every single month. I know X amount of money is going out the door at the start of the month, right? But most people don't take the time to even have that level of awareness, especially when it's things that don't show up on a traditional task list, right? Like most people aren't putting on their plan for the day check email. They're just doing it. I know I spend an hour in email every single day. Most people don't even know how much time. And I do it in two chunks. I do it for 20 minutes in the morning and 40 minutes at the end of the day. So that's kind of category number one. Then the second category, and that is everybody needs to know what that is so that they know how much of their time again is gone every day or every week. So they know the real budget of what they have left. And what's left ultimately can be divided into three different categories. So the first is going to be discretionary time, right? Just like discretionary income. What are the projects? What are the one-offs, not the recurring things? But like you and I were talking about writing a book, right? So maybe you've got this project of writing a book. Well, how much of my leftover time each week do I want to dedicate to that? And that's a project that will end, and then there'll probably be another one right behind it. And those are the things that we tend to have more choices for. Um, the next category is really similar to a financial emergency fund. And this is something that most people are not building into their plan for the week. And this really hits home, um, especially for folks that are kind of in that primary caregiver role. So I like to call this planning for uncertainty. And the easiest way to figure out what your emergency fund needs to be with your time is again, time audit yourself for a week or two. And what you want to do is actually make a note of how often are you being pulled from what you were planning on doing to have to respond and do something that there's no way you could have known was coming. Right. So, like we had a tech emergency at work yesterday that took an hour of my time getting passwords. There's no way I could have planned for that, right? It just happened. Uh, when I think about home, it's the morning where your kid wakes up and they're sick. And now suddenly, you know, you're navigating doctor's appointments, things like that. So I know every week I'm gonna have about four hours of work stuff that's gonna come at me that I can't plan for. And I know this because I track it. And I know on average, about four hours of emergency things are coming, about two hours of personal. And what this allows me to do, just like setting up an emergency fund with your finances, is when I am building out my plan for the week, I'm blocking off four hours of time that I'm not planning on how I'm gonna spend it. And people can't book hours or time with me because I know I'm going to need that at the start of the week. And so that's a third category most people are never thinking about. They're just trying to wing it and absorb it, right? On like on a whim. And then the final really is, and really think about this as investing, is the intentional time that goes into your calendar for yourself, for the things that you love to do that make you a whole person, right? Truly selfish. Time with friends, reading a book, learning an instrument, taking an art class, whatever it is that think back to yourself 20 and single, where you had your nights and weekends free, right? Like, what are the things that you love to do just for you? Um, and most people today, especially if you're juggling work and parenting, that's the first thing to go. And that's one of the first things I put on my calendar every week to make sure that I'm a whole person so that I can show up everywhere else that I need to, um, feeling, you know, not resentful and not tapped out.

SPEAKER_03 16:12

Yeah, absolutely. So um I know that you have a workbook that you can purchase uh to help people work through their day. I think that saw that on the website or or coaching with you or a program that you can do that.

SPEAKER_04 16:24

Yeah, so it's um yeah, it's an actual online self-paced course. So it's a DIY program called the TOP program, which stands for Time Management Organization and Productivity. And through that, um, you learn a step-by-step proprietary system for mastering both weekly and monthly planning that accounts for it's a full integrated planning approach. So it's you know, work time plus outside of work time, plus you know, caregiving time, time for yourself, all of that. And the cool thing with the system, um, we've now taught over 20,000 women uh in over 15 countries with this. And the system stays the same regardless of your stage of life, what you're juggling. So what you bring to the table is your inputs, meaning everything competing for your time. You feed it through the same system, but then it produces your unique output, which is what does a realistic plan for your week and month look like based on your input? So it's been really empowering to see all the different flavors of plans that come out of the back end of this system based on all the different phases and stages uh of life that people are going through as they work through the program.

SPEAKER_02 17:35

Not all financial advice is created equal. Available now, everything your financial advisor won't tell you. An eye-opening book that reveals what's really happening inside the financial industry and what it takes to build a plan that actually works. Because what you don't know could be costing you.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

So I find that interesting. So people people it's kind of like when people come see us, they're they're they're not coming to see us because this is fun. They're coming to see a hire a financial planner because we're we're solving problems for them, right? Absolutely. So so at what point does a person go from this is crazy, I don't have any time, to to call to calling you. So what what are some of the uh I guess stories that that uh people come to you

Time Debt And The Planner Graveyard

SPEAKER_03 18:22

with? Like this is why I think I need help with this? Because we're all we're all busy, right? We're all everybody's busy.

