]For 2018, I want you to have time. Sweet, precious, time.

And understand me: I don’t want you to have more time, or productive time, or fulfilling time - all good things, don’t get me wrong, but not the kind of time I so desperately want for you.

No, the kind of sweet, precious time I’m wishing for is time that passes unnoticed while important shit is getting done. Debt is getting repaid, savings are growing, and you’re not lifting a finger or paying a single second of attention to making it happen. That kind of time.

Getting Shit Done While You Do Other Shit Time isn’t exactly easy to come by, which is why it’s the thing I want for you this year. Just like anything else worth having, you have to put some work into getting it.

What kind of work? I’m glad you asked.

You Need to Get Clarity

You need to get really, really clear about what you want and what you’re willing to give up to get it. Wouldn’t knowing how you’re invested make it easier to make decisions about the uncertain future? Wouldn’t taking account of exactly what you owe and what it’s costing you give you the kick in the pants you need to pay it off? Wouldn’t a precise knowledge of what triggers your spending help you understand why you spend and where to cut back (or spend more)?

You Need to Take Ownership

Before you can enjoy that sweet power of passing time, you have to get reflective. If you’ve known for years that you have a persistent credit card balance problem, but haven’t done anything about it, ask yourself why...and be prepared to dig around for an answer.

Develop your ability to step outside your lizard brain and observe the ways you’re not ready (because of your past, because of your values, because of whatever) to do the things that need doing. Distinguish between what you can and will do, and what you can’t and won’t do.

You Need to Build (or Rebuild) Structure

There’s a handful of things you can fix with grand, all-at-once gestures, like using a windfall to pay off debt and kick start your savings, or downsizing and relocating to permanently lower your cost of living. Everything else needs structure.

Now, by “structure” you and I both know that I’m not talking about a budget spreadsheet that makes you feel really healthy and wise while you’re setting it up and then languishes in your Google Drive somewhere for another year or two. I mean a set of strategies you’ve put into place to curb your self-defeating habits and automate your liberating ones. I mean the invisible stuff that does the boring work of supporting the important stuff.

You’ve Done the Work, Now Do the Time

Here’s the crux of it: maybe you have some new, shiny, scary-in-a-good-way goals this year (I do). Maybe you have a new cash flow or time management system (me and also me). Maybe you think the whole New Year thing is a crock and you’re just trying to get through the winter (me three weeks from now).

If you’ve done the work to get clarity about what you want, take ownership of what you have to do to get it, and build structure to make it happen even when you’re not paying attention, then you have to let time do its boring, unsexy work.

Wherever you are on your current journey, I can guarantee you that you’re going to feel as frustrated and out of control about whatever it is you’re trying to fix at some point in the next year. We all do.

Don’t just do something. Stand there.

A shorter list this month, because if you’re not baking and shopping and partying and preparing I want you to be relaxing. But if you’re relaxing already and want something good to read, you might enjoy reading about the beauty of re-gifting, budgeting like a flamingo, evidence-based retirement planning, and maybe not asking your banker if borrowing to invest is a good idea.

And if you can’t get to those, these three articles are a must.

The Unusual Reason it’s Hard to Finish the Year Strong Is...

From Jacquette Timmons

You’re about to be inundated with advice for finishing the year strong and starting 2018 well, and Jacquette has some uncomfortable truth for you:

“You see, your year-end review doesn’t just give you a snap shot of what’s happened with your money over the course of a year. It reveals your relationship with money. “It reveals a pattern of behavior regarding your choices, habits, and priorities. It reveals your values and what is important to you – not based solely on your words, but your deeds. “It reveals the tension between the person you are and the one you see yourself as being or becoming. And, I believe confronting this tension is the unusual reason it’s hard to do what is needed to finish the year strong(er). Because there is something you’re not ready to see.”

Read the full article here.

Five Simple Behavioural Tips for Better Long-Term Investment Decision Making

From Joe Wiggins

I can’t recommend these behaviours highly enough. I want you to laminate them and keep them in your pocket, and read them multiple times a day so you truly begin to act accordingly.Read the full article here.

