Welcome to Under 2, an email series delivering short insights to empower your money life – in 2 minutes or less.
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May always feels like a sprint.
It starts with new spring optimism—plans for patio upgrades, sprawling gardens, long walks, and day trips to museums.
But that hopeful energy quickly collides with real life: end-of-school events, kids’ sports, Mother’s Day, dentist appointments, work deadlines, and still only 31 days to manage it all.
This is when I’m reminded: the same principles that make money work long-term are what make anything work—start with a simple foundation, then optimize from there.
In other words, don’t attempt a full court press on some new dream. Just practice one new habit that helps you go in the right direction, with the understanding that you can build off of each small success, each tweak to the new system.
Better yet, don’t attempt to build from scratch with an entirely “new” system at all, if you can avoid it. Instead, use automatic routines and habits you already have and slip something new into that familiar mix. Habit stacking works because it borrows strength from your already engrained routines. A much simpler and more effective process than ambitious spring weather resolutions that don’t make it past the next Monday.
With our money, getting finances in shape requires attention to a variety of personal habits, one-time tasks, routine practices, mindset shifts, and more. The key is to pick one or two areas to focus first and let other items wait. (In Money $trategy $chool, learning to strategically, but officially, delay certain tasks is actually part of the training.)
Overwhelm is why many of us tend to start and stop our efforts, only to feel things fizzle a few months later, whether with our finances or with our ambitious vegetable garden plans and exercise goals.
But if you think of your financial life as a pyramid of layers, you can focus on simply laying a “good enough” foundation to get started—like identifying your key cash flow numbers or automating some saving and investing.
Then, you can fine-tune those foundational bricks later and build another layer, over time, as need or opportunity arises (and when it’s not May-cember). Because especially in seasons of chaos, success is usually found in the simplest (read: sustainable) systems.
May might not be the time to overhaul your life—but it’s the perfect time to focus on pouring a solid, smart foundation to support your ambitions.
You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
James Clear
I hope you enjoyed this edition of Under 2, an email series designed to share quick bites of wisdom to empower your financial journey (while keeping it short). Be sure to sign-up below to get these messages in your inbox.
All for now,
Lindsey