For a long time, my approach to money was reactive. I wasn’t building anything—I was cleaning up after myself. Every Sunday, I’d sit in front of my laptop and comb through transactions like I was reconstructing a timeline for a crime I didn’t remember committing. A round of drinks here, a subscription I forgot to cancel there, and the occasional cryptic charge that looked vaguely fraudulent but always turned out to be my own doing.
It wasn’t that I lacked discipline. I lacked structure.
I eventually stopped pretending that obsessively monitoring my accounts counted as financial management. I built a system that didn’t rely on willpower or perfect memory. Fixed expenses automated. Savings pulled before I could touch them. Categories aligned with how I actually lived—not how I thought I should. Most importantly, I removed myself from the equation as much as possible.
The point of a system isn’t to watch every dollar. It’s to stop thinking about every dollar.
Once the structure was in place, the noise dropped out. I no longer needed to question whether I could afford something. I already knew. I wasn’t making dozens of financial decisions every week. I had already made the important ones once, in advance, with a clear head. Everything else was execution.
What I got in return wasn’t just peace of mind—it was time. Time I used to spend worrying, recalculating, second-guessing. Time I now spend training, reading, walking with no destination, sitting in silence. Time I don’t owe anyone.
The money didn’t change. The system did. And with it, my entire relationship to time.