Practice Fast Failure

Franklin D. Roosevelt was known for surrounding himself with a myriad of people with various expertise and methods to get a job done. Sometimes he even assigned the same job to different people just to see which approach got things where he wanted first.

Did it create some chaos and apparent inefficiency? Most definitely.

But were the best outcomes ultimately realized faster? Most definitely.

In short, FDR was an expert at fast failure.

And when you’re trying to accomplish anything complicated or difficult, especially outcomes that depend on tricky variables you don’t fully control, rapid experimentation and innovation is incredibly effective.

Managing finances falls firmly in this category. Our money is affected by external factors far beyond our control, as well as very specific personality characteristics that affect us only, but are also difficult to manipulate.

In short, it’s complicated.

It’s the exact reason why dozens of experts will sell you each a different system, plan, app, or philosophy. Even ChatGPT will provide you a reasonably good financial plan and budget.

The problem is that a tool’s usefulness is only as good as its fit with the person implementing it.

And each of us has unique strengths, weaknesses, priorities, philosophies, as well as different amounts of time and attention to dedicate to managing the household budget, planning for retirement, or handling insurance and estate planning paperwork.

This is partly why money management is so personal.

But it’s also why active experimentation is essential.

The specific approach to managing bills that works for me might not work for you. Or your best method might be a few iterations away from what you learn from me.

Maybe you’ve failed numerous times at following through on a plan to lower your day-to-day spending on takeout or shopping.

Does that mean you’re hopeless? Absolutely not.

It means you need to keep experimenting and evaluating to find the aspects that work well and those that don’t. You need to keep iterating to make the system more workable and effective for you.

It’s no different for any other feature of our daily life behaviors and choices.

Which type of diet works best for weight loss? The one you can stick to.

What’s the best money management system for financial security and freedom? The one you can stick to.

So start experimenting, evaluating, and iterating until you design the ‘just right’ approach for you.

It’s time to start practicing fast failure.