When I Realized Money Wasn’t My Real Problem
Why our obsession with earning more is stealing the one thing we can never get back
I was sitting in my home office, stressed about quarterly numbers, when my 5-year-old wandered in.
“Papa, want to read with me?”
“Not now, little girl. I’m working on something important.”
She left. I kept working. An hour later, I found her in the living room, quietly reading by herself.
That’s when it hit me: I’d just traded an irreplaceable moment for a replaceable task.
The numbers I was stressing over? They’d be forgotten in a month. The chance to see her excitement about that new book? Gone forever.
Time—not money—is our real and only currency.
The Lie We Tell Ourselves
Our culture worships productivity, but we’re productive at all the wrong things.
We optimize for busy. We celebrate being “swamped.” We wear exhaustion like a badge of honor.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: Most of what we’re busy with doesn’t matter.
I used to think I needed more money to solve my problems. More money meant more security, more options, more freedom.
Money can be earned again. Time cannot.
No amount of money can buy back the morning you spent in meaningless meetings. No salary increase can return the evening you lost to email. No bonus can restore the weekend you gave to work that could have waited.
In chasing financial freedom, we often sacrifice the very thing that makes us free—our time.
Why Limits Actually Set Us Free
Recognizing the limits of reality makes us feel more free.
Everyone gets exactly 24 hours. Not 25, not 23. This constraint, which seems restrictive, is actually liberating.
When you accept that you can’t do everything, every choice gains weight. Every decision matters. Every moment becomes precious.
Before this realization:
I said yes to everything
I felt guilty about saying no
I tried to maximize every minute
I felt constantly behind
After accepting limits:
I choose carefully
I say no with confidence
I focus on what truly matters to me
I feel present in each moment
Limitations don’t restrict us—they force us to choose what’s actually important.
The Matthew Dicks Principle
There’s a quote that stopped me cold:
“People who do great things don’t wait until the time is right. They make the time.” —Matthew Dicks
Most of us are waiting for the perfect moment. When we have more money. When work settles down. When the kids are older. When we’re less busy.
The right time never comes. You make time for what matters to you.
The person writing that novel isn’t waiting for a clear schedule—they’re writing at 5 AM before work.
The entrepreneur building their side business isn’t waiting for less responsibility—they’re working weekends and lunch breaks.
The parent building memories with their kids isn’t waiting for a lighter workload—they’re choosing presence over productivity.
If something matters to you, you find time. If it doesn’t, you find excuses.
What Actually Makes You Productive
1. Start Your Day with What Matters Most
Not email. Not social media. Not “quick admin tasks.”
Before I check anything digital, I do one meaningful thing. Write. Exercise. Plan my day. Have breakfast with my family.
This sets the tone. Everything else feels less urgent when you’ve already accomplished something important.
2. Push Unimportant Meetings to the Afternoon
Morning brain is for creation, not collaboration.
Anything that requires deep thinking happens before lunch. Meetings, calls, and administrative tasks happen after 2 PM.
My most important work gets done when I’m sharpest, not when I’m exhausted from a day of interruptions.
3. Schedule Uninterrupted Work Like Sacred Time
Treat deep work like a meeting with your most important client—because it is.
Block 2-hour chunks with no notifications, no interruptions, no exceptions.
This isn’t selfish. This is when you create the value that justifies everything else.
4. Stop Giving Attention to Distractions
Every distraction you engage with teaches your brain to seek more distractions.
Phone in another room. Email checked twice daily. Social media scheduled, not spontaneous.
Your attention span grows stronger. Deep work becomes easier, not harder.
You can create leverage by trading time for trust.
You may not control company revenue directly. You’ve already exchanged your time for a paycheck. But within that exchange, you have choices.
Time for Trust:
Show up consistently
Meet your commitments
Communicate proactively
Support your teammates
Trust for Freedom:
Flexible work arrangements
Autonomy over your schedule
Space to do meaningful work
Protection from busywork
The more trust you build, the more control you gain over how you spend your time.
Living with Life’s Brevity
There’s something else about time that we don’t like to think about: It ends.
Accepting death—not dwelling on it, but acknowledging it—helps us value the time we have.
This isn’t morbid. It’s clarifying.
The questions that matter:
If I had six months left, would I spend it this way?
What would I regret not doing?
Who would I regret not spending time with?
What would I wish I’d said?
You don’t need a terminal diagnosis to ask these questions. You just need the courage to answer honestly.
The Small Moments That Matter
At home, I can watch my kids play, open the mail, and pet the cat.
These aren’t Instagram-worthy moments. They’re not productive in any measurable way. They don’t advance my career or increase my income.
But they remind me what time is actually for.
Not every moment needs to be optimized. Some moments are valuable precisely because they’re ordinary.
Notice when you’re present. Notice when you’re not. Choose presence more often.
The Universal Truth About Time
Even if our lives seem small in the vast universe, how we use our time still matters.
The universe doesn’t care how we spend our days—but we should.
The paradox: Accepting that your life is brief and small in cosmic terms makes every choice more significant, not less.
Every conversation matters because you can’t have infinite conversations.
Every project matters because you can’t complete infinite projects.
Every relationship matters because you can’t maintain infinite relationships.
The liberation: When you accept you can’t do everything, you become free to choose anything.
Your Time Audit
Here’s a simple exercise that changed how I think about time:
Week 1: Track Everything
Log how you spend every hour for one week. No judgment, just data.
Week 2: Categorize
Group activities into:
Essential (must be done by you)
Important (should be done by you)
Useful (could be done by you)
Wasteful (shouldn’t be done at all)
Week 3: Eliminate and Delegate
Cut everything wasteful. Delegate what’s useful but not essential. Focus on what’s important and essential.
Week 4: Protect Your Winners
Schedule your most important activities like appointments. Let everything else fit around them.
Every day, you make the same choice: Will you manage your time, or will time manage you?
Most people let time manage them. They react to urgent demands. They say yes to good opportunities that prevent great ones. They optimize for busy instead of meaningful.
You decide what matters. You protect what’s important. You say no to preserve space for yes.
Time becomes an ally instead of an enemy. Days feel full instead of frantic. Life feels intentional instead of accidental.
The best productivity hack isn’t a system or an app or a morning routine.
It’s remembering what you’re producing for.
Are you producing to impress others or to create something meaningful? Are you busy to avoid thinking about what actually matters? Are you optimizing for the appearance of progress or actual progress?
Stop asking “How can I do more?” Start asking “What’s worth doing at all?”
What’s one thing you’re giving time to that doesn’t deserve it? What’s one thing that deserves more time than you’re giving it?
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