SPEAKER_04 18:27

And it's true.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

I don't know anybody, I don't know anybody personally that said, I need to find someone to help me manage my time better. So so you have 20,000 cases of this.

unknown 18:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:37

Who are these people? What what what what what's happening in their lives?

SPEAKER_04 18:40

So the common bond really through all of them is uh they have been trying to implement, quote, productivity hacks that they're out there. They're feeling overwhelmed. They're usually going to bed feeling like they didn't accomplish enough. They're waking up in what I call time debt, meaning half the list from yesterday never got done. So they're rewriting it onto today's list and adding, right? And there's planning systems that teach this. I was taught this in my 20s through the Franklin Covey system. You make your list, you prioritize it, then tomorrow you turn the page and you copy over everything that didn't get done yesterday, add to it. And so you're stuck in this vicious, you wake up every day in time debt, feeling like you're never going to get on top of it. And so usually people will come to us, they'll joke about the planner graveyard. They'll be like, Yeah, I've got like 12 different planners that I tried to make work. And I'm here, I sell planners and I'm here to tell you a planner is never going to fix your problem if you don't have the system for what's going into the planner in the first place. Um, but they're feeling like they've failed. Um, subtly they're feeling their own self-worth is kind of attached to their productivity. If I'm not doing enough, I'm not worthy enough. And so the more that's on that list, the worse they're feeling about themselves. And they oftentimes feel like they weren't born with the organization gene, right? Like you're either born this way or you're not. And unfortunately, social media is painting a lot of false pictures of people. It looks like they've got it all together, right? You know, the smoothie routines and the yogas and the personal supplements and all, and no, no one's living that life. They really aren't. Uh, and so they are finally hearing messages from the pink bee that's saying we're validating exactly where they're at. Yeah, you are overwhelmed. Yes, you are juggling more than you should. Um, it is mathematically impossible, likely, for you to get done what's on your list. And so, how about we plug in a system that helps you learn how to prioritize what's most important, actually delegate, actually get you know, rid of stuff that's not on your plate. And then subtly, and what I believe is the most important is actually get your sense of self and purpose back again, instead of having every minute of your calendar in service to somebody or something else, which is what is happening the busier and the busier people get, right? Their calendar is almost kind of being controlled by outside forces instead of them putting control mechanisms in place into their calendar. And so for a lot of women, they'll come in saying, like, well, this is last ditch effort, like this is the first time I've heard someone talk about differences of male and female brains and acknowledging, you know, what does the mental load do to your calendar? Uh, and so it's kind of their Hail Mary uh for a lot of folks.

SPEAKER_03 21:25

Interesting.

Retirement Calendars And Hidden Obligations

SPEAKER_03 21:26

So I, you know, I think about retirement. You think, oh, I have all the time in the world in retirement, I'll be looking for things to do. And, you know, I meet with um a lot of retired people. We have 511 clients. Uh, majority of them are retired. And uh they're busy and they have they have a full agenda, especially those with uh grandchildren that are in situations where they feel like they need to be very involved.

SPEAKER_04 21:54

They're the caregiver for the grandchild now.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

Yep. All for for many reasons, yes. So so so I I feel like you know it just this never stops. Like being able to control a calendar and manage your time, it it never stops. Yeah, what what changes is going to work. Instead of going to work, they're they're now stuck every Friday or Thursday um doing a family activity to to help two generations down, right? And I don't think they see it as a burden except when you say, What is it that you want to be doing? I'd love to travel to these four places. I've always wanted to do that. But I can't. Why can't we do that? And then they tell you why. And you're just like, wow, that's uh it's beyond me at that point, right? I don't know how to fix that.

SPEAKER_04 22:38

Yeah, and I see it's interesting. We have a lot of uh just in the last year and a half in particular, a lot of people coming through the program at that stage of life where they're finally either empty nesters or actually retired. And I'm seeing two patterns with them. One is for those that aren't, uh, they actually have all this white space on their calendar for the first time. And they're like, I they're paralyzed, they don't know what to do. And when we dig into it, for many of them, it's because they're coming off of 30 some odd years of never thinking about what they want to do for themselves. Every minute of the day is booked in, you know, work and and driving and caregiving and all of that. I'm like, that's not so much a time management problem. It's this is a sign that you have spent the last 30, 40 years not thinking about yourself at all. And now you're at this crossroads and you don't even know who you are and what you want out of life anymore. And then the second one, very similar to what you were just talking about, Casey, where people are coming going, I'm finally here. And I thought I'd have all this white space, but yet I'm still allowing all these outside things. You know, I'm the one picking the grandkids up from school three days a week, and they're, you know, kind of feeling like now they they can't live the retirement life that they wanted to. Uh, and so it's just a different set of planning inputs, right? Now it's new things competing for their time than what it looked like 10 or 15 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

Can you give our listeners maybe uh one change they should make this week to not feel like they're uh at capacity or as you say, time broke?

