64: Managing Stress During Tax Season

Join me in this episode as I dive into practical strategies to help accountants and tax professionals manage stress during the busiest time of the year. I emphasize the importance of maintaining personal routines like date nights, hobbies, and family dinners, and share tips on good nutrition and hydration. Discover how crucial sleep is, why you should aim for 8-9 hours, and how to avoid overworking. I'll also talk about the benefits of outdoor activities and exercise to boost energy and reduce stress. Learn how music playlists and scheduled breaks can help reset your focus, and why setting boundaries and avoiding over-scheduling is key. I also discuss identifying peak productivity times for maximum efficiency and the value of honest communication with clients about workload and deadlines. Remember, self-compassion and reaching out for support when overwhelmed is vital. Your well-being matters, and I'm here to remind you of that.

Transcript

Don't give up everything.

Don't give up your weekly date nights. Don't give up your dinners with your kids. Don't give up the board meetings that you are. Maybe you're volunteering and you're on a board

and they have meetings during the tax season. Don't give that up because you need these things to keep you grounded. It keeps you in the loop and it gets your brain to focus on something other than your workload or your stress that you might have over a client.

So don't give those things up, plan for them. Make sure those are happening, including your hobbies.

Hi, and welcome to another episode of Counting with Confidence. I'm your host, Beth Whitworth, and I am back after a couple of weeks off dealing with tax season. And that's what I want to talk to you about today, which is managing stress during tax season. This is my 30th tax season, 30th, 30 years in a row, and I will say that in some ways it has gotten much easier because technology has advanced and things are done in a kind of a more efficient way.

But there is still a lot of stress around that. There's a lot more workload. There's a lot more communication needs.

There's some really hard and fast deadlines, and so that can add to the stress. So I wanted to talk to you about it today because it's good to hear someone else's perspective on how they manage the struggles during tax season.

And I will tell you, I'll be I'll be the first to admit I am not always a good example.

I can fall into bad habits. I can fall into doing things that I probably could be managing in a better way. But overall, I have really managed to make this something that tax season shouldn't be this huge stressful drain on you.

And so I've just got some ideas to share with you, and I hope that there's something in here that you can kind of latch on to and say, Yep, that'll help me get through this last month because we are down to one month left for tax season. So the first thing I will tell you is don't give up everything.

Don't give up your weekly date nights. Don't give up your dinners with your kids. Don't give up the board meetings that you are. Maybe you're volunteering and you're on a board and they have meetings during the tax season. Don't give that up

because you need these things to keep you grounded. It keeps you in the loop and it gets your brain to focus on something other than your workload or your your stress that you might have over a client. So don't give those things up, plan for them. Make sure those are happening, including things your hobbies.

You know, if you plan to do something related to a hobby, like, for instance, we got back yesterday from a long weekend, the first weekend of racing, we went down south to southern Georgia. It was warmer. I can work from anywhere.

There is wi fi, there's a hotspot, there's my laptop with my fun sidetrack monitor that I've shared before and I can work from anywhere in changing that scenery and also being around people who you maybe haven't seen in a while or you enjoy spending time with or you participating in your hobby. That is something. If you plan for that, it will get you to kind of work your schedule around that and or give you that kind of boost of coming back and being energized.

So whatever hobbies you might have for me, one that has really gone to the wayside and I hate it because I love doing it, is getting into my quilting studio, which is otherwise known as Sam's Old Bedroom. So when Sam moved out, I was able to move all of my quilting stuff, supplies, etc. into that room. And so I have a designated space and I should be able to just walk in there and do that.

And I haven't, but I have put it on my agenda for this week to get in there and work on a project. I have loft projects, I have so many and I know that it kind of evens out my brain a little bit, gives me something else detailed to focus on that is not related to tax and accounting work.

So think about that in terms of hobbies. Also, you know, schedule a long weekend. Go go away for a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Don't touch it. You're nobody dies in accounting. My team loves it when I say that. But it's true. Nobody dies in accounting. There's nothing that we're trying to keep someone alive. We are not a doctor. We're not a surgeon.

We are not superheroes. We are people, too. And so taking the time away to just have a longer weekend where you're not touching work is important. So, you know, other things. You don't want to give up a girls night book club, any of those things that are important to you when it's not tax season need to remain important to you during tax season because without those you start to feel disconnected and that's when the stress levels will start to increase.

the next thing I'm going to talk about is eating decently. And this is probably where I'm not always a good example. I tend to give in to some of my childhood nutrition, which was probably great nutrition, but I will still, as a grown woman, have a Pop-Tart for dinner with her for excuse me now for breakfast with my coffee now, not for dinner, but you have to kind of not give in to the cravings that sometimes stress will bring to you.

