You’re reading this after the 10/15 deadline, but I’m writing it as I’m waiting for those last two 1098s to come in from a client. All week long, I’ve been writing down the things that pissed me off, the things I could have done better, and the things that may make my life easier next tax season. So, you know, I don’t forget.
There’s a thing that happens those first few days after 10/15 though. I really do think it’s a trauma response: we drop all of that energy, take a well-deserved break, clean up some workpapers, chase after efile reject codes, and somewhere all that energy about the things that were broke just gets lost.
That’s where my sticky note strategy for this year comes into play.
Every time I had a thought or wanted to think about something, I wrote it down on a sticky note and put it on my monitor (that’s a giant sticky note behind all the tiny ones). And this week I’ll go through all of them, prioritize them, organize and categorize, flesh out the thought that I had, and just generally spend time actually making life better for next year.
Are you doing that this year? If not, why? If so, what’s your strategy? Would a big old group call where we pull out the art supplies and the digital white boards and the mapping tools be useful and helpful?
This one will be left open to comments from all.