Notifications Off And Focus Back On

SPEAKER_04 24:17

Yeah. And it's I'm gonna say it and everyone's gonna roll their eyes and be like, oh no, but like hear me out to the end of this one. Um, every single technical device that you own, computer, phone, all of it, every notification should be turned off. And I don't mean audible, I mean visual. Like, don't have the little Outlook email thing fly by. Don't even let um push notifications come through to you know, put that little red dot on your email showing you three more came in, four more came in. Turn all of them off. And the reason why so many people don't is they're like, but what if there's an emergency, right? But what if the school calls and my phone's off? I need to hear that. Yeah, our devices are smart enough now that you can program them on what is worthy of an interruption. And that's the way I like to look at it. So ask yourself, what is it that if you are doing the most important thing that is worthy of you being interrupted? And like for me, that's the school calling. If my husband's on travel, if he were to call me during the day, there's an emergency. And um we're now you know doing the both end parenting. My mother-in-law has just moved here. And if her assisted living community calls, we need, we need to pick up the phone.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

Right.

SPEAKER_04 25:33

Other than that, nothing is worthy of an interruption during my time. So my phone is programmed that the if those numbers come through, it's gonna make a noise and it will alarm. I will be like freaking out because my phone never makes a noise. But then everyone's like, but then, you know, but but I'm going to miss something. Well, then the second part of the equation is I have set times on my calendar every single day where I am now sitting down to process messages, right? So, okay, I'm done. It's now 30 minutes. I'm gonna go process my email. I'm gonna go check my DMs on the platforms that matter to me and see is there anything that I need to respond to or build into my plan for this week. And then it's done. And now I'm not coming back to any of it again until the next schedule time. Uh, and so for a lot of people, if they're too like, I've got to do it more than twice a day, I'll be like, hey, if you're really worried about missing something, just say at the top of the hour, you're gonna do a quick 10-minute check. And then when you see that nothing bad has happened, you know, two days down the road, maybe try it every two hours. And eventually most people find that they can step away and really only check two, maybe three times a day. And the time savings you'll get is absolutely incredible.

SPEAKER_03 26:45

I watched this Netflix document documentary. It's called The Social Dilemma.

SPEAKER_04 26:50

Yes, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 26:51

And after I watch the social dilemma, my LinkedIn, uh Facebook, Instagram, and X notifications are turned off. I receive no notifications. I I can only go in there and push it, and then I can see obviously if I want, if I choose to, but um, everyone should watch that and it'll change how you think about social media. But basically, if you have all those things turned on, they know you haven't looked at anything in the last hour and they will start sending you notifications, sometimes stupid notifications.

SPEAKER_04 27:22

You know, they want they're trying, they're they want you back in there.

SPEAKER_03 27:25

Yeah, they want you to try to and and they're trying to engage and make make sure that that you're addicted to looking at that at that platform. And after seeing that, I was like, you know what? This stuff isn't important anymore.

SPEAKER_04 27:37

Like if you know you're gonna be tempted by certain apps on your phone, um, all of those are on like my fourth screen. Yeah, so if I need like, you know, on my home screen, I only have four apps. That's it. So that if I need to make a phone call, right, I can open up my phone and the phone thing is there, but I can't, I'm not tempted to go see what so-and-so is doing. And that's it, because if you see it, you're gonna get sucked into it. So if you already know that's gonna be a temptation, move those to where you've got to like swap, swipe through a whole bunch of screens to go get to that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

Even your body will like my like if I want to swipe to uh social media, like I can swipe and not even looking because my thumb just knows how many times the swipe and click. So sometimes I'll just move it all to different to a different section. It's like, okay, I'm spending too much time on this. I need to move all this to a to a different section entirely. But I go back to and we we wrote about this in our in our book, Everything Your Financial Advisor Won't Tell You. I have a whole section section on goal setting. And you you just you have to live a life that has a that has purpose to it. And it doesn't mean that you're trying to be a gazillionaire. I'm not talking about money necessarily, but there there's just you wake up and there's a purpose, you have things to do. Um, you're gonna make things happen today instead of having things happen to you. I think some people wake up in the in the day and they're like, I'm waiting for you know, waiting for the bad thing to happen.

unknown 29:01

Right?