And for me, that's, you know, you don't want to give in to having eating raw cookie dough every day. I try really hard not to overindulge in alcohol, even even on the weekends. You know, I'll have a glass of wine here and there, but I try not to do anything that's really going to mess with my system and my productivity, which is already at a kind of a it's stretched thin.

So my productivity is something I really have to work on and make sure that I can remain focused. And so, you know, overindulging in sugary stuff, having, you know, too much alcohol or anything like that is something that can really throw off your focus and what you really want to try to accomplish.

I'm trying really hard right now to add more protein to my diet. You know, that gives you energy as a source of energy. It is one of those things that I need to instead of that pop tart, I need to have like, you know, a eggs or something with protein in them for breakfast. And so I work on that. I also will do protein shakes in the afternoon. It's something I can really put together quickly and it's something that doesn't interfere with me working at my computer.

I can just be drinking that protein shake during a meeting or during working out in texture and stuff. And then I try also not to add more caffeine to my diet that can interrupt your sleep. It can make you start to feel very dependent on it. And so I am always I have a cup of coffee in the morning.

I've got my morning coffee here. Usually I only have this one cup unless it's really, really cold outside. And I'm really, really feeling kind of tired, like sluggish. And I know that's probably not the best solution for feeling those feelings, but sometimes I will go ahead and have a second cup. But this cup is like it's like 14 ounces of coffee.

I put a splash of creamer and a splash of a protein drink in it, and that helps me feel like I'm getting a little protein. But I it will take me a while to get through this cup, typically. So I only have one cup and I'm also a huge iced tea drinker and I will drink it all year long.

And that is something that if I make it at home, I make it decaf. And so I don't feel like that's anything that I need to worry about as far as adding much caffeine. But I will when I'm out or if I order lunch, I'm always getting in on sweet iced tea. The bigger the better, the stronger the better.

I just I love iced tea. Always have. Pretty sure I got that from my dad. He was he's always been a huge iced tea drinker and he was a coffee drinker but he drinks. He still drinks way more than I ever do. So. But try to limit that as to don't increase it during the season. You don't want to have to then go break that habit, you know.

So April 15th rolls around and you're trying to get back into your good habits or your regular schedule and you want to you're you don't want to break a bunch of bad, bad habits you created just for this season. Now, the third thing you know, we've got don't give up everything and eat decently. I'm not saying eat perfectly, I'm saying eat decently.

The third thing is sleep. That's it. Sleep When it's time to sleep, Don't take some sort of strange pride in the fact that you can work for 14 or 16 or 18 hours a day. It is not healthy. Our bodies need to rest. So know how much sleep your body needs. I know my body loves 8 to 9 hours and if I get less than that, I definitely feel differently during the day.

And so I work really hard on keeping my early bedtime and making sure that I don't get up until I've had that. Eight or 9 hours doesn't always work that way, you know, between, you know, my own body telling me, hey, I can't sleep anymore and your brain starts racing with things that are going on. You have to really make this a habit and again, a habit that you don't do you want to keep you don't want to make this bad habit that you then have to retrain your brain after tax season.

So sleep, sleep when you're tired, your body is telling you that you need to rest. That is a time, a lot of time when after you have that rest, you can think more clearly and solve the problem. So I try not to short myself too many times in a week. As far as if I don't get that at least 8 hours and I'm only getting six or seven.

I try not to do that too many times in a week because it really has a snowball effect for me. I tend to just start to I feel like I'm falling behind, even though I'm I'm not sleeping as much. I'm also not necessarily getting more things done. So I prefer to stick to a schedule. I'm in bed typically and trying to fall asleep by 9:00 every night.

And that's not necessarily for everybody, but somebody who needs 8 to 9 hours. I have to get to bed early and then I try to be up by 7 a.m. every morning, some some mornings at six. And I've had enough. I've had enough sleep and it's great. So those are those are tips. And that's my typical set schedule.

But do not use the fact that you can use those hours to work as some sort of badge of honor to say, I worked X number of hours this week because what you're shorting is your sleep and things, your health, your family. So don't try, try very hard not to do the things that will disrupt all of those things.

So forcing exercise and get outside. I am someone who, when the sun starts shining in the spring, I need to be outside. This past weekend we were down in Georgia. You know, I could just sit out there in the sun while I'm, you know, waiting for things to happen. There's a lot of downtime during the race and I can sit there and that's when I suddenly get this this energy and this create creative thinking and problem solving.

