Category: Time Management

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Busy Schedule, Exciting Plans for 2023 2nd Half 

Every year, I have the most free time from June to December. 

One problem is that We’ve been working a lot since our team is small – just five of us in our office, and I’m the only one handling the money matters. Considering we make more than $4M in monthly sales, you can guess how hectic it is. I’ve made a schedule to manage my time better based on what’s most important to me.

 My daytime job is like being the captain of a ship in unpredictable weather. As we operate our company with so few members, anything can impact all of us. If you’ve ever worked as an accountant, you might know what I mean – sometimes there’s too much work, and other times, not enough.

To smooth out my workload, I update our templates, do projects to automate some of the tasks, or create queries every month. I also ensure we follow the right rules to stay in line with SOX (a kind of business law). I mostly prepare for our yearly SOX audit, which takes place in July, April, and mid-May, until we start with a quarterly audit, budget, and consolidation report. This keeps me busy all year round, but I get a break from July to December. I will be tied up with Year End and preparing corporate tax returns between January to April. 

During this time, I’m always excited about planning how to spend my time till December, when I get swamped again. Here’s what I want to do this year:

    1. Travel: We decided to visit the Grand Canyon in October for about 4-5 days.
    2. Learn about Greek and Roman Literature: I want to do this from July to October.
    3. Earn more credits for my accounting designation by continuing my education from July to December.
    4. Keep November to December open: I might study Greek and Roman Literature or learn about King Arthur.

Here’s what my priority list looks like:

    1. Work: I mostly work from home except for Mondays. During my break, I won’t be working extra unless it’s really, really important.
    2. House chores: I spend about 0.5 to 1 hour on this. We usually clean the house on Saturday mornings unless we’re having a family get-together.
    3. Family gatherings: We don’t have them every day, but when we do, they’re usually on Saturday afternoons till early evenings.
    4. Exercise: I work out for about 0.75 hours each day.
    5. Piano: I practice for about 0.75 hours each day.
    6. Professional education: I dedicate an hour to this every day except Saturdays and Sundays.
    7. Greek & Roman Literature: I spend an hour reading up on this.

Time Schedule for 2023 2nd Half 

Last modified on Jun 25, 2023

I’ve blocked out my time for all these activities. 

    • Red blocks are for sleep – I will only change these if it’s a real emergency.
    • Green blocks are for other tasks. I’ll shuffle these around if something urgent arises based on my priorities.
    • Yellow blocks are for free time, which I usually spend reading or writing.

I’ve left some time open for writing because I’ve noticed that I struggle when I set aside time for it – it’s just a mental block. Instead, I’ll spend most of my free time writing or reading. I’ll probably use this time to write blog posts or read.

Every Sunday, I’ve blocked out an hour to review my schedule. If it seems too packed, I’ll tweak it. The hardest part for me is to stick to when I sleep and find enough time to read. I’m such a big fan of reading that I feel weird when I don’t get to do it. Whenever I feel stressed, reading is my go-to way to chill out.

I’ve left some wiggle room in my schedule, so I’ll manage just fine.

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Dealing with C-Tasks

When I was in my early 20’s, I was not great at doing micro-tasks, resulting in unwanted consequences. Because I was busy closing a quarter, I put aside renewing my car registration. On the due date, I was assigned a task that needed to be done that day, while I still needed to go to the registration office to renew my car registration. It generally took me 30 minutes to go to the registration office and renew my car registration. Unfortunately, the registration office had a technical problem on the day I went to the office, and it took me a few hours to complete the task. I had no choice but to wait while the office was fixing their technical problem because I had to renew the registration on that day. I ended up working overtime to recover my lost time.

C-tasks are tasks that do not add any value. Those tasks require little time to complete; however, they can cause unnecessary stress past the critical date. In the worst case, it can prevent you from achieving other tasks that lead to your important goals. For example, they may be paying bills and renewing your car registration. Since I received the renewal notice more than a month before the due date, I had more than one month to complete this simple task. It was because I procrastinated; I did not choose to complete the task on the day. On the day, I promised myself not to repeat the same mistake.