SPEAKER_03 29:02

So you have you have to kind of like take charge of your life. And that I talk about I spent a chapter talking about that, but it it's it's um uh it's like a mentality. So this whole thing on on uh having a productive day, you need to wake up and choose that. Like you're when your feet hit the hit the ground after you roll out of bed in the morning, you should know exactly what your what your purpose is. Hopefully you're in a situation where you're excited about that purpose. Um, if not, then there's things you have to do to to work on that.

SPEAKER_04 29:32

Yeah. It's and it's the same with the financial side of it as well. Are you gonna be reactive or are you gonna be proactive? Right? Are you gonna sit around and freak out as things happen and bills come in and all of that? Or are you gonna put a plan in place for what your retirement is gonna look like, how you're gonna get there, how you're gonna save for it? The same is true with your time. Are you gonna wake up every day with, oh my God, what do I have to do today? What's what's happening today? You've already lost the game, right? Because now you're in reactive mode, which means you're gonna make poor decisions, you're gonna be, you know, thinking a worst case scenarios versus when I, you know, at the end, when I wrap up my day, I'm looking at my I plan it a weekly basis, and that's what I teach people to do, is I wrap up my day by looking at the next day, and I already know here's my here's my roadmap for tomorrow. So I'm not waking up asking what's happening to me today. I'm waking up saying, here is my plan, and I know how to pivot if I need to, because I've built that in as well. And it changes how you show up all day long.

SPEAKER_03 30:28

And and that's yeah, and and that's all that's all such uh so very important. Um last question. If you could give um one rule for using time wisely, what would that be?

SPEAKER_04 30:42

Well, I've already said it, which is the getting your notifications um turned off. Same thing for sure.

SPEAKER_03 30:48

Same thing.

SPEAKER_04 30:49

Um, the other I would say is, and I don't mean this in the way that you see all the influencers out there, but I really believe every person is well served by having a flavor of a morning routine that they do that sets them up for success for the day. And there's different morning personality types. It is not one size fits all. Um, like all the quote, productivity experts out there talk about the importance of meditating and journaling and yoga. I don't do any of that in the morning. I hate that. It would set it would put me in the worst possible mood. Um, but I know what I need to do in order to feel good to start my day. And it can be as simple as five and 10 minutes, right? I'm not saying you got to build some 90-minute miracle morning thing, but to really think through if you could just have 10, 15 minutes to yourself in the morning, what would you do to set like feel like you are now ready to step into your day? Um and if you feel like you can't even find 15 minutes, five. Everybody could get up five minutes earlier and put something in place for themselves and experiment with it, figure out what works well for you. Like my current morning routine is my cup of coffee and the New York Times Games app. I do four games in there while I enjoy a hot cup of coffee. It's about 15 minutes, and I'm good to go. Like that is that fills me up because I love that kind of stuff. So get get creative and figure out something you can put in place for your morning just for yourself.

Rapid Fire Questions And Next Steps

SPEAKER_03 32:11

All right. So, Megan, real quickly, um every guest that we have on the podcast, we ask these uh three questions and we get interesting answers, sometimes really funny ones. Um so I want to um first ask you what's the what's a money mistake you're really glad that you made?

SPEAKER_04 32:34

Yeah. So when I bought my first house, I was single and thought I kind of understood what I was doing, and I didn't. Uh and so it was one of those 80, 10, 10s. This was like 25 years ago. So that 10% meant it was essentially a home equity line of credit. And I thought it was a fixed percentage. I did not understand the variability of that. And it was at a I got in great, and six months later, what that looked like was very different. Um, thankfully, I was able to like get that paid off quick. Um, but it taught me so much more about understanding what these variable rates mean and people gloss over that. So it was a great learning experience. Um I was, you know, in the moment, hated it, but thankful I learned that.

SPEAKER_03 33:28

Now now you know how to read the fine print now.

SPEAKER_04 33:32

Make sure I I will ask questions now until I feel like I fully understand it. And I, you know, in your I was young, I was embarrassed. So yeah, that that uh now I will ask all the questions.

SPEAKER_03 33:45

If you could only travel to one place, where would you go and who are you taking?

