Two Miles-ism

Working is like playing catch with a lot of people with a lot of balls. You need to make sure you do not ruin others' rhythm.

The worst thing that can happen is to hold too many balls, and instead of throwing it to others, others come running to you to grab the ball at the last moment. By the time they grab the balls, all the runners have come safely home. Game over.

We need to play catch in a timely manner, so that we can always make plays at first base. The more runners there will be on base, the more pressure we will start feeling. Especially if you are still new, don't try to make the play by yourself. Focus on passing the ball to more experienced players as fast as possible, so that they can make the play. This is the key to winning the ball game especially in the busy season.

I cannot stress the importance of making the play at first as much as possible because in a busy season, runners will come to second and sometimes third base. We need to prevent them from scoring, and the best way is to concentrate on making each batter out at first base by passing the ball as soon as possible.

This is the rule of surviving the busy season as a team.

Iso

We have a unique set of team members with different skills. Are we perfect? No. Are we all smarter than other firms? Probably not.

A good team is not made by a lot of very smart people. A good team is made by individuals who are free to contribute to the team with their unique abilities.

Everybody has been uniquely created by God and have unique talents. With good knowledge and enough skills, you can make contribution to the team using your strengths. That is the kind of team we are chasing after.

You will need to develop your fundamental knowledge and skills to a certain level. At the same time, you want to further train your strengths in order to use it effectively. You will go through stages of growth in order to be able to be an accountant (CPA) with unique ability that you alone possess. Some people grow fast, some people slow, but you will get there.

What are your strengths? Are you ready to use your strengths after acquiring enough knowledge and skills? In what stage are you in?

Iso

We are going into the busy season and we have a lot of other things to do on top of tax returns. Client communications, 1099s, bookkeeping, and outsourcing. We need to be thankful for having a lot of things to do.

I hope this busyness translates to more income. Make sure you enter your time so that we can charge the client appropriately. When we are busy, we tend to forget to enter time. Then we notice that our billing is not too good compared to the busyness and feel like we are overworked.

At busy times, we need to remind ourselves of the importance of billing. Good billing practice is healthy for both the company and for each team member individually. Make sure you enter time each day. Put at least 6 hours of chargeable time each day. We are professionals. Taking control of your time is necessary for professional growth. We don’t want to be someone who is overworked with a little pay.

Iso

I believe best things in life are generally obtained by hard work. I have learned a lot through things I did not really enjoy at that time, but looking back was a great lesson.

Some work may seem to be tedious. You may feel like you are doing things just because you have to. But I believe those kinds of jobs will make you grow a lot.

I used to do a lot of tedious work myself. I did it again and again, and became faster and faster at doing those tedious work. I learned from my own experience how to finish a job as fast as possible. These things cannot be taught. You need to learn it yourself.

Now that is one of my biggest assets. To find out the best way to finish a job and perform it efficiently. This is an asset that I have acquired which will definitely help me for the rest of my life. I hope you will be able to learn from experience how to finish job as fast as possible through this busy season. This will be your asset that no one can take away from you.

Iso

A month goes by quickly. A month has passed for this new year already and we are feeling the pressure of the busy season.

There are things that we should remember during the busy season. It is the fact that we should keep the rhythm of finishing work.

There are meanings to month and weeks. If we use it wisely, we can accomplish a lot. If we do not use it, we will be stressed out.

For example, monthly closing is very important. One of the reason we stress on monthly billing is to get things done. Imagine if there were no months, but just days coming and passing. I bet we will get much less things done because there is no set target date. Because of the measure of unit of time called month, which is about 30 days, we work to get things done. We try to perform book closing. Get rid of the issues. Transfer the monkey from our shoulders to others. Without getting things done, we will have a lot of issues floating in the air, and so many monkeys will be clinging on our shoulders that we will not be able to walk straight.

Think of a week. We try to get things done by Friday to enjoy the weekend. Months and weeks, These set units of time is not set by accident. It is a good way to get things done so that we can concentrate on the next challenge.

Are we making good use of these unit of time? Let's put time on our side even in this busy season. If we can make good use of time, the season will be less stressful.

Iso