Burnout isn’t just an issue in the workplace. In fact, it may be even more common in our financial lives. Sure, we’ve all heard about the notoriously low savings rates in the U.S. and the paltry average savings in most households, but regardless of income, more than half of the country reports that they are living paycheck-to-paycheck.
Furthermore, in my experience working with predominantly wealthy families for the better part of the last 30 years, there’s no net worth number that results in the elimination of financial stress. There may, however, be a method for doing so, and as we often do, we must look outside of the financial domain for the wisdom to be applied in avoiding financial burnout.
Enter Cal Newport. Cal is by far my favorite productivity author. This is in part because there’s no schtick or sales in his writing—it’s evidence-based insight. But it’s also because Cal is living out what he recommends, and as I think you’ll observe in my conversation with him about his book, Slow Productivity, he exudes a patient presence that is as endearing as it is instructive.
So, what can we learn from Newport that is directly applicable in both our management of time and money?
The #1 Problem
“The number one problem we’re facing right now is too many things that we said yes to at the same time,” Newport told me.
While he may have been referring to creating a time debt due to saying “Yes” to too many asks at work, I believe this tendency for overcommitment is the number one problem in our personal finances as well. And I’m happy to give you a personal example:
My family moved from Charleston, SC to Atlanta, GA nine months ago. Having moved many times before—and knowing the pile of expenses that typically results from relocation—my wife and I weren’t navigating this major life transition blindly.
We had an open discussion, acknowledging the amount of savings that we’d likely need to dedicate to some upgrades to the house and new furniture. And then came back-to-school and the holidays and the New Year and those last few projects and items for the house—all of which, individually, seemed like reasonable and manageable expenses.
But adding ALL those expenses up, and the resulting depletion of our savings, still surprised us. And yes, that surprise surely manifested as stress. We were forced to admit that if we had done a better job of pausing before purchasing over the past nine months, we’d have made different decisions and invested in our new home more slooooowly.
Even the wealthiest clients I’ve ever worked with—people for whom we’d objectively say “money is no object”—face financial stress, and most often the origin of that stress is overcommitment of resources, the simple piling up of a seemingly small expenditures that add up to more than we’d expect.
To paraphrase Warren Buffett, we can do anything, but we can’t do everything all at once—and that’s why financial planning and time management are, first and foremost, exercises in prioritization before allocation.
Stress Reduction Through Two Lists
Did you know that the word priority wasn’t regularly pluralized until the Industrial Revolution? And yes, this is the key problem we face in allocating both our time and our money—that we have too many priorities. And when we have too many priorities, nothing is a priority.
Cal Newport recommends maintaining two companion lists that can be especially easily maintained with a simple kanban tool, like Trello, Asana, Notion, Todoist, or I use Microsoft Planner because it’s how our teams at work handle collaborative task management.
The first list is for Active projects, and whether we’re talking about work or wealth, there should rarely be more than two to three active projects. Then, we have a Holding projects list. This is where all new incoming projects or purchases go, and you can easily prioritize them with your teammates at work or your partner at home. Then, when you complete an active project, you slide the next priority from the Holding list to the Active list.
The paradoxical beauty of this technique is that when we are concentrating on fewer priorities at a time, we actually get more done—and with less stress!
Or, as James Clear, the author of the must-read, Atomic Habits, says, “The myth of multitasking is that it will make you more effective. In reality, remarkable focus is what makes the difference.”
Embrace Financial Recovery
Lastly, we must acknowledge that stuff happens. Life, work, and money all seem to have an inertia that pushes us toward overwhelm and burnout, so how can we ensure we only get hit with a glancing blow, rather than a knockout punch?
We build in periods of rest and recovery.
Newport acknowledges that he chooses to endure busier seasons—dedicating himself to scholarly articles for a stretch, then book writing, and then he’ll clear his calendar for a period of months only to do book promotion. We, too, must schedule periods of rest and renewal, both in our work and in our budgets.
This is precisely what my wife and I chose to do, by the way—to pause all new purchases and projects for the house, to acknowledge our gratitude for the house we’ve been blessed to make a home, and to be purposeful homebodies for a stretch, while we replenish our savings. It’s like intermittent fasting for your finances.
Conclusion
We’re all in this together. We’re all prone to overwhelm. We all want to say yes.
But as the ever-quotable Naval Ravikant reminds us: “The currency of life isn’t money. It’s not even time. It’s attention.”
So, as we think about how to prioritize and allocate two of our scarcest resources—our time and our money—let’s not forget the most valuable of all: our attention.
Because at the end of the day, financial well-being isn’t just about numbers on a spreadsheet. It’s about directing our attention toward what truly matters—whether that’s creating margin in our budget, setting thoughtful priorities, or giving ourselves permission to slow down.
And if you’re looking for more inspiration as you take these steps, in addition to Cal Newport’s newest book, Slow Productivity, I also highly recommend one of the few books I would call life-changing: Deep Work.
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