Stop Managing Time and Start Managing Your Focus
By Derek — Money isn't complicated. People just make it complicated. ·
Look, I’m writing this on a Tuesday morning, right after watching the highlights from the Monaco GP. If you’ve followed me for a minute, you know I’m obsessed with Formula 1. It’s not just the speed; it’s the engineering, the strategy, and the fact that a race is won or lost in the margins.
I see my clients—founders, high-earners, people trying to build something—approach their calendar the same way a rookie driver approaches a street circuit: they’re braking at the wrong time, ignoring the racing line, and wondering why they’re hitting the wall.
We love to talk about "time management" like it’s some magical productivity hack. It’s not. There are 24 hours in a day, whether you’re sitting in a cubicle in Charlotte or running a multi-million dollar firm. The clock is the simplest part of the equation. The problem isn’t that you don’t have enough time. The problem is that you’re letting other people spend it for you.
The Goldman Sachs School of Hard Knocks
Back when I was at Goldman, I learned the most valuable lesson of my career: your calendar is a balance sheet.
In finance, if you mismanage your capital, you go broke. In life, if you mismanage your attention, you go irrelevant. I’d watch MDs walk into a room, look at a spreadsheet for thirty seconds, and know exactly which numbers mattered and which were just noise. They weren't "busy"; they were surgical.
Most people I coach today operate like they’re running a charity for other people’s agendas. They open their email at 8:00 AM and let the world dictate their priority list. That is a loser’s game. If you aren’t setting the terms of your day, someone else is, and I promise you, they don’t care about your long-term goals as much as you do.
Auditing Your "Mental Capital"
Money isn’t complicated. People just make it complicated. The same applies to your day. You need to start treating your focus like a finite asset.
For the next 48 hours, I want you to do an audit. Keep a note on your phone. Every hour, write down exactly what you did. Don’t lie to yourself. Did you spend 45 minutes scrolling LinkedIn? Did you sit in a "sync meeting" that could have been a three-sentence Slack message?
When you see the data, you’ll realize that 70% of what you do is just keeping the lights on, not building the engine. You can’t win a race if you’re spending your pit stops polishing the paint. You need to identify your 'High-Value Activities' (HVAs). These are the things that actually move the needle on your wealth, your business, or your sanity. Everything else? It gets automated, delegated, or deleted.
The Art of the "Strategic No"
Here’s where people get uncomfortable: saying no.
We’re conditioned to be polite. We’re told that saying yes to everything makes us "team players" or "grinders." All that does is dilute your value. Every time you say yes to a meeting you don’t need to be in, you are saying no to a deep-work session that could have doubled your revenue.
I’m not saying be a jerk. I’m saying be a steward of your own time. If a potential client or a colleague asks for your time, ask yourself: "Does this align with my primary objective for this quarter?" If it doesn't, you have a ready-made script. "I’d love to help, but my plate is at capacity right now. Let’s revisit this in Q3."
If they get mad, they weren’t the people you needed in your corner anyway.
Protect Your Pit Lane
In F1, if the mechanics are distracted, the car doesn't leave the box. Same thing applies to your morning. Stop checking your notifications the second your eyes open. That’s handing your brain over to the platform algorithms before you’ve even had a chance to drink your coffee.
Give yourself the first 90 minutes of the day. No email, no Slack, no news. Do the hardest, most cognitively demanding task while your mind is still fresh. I do my best analytical work at 6:30 AM before the rest of the world wakes up and starts demanding pieces of me. By the time 10:00 AM hits and the chaos starts, I’ve already won the morning.
Keep It Simple
Don’t overcomplicate this. You don’t need a fancy productivity app, a life coach, or a color-coded calendar that looks like a bowl of Fruit Loops. You need a ruthless filter.
Focus on the 20% of your activities that produce 80% of your results. Everything else is just noise. If you want to build wealth, you have to protect your time like it’s the most valuable currency you own—because it is. Gold appreciates, but you can always make more gold. You can’t make more time.
So, what are you going to cut from your schedule tomorrow? Shoot me a reply and let me know what you’re clearing off your plate. I’m curious to see who’s actually ready to drive the car for real.
Catch you on the next lap,
Derek