There’s a mostly fun deluge of events, meals with friends, and parties just over the horizon, and, depending on what holidays you celebrate, what your family is like, and how much pie is involved, you might be looking forward to the end of the year with some combination of excitement, dread, and hunger.

Like the dedicated planners I am, I want you to be prepared and excited for the end of the year and rapidly approaching tax season. Yes, I said excited, and - because I’m awesome like that - I have a tool to help you do it. Nothing’s more exciting than a busy season that you prepared for ahead of time.

What follows is something I learned from my friend and colleague Chris Enns after comparing notes on those hard lessons about being realistic with my time that I learned at the beginning of the Free(ish) Friday Experiment.

It starts, as many almost-too-simple-to-be-true things do, with a pen and a piece of scrap paper. SI use a spreadsheet (because of course I do) that I’ll happily share with you, but paper works really well for a first stab at this.

STEP ONE: Think, think, think

Give yourself five minutes, and write down every single thing that will make your year-end/year-beginning easier and more enjoyable. Include All The Things, from making sure your party clothes don’t have funky stains from last year’s office party to making this year’s RESP contribution to deciding on that one hard-to-think-of gift early enough that you don’t have recurring nightmares about forgetting it.

STEP TWO: Think some more and probably have a moment of genius in the shower

Now - and this is important - put the list away until tomorrow. Set a reminder in your calendar or stick a post-it note in a really annoying place so you don’t forget about it, and let your list percolate overnight, a surefire way to think of even more things to add to it.

STEP THREE: Break it down

This step is the most important one, trust me. Go through the list and break every item down into small enough pieces that they’re relatively equivalent to each other. So, instead of “buy presents for everyone” you could write “set a budget for gifts,” “make a list of everyone to buy presents for,” “organize list by when I’ll see them,” “brainstorm items,” “group items by where to buy them (online, local store, store I have to travel to,” “order online gifts,” “pick up local gifts,” “schedule time to batch shopping I have to travel for”...you get the idea.

STEP FOUR: Start a fight

It’s time to put your tasks against each other in thrilling head-to-head combat. Start by comparing item one to item two: if you could only do one of these two things, which one would it be? Give that item a point and move one space down the list, comparing item one to item three, item one to item four, and so on.

Once item one has fought every other item on the list, start with item two versus item three, then item four, moving down the list until you’ve compared everything to everything else.

STEP FIVE: Count it up

Now, tally the points you gave to each task and order them by which item has the most points down to the least (this is where that spreadsheet with its data sorting function comes in handy). Roughly speaking, the top fifth of your list is your Must Do list; those things that, when compared to everything else you want to accomplish, came out on top. The next fifth is your Will Do list, not much different than your Must Dos, really, but slightly less fraught. The next fifth is your Want to Do list, followed by your If I Can list.

STEP SIX: Learn to love the NOPE

The last fifth of your list is in some ways the most important. You can’t do all of the things, and learning to love the NOPE is the way you’re going to accomplish the important things and then give yourself permission to rest. These are the items from your painstakingly compiled list that you’re going to let go, because letting go of the least important things only increases your capacity to embrace the most important things.

And that’s what I want for you: to finish the year strong, prepare yourself for a productive 2018, and fully embrace the things that are crucial to your health, success, and well-being.

What I dearly want for you this year is structure.

(Just what you'd expect from an introverted money nerd who once answered "spreadsheets" when asked to name one thing that made her happy to her son's kindergarten circle, am I right?)

Listen, when you hear "structure" I don't want you to think about restrictions. The kind of structure I'm wishing for you has nothing to do with timetables, spreadsheets, or checklists (unless you're into those sorts of things). I'm not trying to convince you to track your time, food, or money in a little book somewhere, or to twist yourself into knots in an endless pursuit to maximize, optimize, or anything-ize your life according to whatever "10 Ways Successful People Brush Their Teeth" article that's making the rounds this week.

The kind of structure I want for you has nothing to do with conventional definitions of success (higher net worth! efficient use of time! productivity! peak performance!) and everything to do with freedom -- within whatever circumstances life has placed you in -- to be more you and to live more life.

What is structure, after all, but the invisible stuff that does the boring work of supporting the important stuff?

Let's rewind a bit, because this is really part three of a story I've been telling for years.

In 2015, I wanted you to have clarity, remember?

How would your life be better if you were absolutely clear about what you want your life to look like, the resources you have or will have at your disposal, and the obstacles that you’ll have to get over, around, or through to make it happen?

Pursuing clarity means paying attention. Often in financial planning, as in most data-heavy professions, we encourage you to pay attention to easily measurable things like how you spend your money, how it's invested, and what you're going to spend it on over the next five, fifteen, or thirty years.

But how do you feel?

