I Had a Life During Tax Season!

Ask any CPA or tax accountant and I guarantee that their response would be the same incredulous - really?  Tax season is not about having a life.  Tax season is all about work.  An old commercial for Dunkin Donuts^TM comes to my head every season - It's time to make the donuts! Tax season is the time when I wake up at the crack of dawn and leave the office when the sun has already set, basically missing daylight completely.  It's the time when I bond with the office for twelve hours a day, more days a week than I care to really be there.  It's the time for me to make a significant portion of my annual revenue in a compressed period of time. It's a time when I am all work and no play.   

For essentially three solid months, work takes a priority to everything else in my life. During tax season I am without question a workaholic. I am grateful that this time has a definite end to it. Many workaholics make it a year-round practice. That was definitely me in the early days, struggling to grow the business; taking on new clients that now I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole just because they were new clients.  I work like a dog during tax season so that I can don't have to work full time the rest of the year.  I work like a crazy person during tax season because that is what I am expected to do. 

March 15^th and April 15th, these deadlines loom, the countdowns to the end starting as soon a March 1^st.  This is the last Saturday that I will work in the year.  This is the last full week that I will work this year.  This too shall end. 

And yet the irony is that the deadlines are so artificial.  Six month extensions are automatic.  Six months where I can take the 35% of the returns that get put on extension and take my time.  The extension returns are often the harder returns, the ones that require some extra brain power because of complicated issues.  Many returns are extended because the client procrastinates in getting me their information.  It's the same clients each year who know that unless they owe money, rushing to meet the April 15^th deadline really doesn't matter.  Even if money is due, only an estimate is in fact required.  Yet you don't know from year to year if money is due until you run the numbers.  And you can't do that until you have the information. And sometimes that is like trying to squeeze blood from a turnip.  I am not my clients' keeper.  Or am I?  Before I assume professional responsibility by signing my name to a return as preparer, I make sure that I am comfortable in doing so.  I do not rush a return out by April 15^th just to rush.  And yet sometimes that is what people expect of me.  They think that they are my only client, not on of 200.  They don't realize that if 50% of the clients wait until the last two weeks to submit their information, it's not possible to get everything done and get it done right.  The majority of my clients do not have simple returns. They have businesses, investments, rental properties and issues which need to be analyzed.  My brain is on high gear for so many hours in a day that it's bound to need some rest.  The trick is to know when to say no.  I can't look at this tonight;   I need to clear my head.

The returns come by mail, fed-ex, UPS, messenger and sometimes personal delivery, a chance to say hello to a client I see only this one time a year. The weekly onslaught begins on Monday, continues on Tuesday, the weekend being the time for clients to organize their information.  By Wednesday there is an ebb and flow to the work week that has become amazingly predictable over the last few years.  By Thursday the phone barely rings, unless it is someone calling for an unwanted solicitation that merely annoys me.  By Friday, I move the harder clients to the pile for next week, choosing to end the week with easy things to quell the tide of tax overload that is my brain.  On Saturday, I do not start anything new.  Yes, I must be there, put in a good 5 or 6 hours to end the week.  I alternate by reviewing a draft of a return in process, a file where I've already analyzed the data and the issues at hand, with cutting, pasting and signing my name in the final processing of another return that is now officially done.  This season Saturdays were filled with background noise of "chick" flicks on the DVD. An ear half listening to a soppy, girly movie or musical that I'd already seen and wanted for comfort and company, my bargain DVDs found at Target^TM during one of my shopping journeys which helped not only to pump up the failing economy but quell my need for a little retail therapy.      

So how in the midst of this work mania did I have finally felt like I had a life?  Why now?  For one, I've been at this work madness for 25 years. And the irony of having a life on the occasion of my 25^th business anniversary does not escape me.  Practice really does make perfect.  My quest for a balanced life has been a focus of my life for 15 years now, ever since I turned 40 and the business turned 10.  Better late than never, I proclaim proudly. 

All I know is that my step by step approach to balance over the years finally overlapped to tax season.  Short of not working, which is obviously not an option I just figured out how to manage my work load smarter.  I work efficiently during the day, knowing when to take a mental break to clear my head.  My decision last year to leave the office no later than 7:00PM, while predicated by physical issues was the smartest thing I ever did.  And if I've learned one thing over the years, it is that when I give myself something one year, I try not to take it away the next. 

What looks like a life to me, may not look like a life to someone else.  All of our lives are different. It is these differences that make us unique individuals.  I am single, never been married.  I do not have children. But that does not mean that my life has to be all about work.  During tax season I've come to accept that as the norm. It's a finite period of time.  I can live with work, work and more work during the brutal months that are a Chicago winter.  Why not work when the weather is so uninviting?  There's time to have fun later, when the flowers have bloomed and the world opens it arms to spring and its inbred sense of renewal. 

So imagine my surprise when as the weeks of the season came and went I realized that was making social plans every week.  Tax season this year got off to a rather slow start.  Year-end documents were being sent out later than in past years.  Clients chose not to submit incomplete information, mostly because I asked them not to. No one wanted to look at the dismal financial results of the year past.  And then there were the usual procrastinators.  For whatever reason, the exhaustion of the season simply did not set in during February.  I worked four to five hours less each week.  I wasn't sure whether or not to be worried. Were my loyal clients were not returning.  Was my extremely stable business now being affected by the economic crisis? I was pretty sure that I'd be fairly immune to significant change simply given the repetitive nature of the work that I do and the stable client base that I've built over 25 years.  Instead of worrying, I chose to be gleeful that I was working less.  Giddy, in fact. 

