I was just reading online that a former butler to the royal family said that he overheard Prince Philip say to the Queen as they left the wedding of Prince Harry and Megan Markle, “Thank **** that’s over.” I thought, Now there was a man who valued time! Many may recall the video of an impatient Philip tersely telling a photographer at a photocall to “Just take the ****ing picture!” Who wants to sit around waiting for everyone to pipe down and take their places for a photo when you’ve spent half of your life (or more) posing for photos? Prince Philip was ninety-four years old in 2015—no doubt he had a keen awareness of his time.     

When I took Sahil Bloom’s The Wealth Score Quiz, Time Wealth was something I lacked, so now I’m trying to channel my inner Prince Philip and make good use of the time I have left on this planet. If you, too, feel the time suck of energy draining activities, Bloom lays out the tools you need to carve out time for the things that matter to you in chapter nine of his book, The Five Types of Wealth: A Transformative Guide to Design Your Dream Life (Ballantine, 2025).

Blooms lists twelve specific systems for success in his chapter titled, “The Time Wealth Guide.” You aren’t expected to use all of them, just skim through them and find one or two that resonate with you. I picked the following two: The Anti-Procrastination System, and The Flow State Boot-Up Sequence. 

The Anti-Procrastination System

The Anti-Procrastination System has three core steps: 1) deconstruction; 2) plan and stake creation; 3) action. 

Procrastination is rooted in intimidation, so deconstruction involves breaking your big goal into small, bite-size tasks. My big goal is to finish my 65,000-word manuscript. Deconstructing that goal, I came up with the following tasks: craft outline; assess completed chapters; address holes in narrative; write conclusion.

Step two of the Anti-Procrastination System is to plan and stake creation which is about what you are going to do and when you are going to do it. Consider my first task: craft outline. It’s pretty simple, so I set my due date for August 23, 2025. The next two tasks are assessing my completed chapters and addressing holes in the narrative. To accomplish this, I will work for one hour each morning and produce five new or reworked pages to share with my critique group each week.

Bloom recommends creating stakes to increase adherence to the plan such as making a public declaration: Hello, Citizen readers! Don’t forget to reward yourself for successful completion of your tasks. I plan to treat myself to an iced espresso every Friday on my way to work to celebrate successful weeks. When the week is a bust, I will recalibrate and make adjustments as needed. It may mean spending additional time in the evenings or on weekends getting my pages done, but honestly, I’m beat at the end of the day. My hope is that in itself will motivate me to get my pages done first thing in the morning.  

The last core step of the Anti-Procrastination System is action. Plan a kick-starter for your first day of action. I used what Bloom calls “the lion technique” and did a short, thirty-minute writing sprint this morning (an easy victory to build momentum), followed by a period of rest, which for me was sipping coffee and watching fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi on QVC. (I bought a faux suede pair of pants on clearance!) 

I’m still working on my Flow State Boot-Up Sequence which is, in a nutshell, a set of actions that get you ready for a period of deep focus. Maybe it’s a morning stretch followed by a light breakfast before settling in at your desk with your coffee and favorite playlist playing in the background.  

Interested in taking part in a monthly discussion about The Five Types of Wealth to help you achieve your goals? Email me at [email protected].

First meeting will be in September. Day and time TBD.