It's equally important to pay attention to how satisfied/restless/anxious you are today and how excited/worried/unhappy you about tomorrow, and how those feelings change with new information, a change in direction, or sometimes something as simple (seeming) as the weather/news/that vexing update on Facebook.

Pursuing clarity means keeping your eyes open to the (changing) combination of circumstances that give you a sustained feeling of contentment with both the present and the future.

In 2016, I wanted you take ownership. To get comfortable with your own definition of success, to stop apologizing for the ways your direction veers away from the conventional path or looks like someone else's definition of failure. To fearlessly be the most authentic version of you. To trade away the things that don't fill you up for things that do.

To outsiders, your contented, authentic self might look too lazy, too ambitious, too social, not social enough, materialistic, ascetic, too involved with your kids, not involved enough at your church...there's an infinite number of ways that a well-meaning community, predatory marketers, and privileged bloggers can make you feel bad about all the things you aren't doing well enough or aren't doing period. Don't let them (not even me).

Well, that's easy to say

Exactly. That's why we need structure.

I'll give you some examples of structure that flows from clarity and ownership in my own life. Be warned, though: they're not particularly counter-cultural. Anyone who's spent more than five minutes with me knows I'm a natural-born Hufflepuff: unambitious, stubborn, plodding...in short: boring and proud of it, so don't expect anything earth-shattering.

First example: I finally realized that Facebook vexes me, and that although I love all (most of) the people I'm friends with and want to stay connected with what's happening in their lives, I don't want to mindlessly scroll through a newsfeed full of whatever Facebook has decided I should look at today. The happiest me is one who connects with people, not an algorithm, and I'm okay with missing a few things and being out of touch by not constantly checking in. It might not sound like structure to you, but the simple act of deleting the app from my phone stopped the mindless scrolling. It's just not something I do on my laptop. 

Another example: For the longest time, I thought I had to have free bank accounts and the best rewards credit card, because only dummies pay service fees or miss out on points, right? This led to a soul-sucking tangle of accounts that took tremendous mental energy to sort through every two weeks. I'm my happiest self when I'm reconciling accounts, absolutely...but not when reconciling accounts and transferring money all over creation is stealing time and energy away from more important things. With inspiration from my good friend Chris, I drew a picture of the fewest number of accounts that will still keep my business and personal stuff separate, and it's so streamlined that I reconciled my bank accounts on New Year's Eve. For fun.

One last example, I promise: Last year I realized just how frazzled it made me to fit focused work in between meetings and phone calls every day of the week while still leaving enough space to be with my family, serve my community, visit friends, and read a book or two. I'm my happiest self when I have big stretches of time to spend on whatever I want without rushing to the next thing, so I stopped scheduling meetings outside of Mondays and Tuesdays. I was worried that clients would be upset, colleagues would give up on me, and potential clients would call somebody else, but clients weren't, colleagues didn't, and potential clients might have but I'll never know the difference.

(I warned you I was boring)

Let me sum up: Structure is intentionally designing the default settings of your life to align with what you want it to be. It's automatic permission to be a little more yourself. Structure is saying no to a lot of things that don't mean much at all so you can say yes to the few things that mean a lot.

In 2017, what I want most for you is to get clear about what fills you up, get brave about pursuing it even in the face of opposition, and set yourself up to say no to everything else.

Hi Sandi

I know you are often looking for article ideas and I'm wondering if you would feel in the mood to write something to motivate folks who are doing okay, have a plan, no debt,....but need to avoid the temptation to go into debt (aka buy a cottage). It's nice not having debt, but I could use a lecture on staying focused and sticking to the plan. ~L

Let's unpack this request a little, because it seems as though there's more than just "tell me not to do an unwise thing" going on here. There's a lot to say about the specific temptation - the cottage, and the borrowing to get it - but there's even more to say about the whole concept of goals, motivation, and success. What I really want to know is why "doing okay"

isn't enough for you.

Are you really okay?

Like every professional everywhere, my knee-jerk response is to believe that what you really need is me, so forgive the bias inherent in this question: how do you know you're okay? Are you using your lack of debt as a proxy for overall financial well-being? It's dangerous to move on to the advanced classes before mastering the prerequisites, so before graduating to "now what", re-examine your true financial situation, and be careful to identify any risks to your ongoing stability that you might have overlooked.

Are you aiming at what you're really interested in?

If you're spending well, saving appropriately, on track for the goals you've planned, and have adequately protected yourself from as much risk as you can, congratulations. Why aren't you satisfied? 

Is it possible that the plan you have right now isn't motivating you because it isn't actually what you want?In my profession, we're very guilty of focusing on the goals to the exclusion of anything else - the educations, the vacations, the retirements, and leaving the meaning and fulfilment (which can't be measured and don't pay a commission) to sort themselves out.