Even though c-tasks do not add value to your life, procrastinating causes unnecessary stress. A sense of urgency can trigger some level of the Fight or flight response, a physiological reaction against events threatening survival. The reaction begins in the amygdala, which triggers the secretion of cortisol and adrenaline. Cortisol is a stress hormone that increases blood pressure and blood sugar level and suppresses the immune system. Adrenaline can prepare you to fight if something threatens your survival, but excessive adrenaline has adverse physical effects such as anxiety, high blood pressure, and heart rate increase. Therefore, Excessive stress can increase cardiovascular disease risk. According to Steptoe and Kivimaki (2012), patients who experience acute psychological stress have coronary heart disease. Patients who experience long-term stress increase coronary heart disease and mortality rate.

Excessive stress not only makes you miserable but also makes you unproductive. According to Halkos and Bousinakis (2010), as stress levels increase, productivity and satisfaction of individuals decrease. Although, tolerance levels can vary among individuals (pp. 415-416).

There is nothing wrong with having some sense of urgency or stress, as it makes me more focused, and I try not to sustain some sense of urgency on my essential tasks. On the other hand, I do not see any benefit of having a sense of urgency resulting from c-tasks because they add no value to me. As Halko and Bousinakis (2010) pointed out, people’s stress tolerance levels vary among individuals. If you think you have a higher stress tolerance than others, it would be better to utilize its capacity to add value to you. I cannot stop thinking that wasting my energy to complete c-tasks is Muda, waste. Therefore, I try to get rid of C-tasks before they become critical and stressful.

Managing C-Tasks

Managing tasks start with identifying and categorizing the importance of the tasks and when you need to complete them. Without knowing the importance of the tasks, you cannot correctly identify c-tasks. Therefore, I categorize my tasks by the importance of the task. The degree of importance is determined by how much value the task will provide me. For example, studying for an accounting designation was a high priority; thus, an important task. I categorize tasks such as bill payments or car registration renewal as C. They are essential tasks; however, they do not add value to my life.

A: A high-value activity (High impact on my Goals)

B: A medium value activities (Medium Impact to my Goals)

C: A low-value activity (Low impact on my goals)

Then, I categorize all my tasks depending on how urgent they are. A task categorized as a one is due within 0-3 days, and a task classified as 4 is a task that has a due date in more than a few weeks. There is a time that we may have an urgent task on the date the duties arise. For example, during tax season, I had many critical tasks when the clients brought me the necessary tax receipts at the last minute. There is nothing I can do to control the occurrence of the tasks. I try to keep a substantial percentage of my tasks in categories 3 and 4.

  1. Due within 0-3 days
  2. Due within a week
  3. Due within few weeks
  4. Have time more than a few weeks

When I create a to-do list, I pay a lot of attention to my time to complete the tasks—the more urgent the task is, the more stress we have. The stress level does not matter whether I complete tasks A, B, or C. For example, it would be the same to me whether I am submitting an essential report due today or renewing my license registration about to expire today.

A tiny Urgent Tasks

If a task takes less than 15 minutes to complete, I complete them immediately if I have the time. Thus, most tiny urgent tasks do not make it to my to-do list. If I am in the middle of other tasks while they arise, I put the list on my post-it notes and try to do them immediately between more significant tasks. The key is to eliminate these tiny urgent tasks as soon as possible without multi-tasking since multi-tasking never works for me.

Conclusion

I do not wholly deny having some degree of stress to be focused on. However, I feel that stress caused by tasks that are not critical to your value is a waste. Instead, I use the stress capacity to add value to myself to gain more satisfaction in my life. Therefore, I decided to identify c-tasks and manage them. Ever since I started controlling c-tasks in my early 20’s, I became more productive.

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References

Halkos, G. and Bousinakis, D. (2010), “The effect of stress and satisfaction on productivity”, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 59 No. 5, pp. 415-431. https://doi.org/10.1108/17410401011052869

Steptoe, A., Kivimäki, M. Stress and cardiovascular disease. Nat Rev Cardiol 9, 360–370 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrcardio.2012.45

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How to Spend Time Between Busy Seasons

I had a hectic autumn phase since I was simultaneously involved in too many projects. We completed the 3rd quarter and interim audits, which ended my last busy phase. I managed to win the best award for Kaizen (continuous Improvement) for the group in 2021. We completed and sent out our Management representative letters a week before our due date. It was challenging; however, I felt accomplished having met all the requirements. My next busy season starts once the fiscal year-end is over. Since there are only two weeks left until our year-end, I intend to rest as much as possible. At the same time, I want to prepare for the upcoming year-end. I want to write about how I spend my time between my busy seasons.

