At this point in the year, whether we are accountants or business people, deadlines are upon us! Tax filings and reporting deadlines are all coming up fast — not to mention all the fulfillment requirements for goods and services. Lack of planning can create undue stress, which becomes detrimental to our physical, mental, and financial health.

Let’s begin by dealing with stress and its blazing intensity head-on by following these tips:

1. Plan for Worst Case Scenarios: We’ve all looked up to the people who give themselves earlier deadlines, e.g. they assume a report is due on the 5th when in reality it’s due on the 15th. We may have even called them crazy at times; however they’re always the ones that avoid last minute snafus by preparing early! If you’re a procrastinator, preparation is the best, along with policies and procedures that ensure timeliness. How do you start? Evaluate how long it takes you to perform a critical task, i.e. shipping a DTC item or preparing a tax return, and brainstorm all the potential downfalls or obstacles that could impede a timely completion. Backtrack from there to determine your new and improved deadline date.
2. Build Stress Relieving Routines: Over the years, countess stress management techniques have been publicized and popularized. Common ones, including exercise, sports, yoga, and meditation, have proven to be excellent ways to clear the mind or body of any negative effects related to everyday stress. Whether as a part of your personal development plan or pure curiosity about the methods, it’s really important to find something that you enjoy and then pursue it on a regular basis. For example, Brian started playing racquetball again and has adopted a modified approach to meditating and reflecting in the morning to clear his head and prepare himself for his workday. This works well for him. And he’s found it to be a great way to be present in the moment and have a more positive outlook on the upcoming day.
3. Be Grateful: With everything going on in the world, we have stepped back and examined how fortunate we are to live in the world and able to pursue a livelihood and business in this country. We each have a support system – family, friends, community, church, neighbors, etc.— who we can turn to and lean on in difficult times. It’s our support system that has helped us through the years when payments may have been slow and coming or our work flow decreased. Practicing gratitude helps us realize how much we have instead of how much we are seeking. And those that are grateful for what they have tend to attract like-minded people and thus be surrounded by positive individuals. By working together and remembering our passion for helping others, we are motivated through the challenging times and can fully focus on realizing dreams.

We all have various stressors in our lives and there is no way that we can avoid them. What we can do is learn how to cope with stress and be able to improve our overall mental health. It’s important as a leader of an organization that your employees, customers, and partners see you as a role model of how he/she should handle daily work activities and business dealings. Our ability to maintain our stress level is not just good for our health — it’s good for business.

Take-away: If you feel like your workload is growing and you’re not able to focus on your clients or revenue generating activities, contact Scott or Brian at info@acceleratingcfo.com. We will support and assist you with your financial and accounting functions.

Brian Califano