This is partly because we're trained to think in the language of dollars and cents and amortization and future values and rates of return, and have a very difficult time translating those useful concepts into the language of humans and relate them to meaning and relationships and value. We focus on reaching SMART goals, but don't spend much time worrying about whether the direction we're headed is the right one.

I want to pause here for a minute and illustrate what I mean when I talk about the difference between goals and direction by going on a canoe trip together down the Spanish River. Our friend is going to drop us off at Duke Lake on Saturday, and will be at Agnew Lake Lodge the following Saturday to pick us up. That means that our specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound goal is to be at Agnew Lake Lodge in seven days. Everything else is direction.This means that we have a whole host of choices in front of us:

• We could paddle flat out, make it to the Lodge by Wednesday afternoon, and lounge around until our friend shows up

• We could take it easy, picking the perfect campsites and enjoying long afternoons by the river

• We could run each set of rapids twice, because we love whitewater so much

Of course, it also means that there are quite a few things outside of our control that will have an effect on how enjoyable the trip is and how quickly we reach our destination (or if we reach it at all). One of us could get sick and need to be evacuated. There could be a flood, fire, or crazy bear attack.

Our goal – the Lodge on Saturday – might not be the most important thing about this trip. Let's face it, our goal is only the thing that happens at the end.

If the goal was Being at the Lodge rather than Getting to the Lodge, our perception of the journey itself would change dramatically. Forget paddling, let's just drive to the Lodge and hang out for a week, right?

I could go on with the analogy, but I think you get the picture. Goals are important – they're the proverbial tip of the iceburg – visible, measurable, top of mind in a traditional financial planning engagement – but direction is what's going on under the surface. Goals change. Purposeful direction doesn't change much.

Let's talk about this cottage thing

So is the lure of the cottage really about the cottage? Or is it about the cottage lifestyle? Is it possible that the thing you're tempted to go into debt to buy is just a stand-in for the kind of life you wish you had?

I live in beautiful Muskoka, which means that from Victoria Day to Thanksgiving thousands of folks from Toronto stream past my front porch on the way to their cottages. I envy them their early mornings on the dock, days spent canoeing on the lake or reading in a hammock, and long evenings around the campfire, I really do. I'm intimately acquainted with the dream of cottage life.

But I'm also intimately acquainted with the work involved in owning the cottage life instead of renting it for a week or two in the summer. People who own their cottages have to either pay for property maintenance or spend a lot of cottage time repairing the dock, opening or closing for the season, fighting carpenter ants, trimming back trees, fixing the roof, and repairing the garbage bin after (another) bear visit. Owning a cottage costs money and time. You'd better be really, really clear that you want what you're buying.

Would-be cottage owners sometimes think to solve the problem of cost of their vacation property by renting it out, which - of course - means that there's even less cottage time to go around, and even more maintenance to do yourself or pay someone else to do to keep the property clean and rent-able. Being able to deduct the partial cost of owning and operating your cottage as a rental property and breaking even on cost doesn't offset the fact that you won't be the one there enjoying it most of the time.

Asking "now what?" might be signal that you want something else

So the real cottage question is this: what is it about the cottage (or any temptation to go "off-plan") that is more attractive to you than the goals you already have, and does it make sense for you to re-examine those goals? Is your life too fast? Too crowded? Too busy? Do you need to be purposeful about taking time off and giving yourself permission to relax? Do you just need to get outside more?

If you've critically examined your desire to own a cottage and it's not a stand-in for something else that's missing from your life, and if the realistic costs are well within your ability to pay without jeopardizing your financial well-being, or if you're willing to sacrifice equally costly goals to move towards this one, then maybe you should do it.

Where's the sense in saving wisely for a goal you might not actually want?  

Last year, what I wanted most for you was clarity, remember?

How would your life be better if you were absolutely clear about what you want your life to look like, the resources you have or will have at your disposal, and the obstacles that you’ll have to get over, around, or through to make it happen?  

Would knowing how you’re invested make it easier to make decisions about the uncertain future? Would having a clear debt-free date encourage you to keep on keeping on? Would a precise knowledge of how you spend help you understand why you spend and when to cut back (or spend more)? 

I submit to you that it would. At the risk of really oversimplifying your complicated life, understanding where you are now is the only way you can make plans to get to where you want to go. Clarity about your direction is the only sure defense against getting lost when bad news spins you one way and good news spins you the other. 

One thing to understand about the pursuit of clarity is that it’s not a once and done activity. Life changes. Goals change. People change. My husband and I have been married for fourteen years, and I don’t think there were two in a row that were the same in terms of jobs, homes, cities, or plans. 

My hope for you this year is that – no matter what your circumstances – you take the time to get really, really clear about what those circumstances actually are, and plan to repeat the process when they change.

As we face 2016, what I want for you hasn't really changed, just matured: I want you to have clarity, but I also want you to be engaged. To make an effort.

To take ownership.

