Starting My Journey Toward a Proactive and Fulfilled Life, I recently read the book Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell. The book presents fantastic principles on how entrepreneurs should organise their calendars, hire people to do the things they don’t enjoy, and the importance of having a big dream. In this blog, I will share how this book has transformed my approach to work and life in such a short space of time.
Hiring an Assistant for a Proactive and Fulfilled Life
The most actionable advice from the book is to hire an assistant to manage emails and calendars (at the very least). Taking this one step has significantly reduced my mental load and given me a lot more time to focus on producing for my clients. It’s hard at first to let go of checking emails regularly, but once you do, it feels like a tremendous weight has been lifted. The unanswered emails and follow-ups used to sit in the back of my mind, taking up valuable bandwidth. But not anymore—my assistant now monitors my emails and sends follow-up emails. This has really allowed me to focus my valuable time on tasks I’m good at, and, over time, as I continue to Buy Back My Time, it will allow me to work only on activities that I truly love.
When I look at the organisations I work with, I see a lot of senior managers wasting time on these low-value activities. Why not hire an assistant? I believe this should apply to any position from project manager and above. I’m sure a lot of you will be looking for every reason why this isn’t possible, with cost being the main obstacle. But think about how much time you waste checking emails and managing your calendar. If you add that time up, it’s probably more than the cost of an assistant. Don’t get trapped into thinking an assistant has to be a full-time, in-person resource. There are so many options available. Virtual Assistants are a great example of a cost-effective alternative to hiring a full-time employee. An assistant could also be shared across multiple managers, spreading the cost over multiple cost centres. I encourage you to consider this transformative approach to your work.
Designing My Perfect Week for a Proactive and Fulfilled Life
The next actionable piece of advice—and the one I want to focus on most in this blog—is to design your Perfect Week. To design your Perfect Week, you add all the activities (work, personal, and family) that you want to fit into a typical week. Exercise, focused work, availability for meetings, hobbies, family time—it all goes into the calendar. By doing this, you allocate your precious time to those things you want and intend to do. If something unexpected arises that needs to be added to the calendar, you are clear-eyed about what you are saying no to. It’s such a great concept, which I’ve enjoyed implementing, and so far, I’ve seen fantastic results.
But I am having some challenges with the calendar. Because every minute is accounted for, I’ve started to feel a bit trapped. There is time for exercise, work, family time, books and guitar. I’m operating at peak productivity, yet I am feeling drained. I really noticed this feeling over the weekend. Something was off. It wasn’t unhappiness or emptiness, but rather a dissatisfaction and feeling of depletion.
I’ve done considerable work on my strengths over the past 12 months, which has given me the language to understand my emotions and motivations. In this instance, I thought that perhaps I needed to use my Intellection strength to uncover what was ailing me. Intellection requires time to conceptualise, think, ponder, and generally process things. My fully booked go-go-go schedule wasn’t allowing any time for that.
So, on Monday morning, I took off down to the beach for an hour and just let my mind wander. I allowed it to connect the dots, bringing feelings and thoughts to the surface. As I analysed these feelings, I realised that I had become too focused on billable hours—getting more work done and bringing in more money. Which is, of course, important for my family and our goals. But I’m driven by purpose, not money, so prioritising billable hours was coming at the expense of my well-being and satisfaction with my life. I needed to add time for fun, rest, and reflection into my calendar.
What about a Perfect Year?
As I was contemplating my life, I remembered a big goal I set for FY2025/2026: to take all 12 weeks of the school holidays off. That desire conflicted with the compulsion to chase billable hours, as my income would likely decrease if I took 12 weeks off a year. After thinking deeply about my life, I concluded that spending time with my children—particularly while they are young—is far more important than maximising my income.
On the flip side, though, taking this time off and building strong bonds with my family will nourish my soul and allow me to dream of an even bigger future. It will give me more time to work on myself and become the best version of who I can be. I can’t do that while stuck at a desk working. For me, relationships and personal goals are truly more important than money. As a wise man once told me, “Money is a means to a purpose.” And for me, that purpose is building a wonderful, enriching life with my family.
Conclusion
Summing up, hiring an assistant has liberated me from the brain drain of email management and allowed me to focus on high-value tasks. My first iteration of my Perfect Week, while not perfect, has helped me be proactive with my time. I’ll keep iterating my Perfect Week until it delivers the life I want, where every day feels like the best day of the week.
Finally, my goal of taking 12 weeks off a year is part of designing my Perfect Year (also from the book). My Perfect Year will include all the things I want to do in the next year before I add to my perfect workweek calendar. That way, I will never use “I’m too busy” as an excuse to miss important personal events. I love this concept, and I can’t wait to fully implement it.
If you want to be more proactive with your time, I really recommend you read Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell.
