Build Discipline by Not Checking Accounts (Monthly Challenge)

Build Discipline by Not Checking Accounts (Monthly Challenge)

I’ll use this monthly update post to issue a challenge to my readers.

Whether you’re a personal finance enthusiast, long-term investor, pursuing FIRE, or any combination of those, this challenge should positively affect your life. More specifically, it will benefit your well-being and improve your discipline, but also possibly free up some time due to more optimal allocation of resources.

Ready?

The challenge is:

Abstain from checking your accounts for a full month.

Let’s start slow and build it up step by step.

Not Checking Your Long-Term Portfolio

Investors often get really carried away with this one, so I’m putting it as the minimum requirement for the monthly challenge.

As we all know or some unfortunately experienced, checking a portfolio more frequently can lead to emotions overtaking one’s sanity. So completing this challenge won’t only make you more disciplined, but also has many other positive side-effects:

• Not overthinking about things we have no control over
• Not panicking and panic-selling consequently
• Not being affected in our actions by arbitrary trend lines
• Reduce anxiety, FOMO, and irrational behavior
• Reduce monetary losses and increase gains on the long run

Of course, anyone can revert back to the norm after a month, but after maintaining the discipline for a while, many will decide to do it indefinitely.

And of course, doing it forever might not be something we’re keen on. Especially those of us who have a strategic asset allocation as well, which may require adjustments at any day… Although stop and limit orders can achieve the same result.

Anyway, here’s a totally valid alternative for those that don’t want to abstain from daily updates:

Taking a month of not checking the portfolio more than once per day.

To be more specific: only check your portfolio once per day, at a predetermined time and never longer than 5 minutes.

You can do this!

Step Further: Not Checking Accounts

Let’s make it more personal.

For bonus points, we’re extending the same challenge for any type of account. This may include:

• Checking accounts
• Savings accounts
• Investing account
• Social media accounts
• Instant communication accounts
• Email accounts, etc.

In summary: any account. Even if it doesn’t fall under the mentioned categories – YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, any news source. Same goes for applications you don’t have an account on.

Needless to say, block notifications from all.

And exceptions are welcome. If it’s intentional – just do it. If you want to check something, if you need to reach out to someone, etc. But never, ever, under any circumstance, mindlessly scroll and double tap driven by instinct.

Again, the increase in discipline will be your most valuable gain.

And for many people, this will leave you with plenty of free time for yourself. Time that may have been unrewarded and spent on watching top 10 videos.

Pushing it to the Limits

For those willing to challenge themselves or have more room for growth, here are some extra ideas to take it to the next level:

• Extend the challenge to any compulsions you have
• Consuming processed sugar
• Excessive stimulation of any kind
• Weakening dopamine receptors

It can be literally anything. Anything you thought about changing or improving, but never got to it. Of course, feel free to include any/all restrictions or not. But the ones you’ll select, stick to them for the full month.

Self-imposed restrictions will eventually build habits. But even before, they’ll “create more time” (that would’ve been lost otherwise) and allow you to utilize it more productively. You might find yourself in a situation where you don’t need extra motivation to do what you procrastinated for a while… Simply because there is an abundance of time to make use of.

Alternatives and Bonuses

Remember, the rules are not strict or written in stone. Although we can call it #MonkWealthChallenge , the idea is you to decide which restrictions are the best one to impose and how much.

For the people who want to start but still allow for some more flexibility, here are a few approaches:

• Checking all accounts twice per day, at 12:00 and 17:00, for 5 minutes in total (setting up alarms will make it easy to track time).
• Checking all accounts once per day, at a predetermined time, plus allowing for restriction-free time after 21:00.
• Being absolutely strict every day apart from Saturday.

You get the idea. What’s important is to take action.

And if you want some rules to urge productivity instead of just restricting idleness, here are a few ideas.

Between 18:00 and 20:00, take “time for yourself”, where you’ll think, schedule, and refine your actions. Also, use this time to make baby steps towards a long-term goal that was neglected. At least start planning.

Also, try to be mentally present in everything you’re doing. Those two hours will be enough for you to take care of everything that’s piling up in the back of your mind during the day, so don’t get distracted. And an extra tip: carry an item in which you can write ideas as you go (your phone is sufficient). If something pops up in your head while you should have been focusing on something else, just write it down using meaningful keywords and evaluate it in those two hours for yourself.

Rarely are things urgent. If something really is, you’d just do it.

The idea is to limit unnecessary thinking. To free the mind of any anxieties and the constant pressure to solve problems.

I’ve tried this before and adopted it as a habit.

Will you join?