How much of your life do you spend pleasing those around you? Maybe it’s time to be honest with yourself, invest time in the things that really matter, and start weeding out unnecessary obligations to people you don’t really like. But how exactly are you supposed to do that?

In this episode of Simplify, Sarah Knight will help you start a process of mental decluttering and show you how to develop your personal “fck budget”, i.e. the amount of fcks you are prepared to dispense on any given day. Use it as a filter to make sure you’re spending your time, energy, and money on the things that actually matter to you.

Listen to this episode if you want to have more confidence in asking for what you want in life, and learn how to get it without feeling guilty or worrying about what others think.

Stick around after the interview for when Ben Schuman-Stoler joins Caitlin Schiller to talk about the main takeaways from the conversation with Sarah Knight and helps put together a book list for further reading.

For more info, including links to everything we discussed in the episode, go to

Let us know what you thought of the episode, or just give us some book recommendations on Twitter—we’d love to hear from you! Find Caitlin at @caitlinschiller and Ben at @bsto.

Try Blinkist for free for 14 days by going to https://www.blinkist.com/en/nc/friends/ and typing in the code budget.

That excellent music you heard is by Nico Guiang. You can find more of it on Soundcloud and Facebook.