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Writer's pictureMayank SIngh

Two Easy Ways to Prevent Tax Season Overwhelm

Have you started getting frustrated and concerned that you will now have to struggle doing a million and one things till the end this tax season?

There are a ton of emails to attend to and as usual, clients are late in sending in their source documents. Just when you felt you finally starting to make things fall in line, you see floodgates of incoming documents opening suddenly.

This can be really exhausting and depressing feeling – the experience of overwhelm.

Overwhelm causes stress, creates lack of focus, damages productivity and saps your energy.

Here are two (really) easy ways to prevent getting overwhelmed till the end of tax season……

What Causes Overwhelm?

It is not the clutter of work or lack of control over the inflow of information from clients that causes overwhelm. Your work does not cause overwhelm. It is how you think about work that causes overwhelm. All is mind!

What Can You Do?

How will you reduce the clutter, in your mind? Yes, you still have to do and manage the peak volume of work during the tax season. But, it does not mean you “do” that “in your head all the time”. Here are two really easy ways to prevent overwhelm.

Turn Tension into Attention:

Stop thinking about all the other things that you will have to do by the end of tax season. Instead just think of completing what you have on your desk (or desktop screen) right at the moment. Complete it and then take up the next task. Think “one thing at a time”; “first in first out” and don’t worry about what will happen till the end of tax season. Don’t worry about answering every email immediately. Remember:

Worry is the interest you pay on the loan you haven’t taken!

Do what you “need” to do (like filing the return with IRS); don’t get flustered by the things that you “want” to do (like deleting emails from spam folder).

As they say “results come from where the attention goes”. Your revenue comes from tax clients and you “need” to put your attention to filing their returns. Anything that you allow to share your attention, which is not the “need” right now, will overwhelm you.

Present yourself to the present! Attend to future when it becomes present, at least till the end of tax season.

Here is some useful information on how to train your brain to focus.

Be You:

Each one of us is built differently. Some of us are morning people. Some of us are not. Some of us get sleepy after lunch – some get energized after lunch. So we are at our best when we behave the way we are built, mentally and psychologically and habitually. That means we are most productive and effective and we get more done in the time when we are we!

Think about it and if you are a morning person, do the most difficult tasks in the morning. If you get sleepy after lunch, do the other small stuff after lunch – like checking emails, answering emails etc.

Use your energy peaks for completing the most demanding tasks.

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Please share with your team members. And please share your tips to help others prevent tax season overwhelm.

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