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PERSPECTIVE
5 time management lessons for financial advisors
How Fidelity’s Time-Value Equation can help you grow your practice, avoid burnout, and spend more time on what matters most.
How are you spending your time—and what are you getting in return? Fidelity’s research shows that small shifts in how financial advisors manage their time can lead to major gains in revenue, efficiency, and personal well-being.
Whether you lead a team or manage your own book, mastering time management can be essential for long-term growth and client satisfaction. In this article, we’ll explore five practice-expanding time management lessons designed to help advisors like you reclaim time, deepen relationships, and avoid burnout.
These lessons are based on a Fidelity framework called the Time-Value Equation. The formula illustrates that the value you create over time is a function of: who you spend your time with, what you spend your time on, and how you use your time. Optimizing these three dimensions can help unlock greater value, deepen relationships and fuel sustainable growth.
The Time-Value Equation
Advisors report “lack of time” as their No. 1 barrier to growth. Learn more about the Time-Value Equation: Strategic time management for financial advisors.
Lesson 1: Spend time with the right clients
We all know that time is finite. But the return on that time varies widely depending on who you spend it with.
Fidelity’s research shows that 42% of the average advisor’s client book is made up of less-profitable relationships. Yet advisors spend nearly 40% of their time serving those clients.1 That’s time that could be redirected toward higher-value relationships, deeper planning conversations, or business development.
Source: The 2024 Fidelity Financial Advisor Community – Industry Trends Study
It’s not about cutting off service. It’s about right-sizing the service level based on client needs, and realigning your energy with your goals. While ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) clients—those with $30 million or more in investable assets—are growing in both number and the complexity of their needs, they’re not a fit for every practice. But the high-net-worth (HNW) and very-high-net-worth (VHNW) segments represent more accessible opportunities, especially if you’re ready to offer more personalized, planning-centric service.
By being more intentional about who you spend your time with, you can create space to better serve your ideal clients. That might mean re-segmenting your book, simplifying your service model for certain tiers, or leveraging your team and technology to meet lower-touch needs more efficiently.
Are you targeting high-value clients?
The ultra high net worth (UHNW) and very high net worth (VHNW) segments are growing the fastest. But, your "high-value" clients might be defined another way—by profession or stage of life, for example.
| Total assets in Trillions4 | Asset growth rates (2019-2023)4 | |
|---|---|---|
| >$30 UHNW | $13.1 | 173% |
| $5M-$30M VHNW | $26.9 | 81% |
| $1M-$4.9M HNW | $23.1 | 61% |
| <$1M Mass market | $15.4 | 27% |
Sources: 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances, Cerulli U.S. Retail Investor Advice Relationship 2023
When your time and energy align with the clients who drive the most impact for your firm, you can unlock a path to sustainable growth and a more rewarding practice.
Take action: Re-segment your clients for greater efficiency
Many advisors unintentionally spend too much time on clients who don’t align with their growth goals. Re-segment your book based on asset level and planning complexity, then tailor your service model accordingly. Use automation and team support for less profitable clients and reserve your time for high-impact relationships.
Bottom line: Smart segmentation helps you serve your best clients better—and scale without burning out.
Many advisors unintentionally spend too much time on clients who don’t align with their growth goals. Re-segment your book based on asset level and planning complexity, then tailor your service model accordingly. Use automation and team support for less profitable clients and reserve your time for high-impact relationships.
Bottom line: Smart segmentation helps you serve your best clients better—and scale without burning out.
Lesson 2: Prioritize the right conversations
Your clients aren’t just thinking about their portfolios. They’re thinking about how they want to live. And advisors who can support those conversations will build stronger relationships and deliver more lasting value.
For starters, clients’ view of retirement has shifted dramatically: 41% are still working, have worked since retiring, or are actively seeking work.2
At the same time, the U.S. has the largest healthspan-lifespan gap in the world—about 16 years on average.3 That means many clients are living beyond their healthiest years and seeing that retirement planning isn’t just about money. It's about making the most of the healthy years they have, and contingency planning for when things change.