We’re All Innocently Out of Touch

From Morgan Housel

We talked a little bit about this concept in a recent episode of Because Money with Dave O’Leary: how much our first exposure to investing and market activity frames our reasoning for the rest of our lives to some degree or another.

“An American born in 1970 saw stocks rise more than eightfold in their teens and 20s. An American born in 1950 saw stocks go nowhere in their teens and 20s. In Japan, the difference between back-to-back generations was losing 100% of your money vs. making 11.5x on your money. “Do you think these groups went through the rest of their lives thinking the stock market was capable of the same thing? Or posed the same risks? Or equally capable at securing a comfortable retirement?”

Read the full article here.

You can read this month's entire list below:

 Are You Budgeting like a Cat, a Monkey or a Flamingo? | Chris Enns

Do Just This One Thing To Improve Your Productivity Today | Niklas Goeke

Hoping to turbocharge your returns by borrowing to invest? Read this first | Tom Bradley

"Don’t get your banker involved until you’ve gone through good and bad markets with an all-equity portfolio."

Three Tips for Evidence-Based Retirement Plans | CFA Institute Enterprising Investor

“As the weather over each growing season and at harvest makes each vintage of wine unique, the year the client retires and the portfolio distributions begin has a big influence on the overall retirement experience.“

In Defense of Shameless Regifting | Piggy

“Wow, myrrh!” Mary exclaimed, “Babies just love fragrant gum resin! Thank you so much!” Then after the wise men left, she discreetly exchanged it for a Diaper Genie, because Saint Anne didn’t raise no fools. It’s in Matthew, look it up.”

Two Ways to Think About Making $30,000 a Year | Chris Enns

“For someone who doesn’t know a lot about money, ‘income’ seems like a really good metric.And sometimes it is.But you guys know that income is a hard thing to depend on. And I’m here to tell you that if you’re expecting more income to make you worry less… it won’t.”

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.

I noticed when I was reviewing the articles I’d marked for sharing with you lovely people that there’s a pretty heavy behavioural finance theme in this month’s reading list, so if you’re a fan of behavioural finance theory, you’re in for a treat.

If you’re not a fan...well, you can skip the next paragraph and go right to the Top Three...but you’re missing out. You don’t want to miss out, do you?

May I present, for your reading pleasure, a pair of articles about simplicity: this one from Daniel P. Egan of Betterment on situations where trying harder makes things worse, and this one from David Merkel on the virtues of a simple investment strategy. Plus, a sobering set of real-life examples where retirees - rationally - kept spending at an unsustainable rate, one neat trick for winning arguments about market returns, and a crucial reminder from my friend Chris Enns that the leaving mundane stuff off your to-do list and out of your budget to pay attention to the “important” stuff is a good way to stress yourself out and do a terrible job at everything.

And now:

Something is Wrong in Personal Finance [and the world]. Here’s How to Fix It.

From Kitty

If anonymous blogging duo Kitty and Piggy can be counted on for anything (and they can), it’s practical action and cussing. This foul-mouthed, sprawling list of big and small ways we can make ourselves and our communities better for our fellow human beings is a follow up post to The Financial Advantages of Being White, and a must-read.Read the full article here.

The Rent vs. Buy Decision

From John Robertson

John’s been talking about the math of renting your shelter vs. buying it ever since I met him, and he’s collected it all in one massive post here, plus links to his comprehensive calculator spreadsheet. This is the resource for anyone thinking this decision through.

Read the full article here.

Investor Protection Clinic is Open

From FAIR Canada

More of an announcement than a post, here’s some excellent news for Ontario investors: FAIR Canada and Osgoode Hall Law School have partnered up to start the Investor Protection Law Clinic, providing pro-bono legal assistance to harmed investors who can’t afford a lawyer to represent them.

Read the full article here. 