SPEAKER_04 33:50

Um, I would go on a trip to Greece with my daughter. That is on my bucket list.

SPEAKER_03 33:56

We have a Greece on a couple of people's bucket list here at Wiser. So we could do a we could do a uh what do you a group tour.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

There we go.

SPEAKER_03 34:06

What's something that you believe strongly 10 years ago and you don't believe anymore?

SPEAKER_04 34:11

I would say 10 years ago, I was still stuck in a place where I truly thought that my worth was connected to my productivity, that other people would find me valuable and worthy if I could produce at a certain level, even if it meant at a cost to my own mental and physical health. Um, and now I don't believe that anymore. I'm very comfortable saying no.

SPEAKER_03 34:35

Good.

unknown 34:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:36

It's hard to say no. It is we all we all we all want to be um wanted, accepted, needed, right? That that's part of that. And and uh sometimes you say no, you think you might lose other opportunities, or you just you just don't know.

SPEAKER_04 34:49

But yeah, and I think we also get stuck in a trap. Women in particular, we feel like we have to give the reason why we're saying no. So if we feel like it's not a good enough reason, like I'm just tired, no, thank you, then then we say yes. And so realizing you don't owe any explanation for it, you can just politely say, I'm so sorry I'm unavailable. You don't need to tell them why you're unavailable.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

Yeah. Okay. Well, um, I could see why uh anybody would want to call you and want your time to help them with their time. Uh so if someone is feeling that need, tell us more about how we get a get a hold of you.

SPEAKER_04 35:30

Yeah. So if you kind of want to check out a little bit about what this top framework looks like and get kind of a full overview of it, the easiest way to do that is I've got an app in both Google Play and the App Store that's just called the Pink B, all one word. Um, and if you download that, there's some free courses in there that um free trainings that walk you through what does the full top framework look like and kind of get you started on some good planning tips and tricks right away. And obviously, if you're here, you're podcast people. Uh, so you could come check out uh the podcast called Work Life Harmony.

SPEAKER_03 36:03

Great. Those are great places to start. And uh maybe a book coming out in the near future.

SPEAKER_04 36:08

Yes, 2027. Stay tuned.

SPEAKER_03 36:12

All right. Uh we have a couple other podcast episodes uh talking about people who time manage time well. It's still one of the most listened to episodes. Episode 184, uh, what it's like traveling full-time in retirement with retirement travelers. Uh, these these people sold everything, all their worldly possessions in two backpacks, and they've been to 300 plus countries. And if you ask them the five places you think they think you should go in the world, there were places you never heard of. Because they've been to it all. So that's a great episode. Episode 249, how smart planning, uh how smart financial planning led to living on a catmaran full-time. Uh, so then another client living uh in the Caribbean uh during the good times, meaning not hurricane season. Um so anyway, uh thanks for listening today's episode. If you're still learning more about wiser wealth management and want to schedule a consultation meet with one of our fiduciary financial advisors, you can do so by going to wiserinvestor.com or you can click on the link at the episode notes. Uh Meg, what is your website again?

SPEAKER_04 37:12

I just go to thepinkb e.com.

SPEAKER_03 37:16

ThepinkB dot com. And we have linked to that in our show notes. I see that now. All right. Thank you so much, Megan, for taking your time uh today. Hopefully um we were uh we stay within our box of uh of today. And uh we hope that uh uh all of our weeks we uh our rest of our week will be very productive. So thanks for it.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

Yeah, not busy, productive.

SPEAKER_03 37:38

Not busy, but productive. Uh so thanks for time for doing uh. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

Thanks for listening to a Wiser Retirement Podcast. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Make sure to subscribe wherever you're listening, that way you don't miss any new episodes. We'd also appreciate if you could leave a rating and review. If you have any questions about anything that was discussed today, head to wiserinvestor.com and reach out. This podcast is strictly for informational purposes only and is not to be considered as investment advice or solicitation to buy or sell any financial products, securities, digital assets, or any other investment vehicles or a basis to make any financial decisions. Wiser Wealth Management Incorporated is a registered investor advisor with the SEC. The host and or guest may personally own securities, digital assets, or other investment vehicles mentioned on this podcast. Neither the host nor guest of the show are compensated for their participation, and no referral fees are paid to or received by any host or guest for clients, listeners, or similar interests. Investments involve risk, and unless otherwise stated are not guaranteed. Be sure to first consult with a qualified financial advisor, tax professional, insurance professional, andor legal professional before implementing any strategy discussed herein. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.