Yet only 26% of millionaire clients say their advisor helps them think about how to spend their time in retirement.4
That’s a missed opportunity, not just to deliver more meaningful advice, but to protect and grow relationships across generations. As clients navigate getting older, advisors can help them to have important conversations with their loved ones. Engaging spouses and adult children isn’t just smart relationship management; it’s a revenue driver. Households where a younger family member and spouse are engaged have 2.2x more assets and generate nearly 2x the revenue as those where only a primary client is engaged.5 You can begin by finding ways to meet and connect with the beneficiaries on your accounts, and then develop relationships from there.
Fidelity’s research about the Advice Value Stack® shows that moving beyond investment performance to help clients with financial planning, peace of mind, and fulfillment leads to clients attributing more value to the relationship. And, not surprisingly, these clients are more likely to stay with you, refer you, and consolidate assets with you.
Are you helping clients across the Advice Value Stack®?
Source: The 2025 Fidelity Investor Insights Study
The most powerful differentiation you have likely isn’t your investment product—it’s your ability to guide clients through the big questions that define their lives. And that starts by making time for the conversations that matter most.
Take action
For individual advisors:
Ask questions like: “What do you want your daily life to feel like in five years?” This opens the door to deeper trust, more holistic planning, and more emotionally resonant client relationships.
For team leaders:
Train teams on how to have these conversations. Build the confidence and language to go beyond portfolio reviews.
For individual advisors:
Ask questions like: “What do you want your daily life to feel like in five years?” This opens the door to deeper trust, more holistic planning, and more emotionally resonant client relationships.
For team leaders:
Train teams on how to have these conversations. Build the confidence and language to go beyond portfolio reviews.
Lesson 3: Reclaim time through delegation, outsourcing, and technology
Many advisors feel like there simply aren’t enough hours in the day. But what if the solution isn’t more effort, but more intention? Fidelity’s research shows that by taking a closer look at how work gets done, advisors can free up more than 10 hours each week.
And when those hours are reallocated to high-impact client activities, the average advisor could potentially generate an additional $540,000 in revenue annually.6 Multiply across a team, and the gains could be transformational. Here are hypothetical examples of where those 10+ hours may come from:
- Outsourcing investment management: +7.1 hours/week
- Offloading administrative tasks: +6.8 hours/week
- Leveraging generative AI: +3.3 hours/week
Financial advisor productivity today means being strategic: delegating what doesn’t require your personal expertise, automating repeatable tasks, and applying technology thoughtfully—not just because it’s new, but because it helps you serve clients better.
Time-saving opportunities
Source: The 2025 Fidelity Advisor Insights Study
Take action: Track your time to reclaim it
Before you can improve how you spend your time, you need to understand where it's actually going. Track your daily activities for one week in 30-minute increments and categorize them—client work, admin, compliance, investment management, team tasks, etc. Then, ask yourself: Which of these activities truly require my expertise, and which could be delegated, automated, or eliminated?
Bottom line:
A simple time audit can free up hours each week that can be reallocated to client engagement or business growth.
Lesson 4: Productivity should support well-being, not just growth
It’s easy to think of time management as a way to drive revenue. But the real goal is more sustainable: to help advisors and teams do better work, feel more fulfilled, and avoid burnout.
In Fidelity’s research and conversations with advisors, there’s a recurring theme: many advisors are doing well by traditional metrics; but behind the scenes, they’re overextended or emotionally exhausted.
Are you thriving or surviving at work?
Source: The 2025 Fidelity Advisor Insights Study. “Thriving” advisors in Fidelity’s research are identified based on advisor-reported feelings of: job satisfaction, effort and burnout.
The Time-Value Equation encourages a shift in mindset, from simply doing more to doing what matters most. If you're constantly buried in operational tasks or saying yes to every request, that’s a red flag; not a badge of honor.
This is also a leadership opportunity. Burned-out advisors are less effective, less creative, and more likely to leave. Retaining top talent requires creating an environment where people can thrive, not just survive. That includes clear role definitions, better time alignment with client value, and enough breathing room to think, plan, and grow.
