Busyness has long been a hallmark of American culture.
The French social-philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville during his travels in America in the 1830s remarked on how restless Americans seemed. Fast-forward almost 200 years, and the same observation holds.
“In today’s America, complaining about being busy and working all the time is so commonplace, most of us do it without thinking. If someone asks, ‘How are you?’ We no longer say, ‘Fine’ or ‘I’m well, thank you.’ We often simply reply ‘Busy!’” wrote scholars Silvia Bellezza, Neeru Paharia and Anat Keinan in the Harvard Business Review.
A sociologist friend once commented about how demanding the definition of the good life has become in modern America. Even a truncated list of exhortations experts have urged upon us is daunting: Be a creative worker and good colleague; watch what you eat, exercise often and embrace wellness; engage deeply with the people in your life (especially parents); pursue financial literacy; volunteer in the community; be a politically informed citizen; keep up with latest technologies; and so on.
One of the most important realizations in personal finance is understanding that time is our critical and scarce resource. Investment literature emphasizes the close relationship between risk and return, yet the classic formula should also include the “time” calculus. The practical application of adding time considerations into the mix of investment decisions is the embrace of simple money strategies that require minimal monitoring and decisions. Complexity absorbs (wastes?) huge amounts of time.
For example, 401(k) enrollment was disappointing when employers left it up to employees to join the retirement plan. Plan participation jumped when employers automatically enrolled employees even though there was an opt-out option. When a large company introduced auto-enrollment, the percentage contributing to the plan rose from 37% to 86%, according to a 2001 study. Subsequent experience and research showed auto-enrollment — as well as auto-escalation in contributions and the choice of target date funds — are both simple and time-efficient.
Busyness might be the American condition. My sense is normal stress levels are now heightened with the deep uncertainties President Donald Trump’s administration has unleashed. The Trump shock highlights that time awareness and financial simplification are always important to good household money management, especially in unsettling times.
There are both mental and financial rewards to automating personal financial decisions and money strategies as much as practical. As Benjamin Franklin wisely advised, “Lost time is never found again.”