You can read this month's entire list below:

Why a Rational Retiree Might Keep Going Back to that ATM | Dirk Cotton

"I prefer to believe that most people would note their deteriorating finances and reduce spending in time, but retirees with more limited resources might end up in a spending trap in which their portfolio’s death march is the best of a poor set of choices. They might also fall victim to the "boiling frog" scenario in which the deterioration is so gradual that it fails to set off trigger points in time."

"Sometimes people are acting in their own interests but we just don't understand what those interests are."

The Law of Reversed Effort | Daniel P. Egan

"Imagine if you found a job that paid you a 25% bonus every day you didn’t come into work. How many days would you come into work?"

How Being ‘Time Poor’ Can Keep You From Getting Control of Your Money | Chris Enns

"Gaining control is not a lack of money… it’s a lack of time."

The Shallow Benefit of Deep Liquidity | Morgan Housel

"Investors are basically trying to diet while traders throw Snickers at them."

Note that while it might be easy to read this article as an argument for selling mutual funds with a deferred sales charge or DSC for short, it's not. The incentives in a DSC arrangement are all on the sales side.

The Many Virtues of Simplicity | David Merkel

Why taking a simple approach to investing is a wise thing to do.

Here's How You Build a Super Bowl Champion Portfolio (Hint: Pick Your Correlations Carefully) | Gatiz Roze

"Imagine a football coach who has the best eleven quarterbacks in the NFL altogether on the same team and puts them on field at the same time."

Reference Points | Ben Carlson

"The best way to win any argument about the markets is to change your start and end dates."

Early Withdrawal from RRSP for Low Income Year? | John Robertson

Yeah, yeah, he's in here twice. Sue me."

What if you’re in a period of your life where your income is temporarily low? Mat/pat leave, or a job loss, for example? It may make sense then to pull some of your money or investments out of the tax shelter when you can do so at a lower tax rate."

Sexy Spending and the Boring Things That Make it Possible | Chris Enns

"We all need to have our priorities straight in our heads. First, make sure the mundane is taken care of, and then we can worry about the sexy extra bits."

A real short list this month since we’re all still figuring out how this back to school stuff works (are those of you with kids surprised every year? I’m surprised Every. Single. Year.).

You have to check out the top three, but if you have time for more there’s a really good piece about actively seeking contentment from Morgan Housel and another one from Josh Brown about how protecting ourselves from low-probability risk costs often costs more than the risk we’re protecting against in the first place.

The Complex Motivations of Money and Retirement As the Freedom to Pursue Non-Monetary Work Rewards

From Michael KitcesThe question of what retirement looks like is one my clients often answer with, “I’ll probably still work, but I want to be able to work at things I love because I love them rather than because I need the paycheque.” This article from Michael Kitces is long - like all of his are - but densely-packed with research and observation on whether money is an effective motivator and what that means for the concept of “retirement” as we’ve traditionally understood it.

“Perhaps switching to more personally rewarding work, for less money, would be a good idea… especially if doing less-enjoyable work for more money is only to pursue a “retirement” goal that may not actually make you happy anyway.”

Read the full article here.

5 Steps to open a Registered Disability Savings Plan (RDSP)

From Kerry K. Taylor

My friend Kerry K. promises to warn you about “costly gotchas and pitfalls to avoid” while she walks you through the steps (in order, naturally) involved in opening an RDSP, and boy does she deliver (but of course she does, she’s Kerry).

There’s nothing I can add...go read it. 

You can read this month's entire list below:

When the hedge is worse than the thing being hedged | Josh Brown

"You know what’s easier than paying an arm or a leg for the type of insurance that murders you the majority of the time?"

Familiar Hard vs. Unfamiliar Hard | James Osborne

"Investing is hard. For most of us, it can be a familiar hard, but we always have unfamiliar hards. The first time in your adult life the market drops over 25%, it’s an unfamiliar hard. The first time it drops 25% when you have real money in the markets, when the dollar value of the fall is a significant portion (or multiple) of your annual budget, that’s an unfamiliar hard."

Saving Money and Running Backwards | Morgan Housel"If you’re going to grind, you better damn well enjoy the process."