Remember: productivity that leads to burnout isn’t real productivity. Long-term growth requires sustainable habits, clear priorities, and a culture that values time as much as revenue.
This is also a leadership opportunity. Burned-out advisors are less effective, less creative, and more likely to leave. Retaining top talent requires creating an environment where people can thrive, not just survive. That includes clear role definitions, better time alignment with client value, and enough breathing room to think, plan, and grow.
Remember: productivity that leads to burnout isn’t real productivity. Long-term growth requires sustainable habits, clear priorities, and a culture that values time as much as revenue.
Take action
For advisors:
Begin treating your calendar as a reflection of your priorities—not just your obligations. Make time for activities that recharge you, whether that’s mentoring junior staff, designing new offerings, or simply taking a break.
For leaders:
Make health, clarity, and team capacity part of your business strategy. If you're seeing growth but also high turnover or rising stress, it’s time to reassess how your team is spending its time—and how you can better support them.
Lesson 5: Leaders set the tone
Fidelity’s research shows that too few advisory teams are operating from a shared playbook. Only 43% of advisors have a written business plan, yet those who do report 50% higher organic growth rates.7 That’s not a coincidence. It’s a function of clarity and alignment.
Do you have a deliberate plan for growth?
Source: The 2025 Fidelity Advisor Insights Study.
Great team leaders don’t just manage results. They set the vision, build capacity, and remove roadblocks. When you track time as a strategic asset and encourage your team to do the same, it can create a ripple effect. Productivity improves, morale lifts, and teams begin making decisions that support long-term success.
The Time-Value Equation gives financial advisors and teams a powerful tool to drive both productivity and culture. It starts with time leadership, which means modeling the right behaviors, setting clear goals, and focusing on high-impact work.
The Time-Value Equation gives financial advisors and teams a powerful tool to drive both productivity and culture. It starts with time leadership, which means modeling the right behaviors, setting clear goals, and focusing on high-impact work.
Take action: Track and share time-value metrics with your team
As a leader, what you measure signals what you value. Start a simple time-value dashboard for your team—track how many hours are spent with top clients, how many meetings include spouses or adult children, or how many hours have been freed up through technology. Share results regularly and recognize progress.
Bottom line: When teams see how time is being used—and improved—they start to make smarter, more intentional decisions every day.
As a leader, what you measure signals what you value. Start a simple time-value dashboard for your team—track how many hours are spent with top clients, how many meetings include spouses or adult children, or how many hours have been freed up through technology. Share results regularly and recognize progress.
Bottom line: When teams see how time is being used—and improved—they start to make smarter, more intentional decisions every day.
Ready to make better use of your time and unlock real results?
Every advisor has the same 24 hours. What sets the top performers apart isn’t just how many hours they work, but what they do with them.
Fidelity’s Time-Value Equation offers a powerful way to assess your current time investment and reallocate energy where it will have the most impact: on growth, client relationships, and personal well-being.
SPOTLIGHT
The Time-Value Equation: Strategic time management for financial advisors
Advisors report “lack of time” as their No. 1 barrier to growth. See how our Time-Value Equation can help you reallocate your time to foster organic growth and provide additional value to clients.
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- The 2024 Fidelity Financial Advisor Community—Industry Trends Study
- The Fidelity Participant and Plan Sponsor Survey, The Evolving Landscape of Retirement, July 2024
- Garmany, A.; Terzic, A. (2024) Global Healthspan-Lifespan Gaps Among 183 World Health Organization Member States, JAMA Network Ope
- 2025 Fidelity Investor Insights Study
- For illustrative purposes only. The Fidelity Client Insight Tool is a client engagement and aggregation of 90+ firms and over 125K lines of data presented by households. Data was collected from 2019 to June 2023 by the Fidelity Practice Management & Consulting team. The information contained in, and the data generated by the Client Insight Tool are hypothetical in nature, for informational purposes only, and may not reflect your (or your client's) particular situation.
