Today, I finally stopped procrastinating, and I defrosted the freezer. Its the first time its been defrosted, and we bought it a few years ago (don’t ask how many…). And defrosting it took a long time, and a lot of hard work. If only I hadn’t kept putting it off, it would have been so muuch easier if the ice hadn’t built up to proper iceberg proportions!
It made me stop and think about what else we put off, how many other things would be so much quicker and easier if we tackled them more often.
I’ve asked around to find out the main reasons why people put off getting their books and accounts up to date. The biggest one is that people just don’t like doing it. Now I’m an accountant, this is what I do for other people every day, but for a long time I just didn’t like doing my own books. And I finally figured out why. I always did mine the last after I finished all my client work. Which meant I had to wade through months of bank statements and receipts and invoices and credit card statements and PayPal statements and diaries to figure out mileage and…. You get the point.
I gave myself a bit of a kick, and I now do mine every month. I’m still not quite so rigorous about recording my mileage, but I do the bulk of it every month. And do you know what? I enjoy it! It doesn’t take me very long, and I get a smug sense of satisfaction instead of that nagging feeling of dread.
So I challenge you to do the same. Stop putting it off. Do it little and often, stay on top of it, and you may not end up enjoying it, but at least it won’t drag you down. Book a time in your diary – say the first Monday of every month – and spend a couple of hours getting everything up to date. You’ll know how much money you have made (or lost), how much money you have available to spend, how much money the business owes you. You’ll be able to plan, and make decisions based on up to date numbers. And you’ll get to feel smug. You can’t ask for more than that!
Want to make it a bit easier on yourself? Have a look at how Starfish Accounting and Xero Online Accounting Software can help.