And I know it's that that sunlight and that vitamin D and all of those things. And so as soon as it starts getting warm enough, I try to go outside, even if it's just kind of an extended walk of my dog. He doesn't really need to be walking long distances. He doesn't need the exercise. But when I need to take them out, I if it's warm out, I will tend to spend a little bit more time, maybe put my AirPods in and be listening to whatever my most recent audible book is.

Whatever, just to get outside. The other form of exercise you've heard me talk about is Zumba. I love to get into a Zumba class over at the Y. I tried for a while there. I was there six or seven days a week. I'm trying to get back into that. I had some health issues with dealing with some pain in my hips that I'm working through, and then I dropped my back and so I haven't gotten back up to that level.

But every time I go the the music, the movements, the people, I, they miss me when I'm gone. I've been around long enough. That brings me energy. So I know no matter how I feel when I'm leaving to go to class, I don't want to go. I should stay and work where every single time when I go I feel better.

When I'm done. And that's it. Also AIDS. I go in the evening and so that AIDS with my my sleep. And it's one of those things that I just it's a passion of mine. So it's that one exercise class that I have found in the last it was probably in the last ten years that I have stuck to, and I am not the best.

I did not grow up as a dancer, but find something that gives you that energy. For some people it's running. For some people it's walking just, you know, walking in your neighborhood for two or three miles. Some for some people it is biking, you know, find swimming. There's so many things. There's so many things. There is something out there that can get you moving which can help with your energy level, which then helps with your focus, which helps with your productivity.

You see this, It's a snowball. You you get one thing right and so many more things will click into place. So like I said, I am not the best example, but I try. I know what I should be doing, which is the first step, and I try really hard to get back to those things, especially when things start to go off the rails, you know, you know, when those things are happening, you get an upset client on the same day that you have a team member that has called in sick or has an emergency at the same time that you have a big deadline for a client that you promised something to.

And those things they compound and they create for me, they create stress and anxiety. But what I have worked very hard on is to notice them and adjust, try to figure out what things I need to do to make the correction to get back on the rails faster. Don't let it derail my whole week. So all these things are happening on a monday, which isn't that the case?

That usually is. What happens to me is that it all happens on a monday and then it derails my whole week. And if it's derailing my week, that is creating a downhill effect onto my team. If I'm slow getting my work done, they're going to be behind in getting their work done. So things that I use to make those adjustments, the first thing I use almost every single time is music.

I like almost all kinds of music, and I'm learning to like some other forms of music that can help you focus some of the like I'm a calm app. They've got a lot of music that is designed for your brain to help you focus, But when I'm off the rails, I need to go to my playlists, my get out of that funk playlist, my faves and Feelings playlist, my Shut Up and Race playlist.

I have names of playlists that I can go to that are songs that I know will either help re-energize me or give me just something to focus on other than what is going on right now. So I have sometimes I'm in my noise canceling headphones, sometimes I'm on my record player back here, but I have to get into the music and I am someone who has music all the time, and the only time I don't have any background noise is like right now when I'm recording something.

So that's it's the the rare time. So music, if you like music at all, it can change your mood. There are some songs that you cannot be angry or sad or mad or stressed during you. You just get into it. So find your playlist that can get you out of that funk. The first playlist I ever created and I still listen to it to this day is called Get Out of That Funk.

And it was exactly for this purpose is to get me back on track. The other thing to do, if you feel yourself going off the rails and you need to readjust is take a break. Just take a break for me, I always have fiction books that I'm reading, and I say books because I tend to have three books at a time.

One in hard form, one on my Kindle and one on Audible. And so I use reading as a reward for me. But that is something that brings me joy. It gets me into somebody else's environment. You know, I'm hearing about those characters instead of worrying about myself. So take a break. Set a timer if you have to. If you're afraid that you'll sink in and not come back out.

10 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour, whatever you need. The other thing that could be helpful is to watch an episode of something as a 30 minute sitcom, a 45 minute drama, whatever. That is something that you can sit there maybe with your water, your protein, shake, your cup of coffee, whatever you have, and just get it just one episode and it says at one after one episode you're going to go back to work.

And that's a little bit of a break. It doesn't have to be all day. It is something that gives you something else to think about and then, take a walk, go outside for me. I can always use the excuse that James, the giant greyhound, needs a walk. He doesn't he does not need to go out that frequently.

But if I need a break, I will take him with me. And. But if you don't have time for a walk, get up and take the trash out. Go change the laundry. Go. If you're in an office environment, go walk outside, go walk around the building once and then come back. It is something that you need to step away and you need to unengaged from whatever is happening that's causing you distress.

So if none of that stuff helps, get yourself to a good stopping point in whatever you're working on and just go do something else. Go do something else. Maybe just shut it down for the day and you need to be able to recognize that. You need to do that without shame, without guilt, without shutting yourself. That is, I should be doing this.

