Breaking down a project
An email arrived from my accountant reminding me that he needed the report by the end of the month. Panic set in as I realized I was 18 months behind in my bookkeeping. The consequences of my procrastination could cost me late fees, a high tax bill or worse.
Manually entering each bank statement would take 30 minutes, I estimated. This meant six hours of data entry or an entire day in the office.
A few days passed before I cleared my calendar to give me the time and headspace to start the project. I turned on the Spotify jazz radio channel, made a green tea, pulled out my bank statement binder, and got started. The first month took 20 minutes. Elated and energized, I tried to reconcile but couldn't. What was wrong? Then I realized I had entered all those numbers with the wrong year. Correcting those years took 20 minutes. But I still couldn't reconcile. To my shock and dismay, I realized, I had entered the wrong month as well. This cost me yet another 20 minutes. I was out of practice.
If only I had kept up with my bookkeeping each month!
The urge was strong to enter yet another month, but I stopped myself. In the past, I would have sat for eight hours straight, forgetting to eat or move my body.
This time, I decided to limit myself to one hour.
In my calendar, I scheduled one hour per day. In each day, I wrote "accounting feb & march" and so on.
Now, six days later, I am done. Tomorrow, I will start on 2016 and will create a reminder in my calendar to enter my statements each month. Now, I look forward to each bookkeeping hour.