 

Take Time to Reflect on My Last project.

 

Whenever I complete a project, I reflect on the project, and I am most interested in the parts where I can improve the process. I try not to forget the details I did well because I want to continue good operations.

 

When I find something I need to improve, I list them separately. I use an app called Notion to track the things required to improve to contemplate them in the future. I incubated these ideas for a while, and I thought about any possible solutions, which would end up on my quick notes for the day. Once I have more thoughts on improving the process, they become a sprint backlog for future projects. Some items are easy to complete as I need to document the change of the process. Some sprint logs can take a few weeks to complete, so I may have to make a schedule to tackle them.

 

It is essential to be careful of a few things when reviewing your work. To avoid biases, I try to create some quantifiable—measurement tools—for example, the percentage of the tasks completed on time.

 

Unfortunately, I also need to look at qualitative measurements. Sometimes, they can be obvious such as getting an award. Not all qualitative measures are apparent, and If I am not careful, I will end up in a trap of self-review biases. To acquire better qualitative feedback, I seek feedback from other people. Since self-review, it will be a good idea to seek input from various people. There is 360-degree feedback, a performance review tool where you obtain feedback from your superiors and colleagues, customers, or vendors. Internal and external auditors are good reviewers for past projects, and they often provide feedback on something I did not notice.

 

I recommend you write down feedback or things that bother you as soon as you think about them at any moment. Otherwise, you will forget most of them. When you spontaneously have many projects as I did for the past three months, you do not have time to contemplate those items right after completing a task. However, you have items to work on later. The most important thing is to reflect on what is good and bad about the last project to organize my thoughts about them.

 

The Best Time to Fill GAPS

 

A designated professional must complete some continuous education. Between projects is a good time for meeting continuing education requirements. I work on achieving them throughout all seasons, but I found it ineffective to try to learn while under great stress. Whenever I know something new, I think about how to apply it. For example, I took an Inventory audit class recently. I improved our accounting process and documentation process from what I learned. Whenever I am under tremendous stress, I cannot do the application process very well. So, I try to get more learning done between the busy seasons.

 

 

An excellent time for writing Business Cases or Seeding

 

I wrote a proposal or a business case for the next Kaizen (Continuous Project). If the project has a cost associated with it, the best time to submit a proposal for our organization is in July or August since we do the budget for the following year in October. Some projects require approvals from head office or the board, and I may need to spend some time to obtain the authorizations. In some cases, I will need to spend several months or a few years to convince them. Next time, I will talk about initiating these projects or business cases. I call the initiation of any projects “seeding.” If you want to implement a change in an organization, you will need to seed as much as possible.

 

Preparation of The Next Busy Season

 

The best time to prepare for the next busy season is between the busy seasons. I had only three weeks to spare this time, and I spent time planning for our upcoming year-end and the year-end audit. For example, I updated the contact information for audit confirmation letters since I knew we would send out audit confirmation letters to the group companies. I also arranged who would be responsible for checking and signing these confirmation letters internally.

 

I communicate with my external auditors and key personnel to ensure the due dates for each task for our upcoming year-end and financial audit. Working in finance management for years, I realized my priorities are not necessarily the same. The Japanese may call this “nemawashi,” which helps others be aware of their responsibilities to eliminate unnecessary confusion.

 

I also updated audit working paper files and internal to-do list for financial audit and year-end for the upcoming audit. We need to submit some analyses, and we can complete some before the actual fiscal year-end. I also updated our internal to-do list for the Financial Audit, and I decided when each task on the to-do list could be completed. I will need to send out reminders to people in some cases.

 

Take Vacation Time 

 

I take a vacation during my slow phase, and I plan to take a week’s break this Christmas to refresh and spend with my family. I could not spend the last couple of years with family, so this will be an excellent opportunity to do so.

 

 

Each item I wrote maybe a trivial thing; however, I consider it critical to prepare for busy seasons. When I was young, I did not consider reflecting on my last project, and I bet I lost many opportunities to improve my process. The slow phase is an excellent time to complete an impressive sprint list or complete the backlog before initiating a new project. Finally, do not forget to take a vacation because a block of time from work helps you replenish your energy. So, these are things I do in my slow phase, and I hope this blog helps some of you.