I should have done that. I should don't do that to yourself and do it without apology. You need to take care of you. So that becomes extremely important as we get older. I wish I would have known all of this stuff 30 years ago because I probably would be a healthier person, both physically and mentally. But if I can share this with one person to say, Hey, if it's the stresses that much, you need to stop and you need to take a break and you need to not feel guilty about it, your mind and your body will thank you for it.

So it is not always easy. It is. It is never easy. It is. We are not conditioned to put ourselves first in most circumstances. So just know that it's okay. You can do it and go back. Nobody dies in accounting. Most of us are not in working in a field that is life or death. So ways that I try to keep myself from getting to the point of going off the rails or having a stressful time, ways that I can prevent this is to not overschedule.

I have very strict boundaries on my calendar. I don't schedule any appointments with anyone unless on Thursdays and Fridays. So everything is scheduled between nine and three on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. If someone needs an appointment, I try really hard not to overpromise and I will tell you I am not very good at that. I have a hard time

being realistic about how much time it's going to take me to get something done and realizing that even if I'm realistic in the time I'm not accounting for interruptions and things that actually can keep me from getting the project done,

I lean very heavily on efficiencies, tech, trying to follow the process, the process that typically I have to have Sarah create for me. But if I follow that process, I do pretty well and I work on time blocking. So I try not to overschedule I try to not overpromise, I use efficiencies, I use processes and set boundaries. Then in addition to that, I try to set time blocks of what I'm going to work on things now.

It doesn't always work, but having some of these in your back pocket, or if you don't have any boundaries right now, get them. That's the first step in kind of protecting your space, your body, your mind and your your workload. So those are the ways I can work. You can work to prevent those types of stressors.

It prevents you from getting the stressors to the point that you have to go do something about it. The other thing I'm working on is trying to determine when when I am most productive, What time of day is that? I don't really know. I always joke around. People say, Well, I'm not a morning person and I'm not a night person.

I'm a person who goes to bed at nine and gets up at seven. And so I'm not I feel like I'm neither of those because I don't love to jump out of bed. So I'm working hard to figure that out. And I don't know if it's, you know, first thing in the morning, I don't know if it's in the late afternoon.

I don't know. I am working on that. But if you can figure out when your most productive time is, you're going to have good results in putting some focus time right there.

So to wrap up, here's some things to keep in mind. Busy season has an end. That is the good thing about it is that for 15 or 16 or whatever day it ends up on, every year comes around and it ends.

And we need to realize that we don't want our lives to be completely different between January 1st, in April 15th. It's hard on relationships, it's hard on families. It's hard on our body. It's hard on our mental health. So just know that you need to protect those things and schedule your workload accordingly. And the other thing is we may appear to be superheroes to our clients, but we are humans too.

We're human. So that means that sometimes we we make mistakes, we falter. We need a break. And I have found that honesty is the best policy with our clients. I will tell someone I'm sorry I did not get to that work. I, you know, need more time. I try very hard to let them know what's going on so that they realize it's not that they're not important to me, it's that I I'm also important to myself that I need to take care of me So I found in every walk of life, whether it's my.

My hobbies, my relationships, my business, that I am my toughest critic. And so are you. You you're your toughest critic. So you need to be polite to yourself. You need to be kind to yourself. You need to be respectful, you need to be honest. All those things that you expect, that you need to be to other people, you need to be to yourself.

And finally, I will just say, if things get get rough and you are so stressed out that and you don't know how to get back to a place of moving forward. So on a friend, call your sister, call your for your friend from, you know, across the country. Whatever you need to do, reach out to someone. Reach out to me.

I will always if you reach out to me, I will always be there and do what I can to help you and this industry needs to change from the standpoint of the first three and a half months of the year should not be so difficult that no one wants to come into this industry. Young people do not look at this and say, I don't I don't want this type of stress in my life, which is why I have worked very hard to define a firm that doesn't do that to my people.

Now, there are years and there are circumstances that cause a little bit more stress than other years, but it should not be that you are have to work your self to the bone and do things that harm yourself physically, mentally, your family, whatever. So if things are that bad, reach out to me. Reach out to someone. We'll get you through it.

We will get you through it. And that's it. That's all I've got today. I've got to run. I've got a client appointment that I'm about to be late for. But thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening and for sticking with me for all these years. I hope there's one thing in this episode that can bring you back to realizing that you are important and you need to take care of yourself

And hopefully there's something here that you can grasp on to, even if it's just a baby step. Okay, everybody, I'll see you next time for Bye.