Freecurrences + taking a pause
A zoomed-in view of a cloudy sky.
This year, I decided to pick one exercise from my book to work through each month.
In February, I chose the freecurrences exercise from the money chapter. The exercise involves making a list of all the free subscriptions we currently receive. For me, this included mostly emails: newsletters, promotional emails (from stores, restaurants, musical artists, apps, etc.), surveys, financial news, and event notifications or offers.
The idea is this — while these “free” subscriptions don’t technically cost anything, their goal is to get us to click to learn more. I feel compelled to read the emails or look into what's being offered, which often leads me to buy (or financially commit to) something I otherwise wouldn’t have.
Instead of filing the emails away to read later, or even taking the tiny bit of time to make the decision to delete the emails, I’ve been clicking unsubscribe. I’m only keeping a few select newsletters that still bring me value.
I’ve spent almost the entire month on this exercise. My inbox, wallet, and brain are breathing a sigh of relief. I had forgotten how overwhelming it was to be tempted by sales and offers and promises of a better me. It has buoyed my spirits to remember that I already have everything I need.
This naturally led me to think about the newsletter that I write to you each month.
To be quite frank, I’m working on this the day before it’s scheduled to go out. Usually, I start a week or even several weeks before, but I felt a lot of resistance this month — perhaps more than I’ve ever felt when it comes to writing.
My lack of desire to write led me to consider whether I have writer's block. Morgan Housel — a prolific financial writer and the author of one of my favourite personal finance books The Psychology of Money — has an interesting take. In his words:
Good ideas are easy to write, bad ideas are hard. Difficulty is a quality signal, and writer’s block usually indicates more about your ideas than your writing.
For me, this holds some truth. I’m all ideas right now but I don’t have any motivation to write. And I think that’s because none of my ideas are sparkly enough to inspire me to put my book or puzzle aside and actually get to the hard work of writing. It’s become a chore, something I promised myself I’d do on the 23rd of every month.
Another quote from the same article:
Good ideas can’t be scheduled. They come randomly, usually after you read something that connects the dots to an unrelated thing. A lot of bad writing comes from scheduled writing.
This too is an interesting take, but I can’t say I agree with all of it. While we can’t control when good ideas arrive, I believe that a lot of good writing can come from a consistent, scheduled writing practice. The part I do agree with is that a sparkly idea is key.
I’ve been questioning whether I want to maintain my self-imposed newsletter schedule even in the absence of a sparkly enough idea, and I’ve decided to take a pause. While I’m not ready to give up scheduled writing altogether — I’m still writing morning pages every day and I still see the value in trying to write a blog post each month — I want to be more selective about what I send out. I’ll still aim to send out a newsletter on the 23rd of the month, but it won’t be every month.
By doing this, I can save some of my limited energy to do the fun projects that are calling to me, like my current 30 days to spring deep cleaning challenge. I also want to leave plenty of space for the things that are filling my soul these days: reading, catching up with friends, jigsaw puzzling, colouring, and playing cozy games.
In the end, I realized that freecurrences is so much more than just a money exercise. It’s also a time and attention exercise, both of which can be in short supply these days.
I hope my newsletter continues to bring you some value in your own self reflection journey. If or when it no longer does, please don’t hesitate to unsubscribe — no hard feelings. 🤗
This month’s reflective questions
What are some of the “freecurrences” or free subscriptions you currently receive? How do these add value to your life? Are there any hidden costs* to these freecurrences?
If you find that these freecurrences are no longer bringing you value, I’ll cheer you on as you let go of FOMO and click unsubscribe, reclaiming your money, time, and attention.
(*Hidden costs can include enticing you to buy something you wouldn’t have bought otherwise or distracting you from what you planned to do with your time.)
Until next time,