Now, let's be clear (there's that clarity thing again), because words like "ownership" and "effort" can easily convey a sense of finger-wagging accusation, as if any mistakes you've made or trouble you've encountered could have been easily avoided if you'd just been carrying your money around in envelopes like you were supposed to.

This coming year has nothing to do with guilt and everything to do with encouragement: now that you know where you are, I want you to commit to where you want to go.

If clarity about your current circumstances equips you to aim for what you really want, ownership equips you to act. The coming year is guaranteed to be full of surprises. Clarity - knowing how surprises have affected you in the past - is good, but organizing your financial infrastructure around adapting to surprises is better, and that's ownership.An easy example: the holiday season is almost over. Calculating how much you spent on gifts, food, and general 'it's the holidays"-type things and reflecting on how well that number matches up with what's really important to you is an exercise in clarity.

Ownership is starting a holiday savings plan in January or talking to your family about alternatives to gift giving in order to more purposefully align the kind of holiday season you have next year with what's actually important to you.

Too often in finance we use grand goals to motivate behavioural change: "Save for your early retirement on the beach!" or "Fund a year-long trip around the world!" Most of us don't have goals that glamorous; in fact, most of us don't have specific goals at all. I'd bet that the overwhelming majority of folks reading this right now just want 2016 to be better than 2015.

You'd like to be able to pay the bills with less worry. You'd like to save a little more. You'd like a little more wiggle room, a little more flexibility, a little more stability.In the past, you wished for things to be better. You hoped for your circumstances to change, rather than your behaviour, but incremental improvement is a goal, you know, however unsexy it may sound.

Just like the glamorous ones it's a goal that needs to be worked towards, and that means taking ownership. This year you're going to identify that small handful of improvements that you can make to better align your money with your life, that prepare you just a little better for all that 2016 might hold, and you're going to actually pursue them.

This is the year you stop wishing and start doing.  

This is the year.

I want so many things for you this year: I want you to have more than you need and to enjoy the luxury of spending within your means, on things that are meaningful to you. I want you to have fulfilling employment, self-employment, or no employment. I want your income to be steady, predictable, and abundant.

I want those things for you even though this might be the year of illness, job loss, costly emergencies, and plain old doing what you have to do because you have to do it.Some of the things I want for you might be out of your reach: your income might come in fits and starts. Your boss might be miserable and your co-workers more so. Your expenses might exceed your income.

You might (understandably) be asking yourself what on earth I'm getting so excited about if there's a good chance that 2015 might not be better than last year and might actually be worse.

So when I say "this is the year", I don't want to follow it with empty promises of abundance and the unspoken implication "but only if you work with a financial planner". Nope, 2015 isn't "the year you hire a financial planner".

2015 is the year of clarity.

If that sounds a little womp-wah to you, then I'm sorry. We're not reinventing the wheel here. But let me submit to you that the pursuit of clarity is under-rated.

How would your life be better if you were absolutely clear about what you want your life to look like, the resources you have or will have at your disposal, and the obstacles that you'll have to get over, around, or through to make it happen? Would knowing how you're invested make it easier to make decisions about the uncertain future? Would having a clear debt-free date encourage you to keep on keeping on? Would a precise knowledge of how you spend help you understand why you spend and when to cut back (or spend more)?

I submit to you that it would. At the risk of really oversimplifying your complicated life, understanding where you are now is the only way you can make plans to get to where you want to go. Clarity about your direction is the only sure defense against getting lost when bad news spins you one way and good news spins you the other.One thing to understand about the pursuit of clarity is that it's not a once and done activity.

Life changes. Goals change. People change. My husband and I have been married for fourteen years, and I don't think there were two in a row that were the same in terms of jobs, homes, cities, or plans.

My hope for you this year is that - no matter what your circumstances - you take the time to get really, really clear about what those circumstances actually are, and plan to repeat the process when they change.

--

If this all sounds a little hippy-dippy, pie-in-the-sky for you, then here are some practical ways to get cracking on clarity

:If you have no idea how you spend your money:

Pull out or download your bank and credit card statements, and add up everything you earned and everything you spent last year.

If you have no idea what you're invested in:

Make friends with Morningstar or Globefund. Request the fund fact sheets from your financial advisor. Check out this interactive primer from the Canadian Securities Administrators and commit to looking up anything you don't understand.

If you have no idea when you'll be done paying off your credit card, loan, line of credit, or mortgage:

Use this calculator from Get Smarter About Money and figure out when each of your debts will be gone.

If you know all this stuff already, but don't have any idea what it all means for your real, everyday life:

Start reading, listening, and thinking. The Wealthy Barber Returns. The Value of Simple. The Because Money podcast. This subreddit. Happy Money. MoneySense magazine.

Depending on your position in life, your interests, and the amount of time you have, there's a book, blog, magazine, or podcast out there for you. Probably more than one.