- Fidelity analysis. Sources: The 2024 Fidelity RIA Benchmarking Study and the 2025 Fidelity Advisor Insights Study. Assumes an advisor currently generates $1M in annual revenue and spends 18.5 hours each week supporting clients and prospects.
- The 2025 Fidelity Advisor Insights Study
The 2024 Fidelity Financial Advisor Community – Industry Trends Study was an online blind survey (Fidelity not identified) and was fielded during the period February 2 through February 15, 2024. Participants included 432 advisors who manage or advise upon client assets either individually or as a team, and work primarily with individual investors. Advisor firm types included a mix of banks, independent broker-dealers, insurance companies, regional broker-dealers, RIAs, and national brokerage firms (commonly referred to as wirehouses), with findings weighted to reflect industry composition. The study was conducted by an independent firm not affiliated with Fidelity Investments.
Fidelity Participant and Plan Sponsor Survey, The Evolving Landscape of Retirement research was conducted from May 31 through July 2, 2024. A total of 10,517 employees and retirees were surveyed, all of whom have or had an employer-sponsored retirement savings plan. A total of 1,001 HR professionals directly involved in workforce strategy, talent acquisition, and knowledgeable about the company’s benefits strategy and workforce strategy were also surveyed. The study was conducted via an online survey, with the sample provided by CMI, a third-party firm not affiliated with Fidelity. Reported base sizes are unweighted.
The 2025 Fidelity Investor Insights Study was conducted during the period February 7 through February 25, 2025. It surveyed a total of 2,018 investors, including 998 Millionaires and 1,215 investors with advisors. The study was conducted via an online survey, with the sample provided by an independent firm not affiliated with Fidelity. Respondents were screened for a minimum level of $50K in investable assets (excluding retirement assets and primary residence), with additional quotas by age and affluence levels.
The Client Insight Tool should not be construed as advice of any kind. The information contained in and the data generated are hypothetical in nature, for informational purposes only and may not reflect your particular situation. The projections are based on the assumptions as described herein and information provided by you and are not guarantees of future results. Fidelity does not confirm the accuracy of the data in the report. You should conduct your own analysis, review, and due diligence based on your specific situation. You are responsible for evaluating your own practice and making appropriate decisions for your firm. Those decisions may be based on these and other factors you deem relevant. This report is not meant to be exhaustive of all possible options you may consider. Fidelity Investments is not responsible for your action or inaction as a result of this service. The Client Insight Tool is based on data about your firm provided by you. The data used to generate these illustrations and the illustrations themselves are intended to provide you with a general idea of what you may expect in each future scenario. The report uses data provided by third-party vendors in the simulations and the accuracy or timeliness of that data cannot be guaranteed. Results may vary with each use and over time.
The 2024 Fidelity RIA Benchmarking Study was conducted between February 5 and April 19, 2024; 310 firms participated. The 2023 Fidelity RIA Benchmarking Study was conducted between April 17 and July 4, 2023; 245 firms participated. The 2022 Fidelity RIA Benchmarking Study was conducted between July 19 and September 9, 2022; 219 firms participated. The 2021 Fidelity RIA Benchmarking Study was conducted between March 26 and May 26, 2021; 211 firms participated. The 2020 Fidelity RIA Benchmarking Study was conducted between March 10 and May 20, 2020; 188 firms participated. The studies were administered online by independent third-party research firms not affiliated with Fidelity. Fidelity was identified as the sponsor of all the studies. The experiences of the RIAs who responded to these studies may not be representative of the experiences of other RIAs and are not an indication of future success.
The 2025 Fidelity Advisor Insights Study was an online blind survey (Fidelity not identified) and was fielded during the period February 18 through February 26, 2025. Participants included 479 advisors who manage or advise upon client assets either individually or as a team, and work primarily with individual investors. Advisor firm types included a mix of banks, independent broker-dealers, insurance companies, regional broker-dealers, RIAs, and national brokerage firms (commonly referred to as wirehouses), with findings weighted to reflect industry composition. The study was conducted by an independent firm not affiliated with Fidelity Investments.
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