I was able to maintain a fairly stable morning treadmill routine.  In past years I've been prone to injuries that eliminated the option before I could choose to opt out simply because I was tired.  If my Sunday morning training session was canceled, it wasn't me changing our plans, it was my trainer.  I had energy. Even the minimal work out routine that I was able to maintain, beget more energy.  I worked out in the morning for twenty minutes and had more energy to work more during the day.  I worked an hour less a day so I had more energy in the morning to work out. By the time that March 1^st came, the morning routine was a ritual that I knew was having a positive effect on my being. So I didn't stop because the hours picked up.  My energy begot more energy and so on and so on.  On the Sundays where the wind wasn't howling, the snow wasn't falling or the rain wasn't pouring, the crisp spring air beckoned me to walk the neighborhood.  Ah, fresh air, I've missed you.  My eyes adjusted to the newfound sunshine anxiously hoping that the colors of spring would soon emerge in their annual cornucopia of color and nature.

The season simply ebbed and flowed, mostly flow with little ebb. By Friday night I looked forward to leaving early, to catching dinner with a friend, still getting home early enough to crash at home and not while out and about. I know that during tax season, I am like Cinderella.  I must be home by 10:00 pm or I will turn into a pumpkin, my head lobbing, my eyes closing. I'm ready to be in bed.

The evening of March 6^th was particularly special.  I planned an evening for 20 women to celebrate my 25^th business anniversary, the official date a few days before on March 1^st.  Planning the party really didn't take much of my time. I like planning a party - from selecting the list of family, friends and clients who would attend to the invitations to the menu.  Many of the women were able to wear more than one hat at the same time being both clients and friends, not sure anymore which relationship came first - the client or the friend. At first, I contemplated doing a bigger event around April 15th.  But in the end I decided to be more frugal. I'd had a catered open house inviting all my clients to the office to celebrate the 20^th.  This celebration was going to be a more private affair. 

I rush ordered some cute invitations which I designed online one Monday evening, the private dining space and date finally affirmed.  My friend Michele volunteered to calligraphy the names and addresses, adding an elegant touch.  I planned and re-planed the menu, trying not to over order but trying not to skimp either.  Women are food sharers so the menu could be creative, expansive and delicious. The accountant in me was still very alert, catching errors by the catering manager in pricing the event.  Having the event at a restaurant meant I had to do no set-up, no cooking or and better yet, no clean-up. I could truly be a guest and enjoy myself. 

We had a private dining room/living room quarters and were able to spread our wings. We chatted in the living room through appetizers and moved to the large circular table in the dining room for dinner. Circles of my friends interacting with each other, some new to the crowd, others tried and true.  Friends who knew each other because they knew me. This was an evening of true love and friendship. Amazing women sharing stories of me which made me laugh and made me cry.  An endless circle of love, an aura of female strength and power that left everyone in the room feeling happy and blessed by evening's end.  Not celebrating because it was tax season would have been the real mistake.  I was on floating on air for days.

Having a life during tax season for me meant keeping an even keel.  It meant maybe going out one night of the week or weekend.  It meant interacting with other people at least once a week.  It's easy to stay isolated in my office for hours on end, day after day.  And in the midst of winter, it's easy to simply head home. Granted on Sundays sometimes the best balance day was the one where I never left the house. That's part of being balanced too, doing nothing.  I'm tired. I need to rest. I might want to play but my body often tells me otherwise.  More often than not, I listen to my body.

Listening to my body also involves food.  I need to eat.  And during tax season, I often forget.  I am not a regular three meals a day eater.  I'm also not a junk or fast food eater either. I rarely cook, especially during tax season so having dinner with friends was an easy way to kill two birds with one stone - eat and be social. There were evenings where I not only went out to eat but went to a cultural event too.  The dual evening out - dinner and theatre or dinner and dance didn't happen often and rarely past March 1^st when the hours really kicked into full gear.  But what a treat is was when they did happen.  I had scheduled plans.  I was spontaneous.  I was happy.

Add my regularly scheduled massage every other Wednesday night to the middle of a hectic week and my body was even happier. Throughout the entire tax season my therapist, Marti kept asking me "Aren't you supposed to be in pain?" Familiar with my tax season/stress/body reaction schedule of years past, even he noticed. I hushed him quickly every time.  My body not betraying me was a good thing.  It should always be like this.            

All in all, I worked about 5% less in tax season 2009 than I did in 2008.  Hours that may or may not be recovered during the rest of the year.  If I recoup the hours, that would be great. If I don't, frankly I don't care.  I worked 5% less and was 100% happier. That's a tradeoff that I'll take any day.  If I felt like I had a life, then I did.  Even though the main focus was work, I still felt connected, connected in a way that involved people - face to face.  The weeks went smoothly.  The weeks went quickly.  And before I knew it, tax season was over. Winter was pretty much over too.  It was time to play, play like I had the rest of the year to do so, which of course I do.  And so I will. 

I had a life during tax season. A life. Tax season.  It's still hard to wrap my head around those words together in one sentence. But having said it, having lived it, what I know for sure is that I want another one just like the other one. So tax season 2010, while seemingly light years away - watch out.  Here I come. Ready and willing to work hard....and have a life too!