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Prioritization Part II

When we think about prioritizing, we usually think of prioritizing your to-do list for a short period. I have made several mistakes during my youth, resulting in me instinctively sensing the scarcity of my time. So, I always created a to-do list, and focusing on critical tasks was important.

Over time, I realized that this was not enough because I was not happy with what I was doing. With prioritizing my short-term to-do list, I got an illusion of being productive. Packing my daily to-do list without reengineering my vision, I soon noticed an unsettling feeling. When the uneasy feeling accumulated, I started to feel unhappy.

When you create your goals, you want to contemplate more on your mission and values. I went to university to get a degree which landed me in my job. I barely thought of “what I want to do.” After I landed a job as an accountant, I set a mission of advancing along my career path as an accountant. I grew unhappy with myself. Initially, I tried to ignore my feelings by making myself busy. Eventually, an event made me realize the importance of contemplating my actual values. (Please read my previous blog posting for details).

Once you have created your vision, you will need to see what you need to do in more detail – this is the process of creating your goals. Any goal should have the following five elements: specificity, measurability, attainability, and relevance with a time set for completion. Many people fail to achieve their goals because they are not detailed enough.

 

For example,

“I want to lose weight this year” is a bad example of the goal.

Firstly, you cannot tell how much weight you want to lose. A measurable element allows you to monitor how well you are achieving your goals to adjust your tactics to achieve the goal. Second, no specific time is determined when you want to start or end working toward a goal. Since the goal is too generic, we cannot see whether this goal is attainable or relevant.

Instead, you want to make a goal like this.

“I want to lose 8 lbs. within two months”.

Now, the goal contains enough information to be able to develop tactics to achieve the goal. Since you want to lose eight lbs. in two months, you will need to lose one lb. each week. To lose one lb., you will need to create a 3,500 calorie deficit by eating less or exercising more. Now you can create your daily tasks. In this case, you can complete a task of aerobic exercise 5 times a week. You want to make your goal with these five elements because it will be easier to identify the tactics to accomplish the goals and measure your progress.

 

Three Categories of Tasks

I classify the tasks necessary to achieve your vision and goal as A-type tasks. These are relevant to your vision and the purpose of living. You want to pay attention and treat these tasks very carefully as they can impact your life significantly.

Now, we talk about things you want to do, but they may not be a part of your vision. For example, I love reading, playing the piano, painting, etc. They are mostly things I enjoy doing. My goals will be all over the place if I include my hobbies as part of my goals. I classify these tasks as B-Type. Some of those tasks, such as playing the piano, required you to practice regularly. So, I have them as part of my to-do list.

Some tasks must be done by a specific date, although they may not be strictly part of your goal. An excellent example of such a task is renewing your car’s registration. I call these c-type tasks. These tasks often take much more time and energy if you leave them until the last minute. Since the task itself does not have value, I do not want to spend more energy than is necessary. I list these types of tasks separately. These tasks tend to distract me from completing other tasks to finish them as soon as possible.

 

“Need” vs. “Want”

Once you have the lists of A, B, and C type tasks, you need to divide the tasks into tasks that “need” and tasks that “want” to be done.” Pay attention to the due date for any tasks that need to be done by a specific date. The closer the due date is, the higher the priority for the tasks.

My B-tasks barely contain things which “need to be done.” By nature of the tasks, they are wishful tasks. My days will be occupied by mostly A and C tasks. They may not have high priorities, but completing these tasks gives me more energy. I treat these tasks like “a date.” I schedule to do them regularly.

I have a running list of tasks, which I use computer software to monitor the status. I prioritize the tasks for the week from the list, and I create a “to-do list.” As time is limited, we must carefully plan what we do each day. There are a few tricks I learned over the year:

  • Prioritize type A type C tasks. Complete as many C-tasks as possible.
  • I always keep 20% of flexible time in my schedule.
  • I have at least one essential task for the day.
  • I make sure to include tasks from your want-to-do list from Type A and Type B.

 

PrioritizingPrioritizationI wrote about an overview of prioritizing tasks in these two-blog postings. It is crucial to prioritize your tasks since our time is limited. I have so many interests, and I struggled a lot juggling my time. Many of us tend to fill our daily life with c-tasks. Don’t randomly fill up your tasks and prioritize them. It is also essential to spend some time contemplating your visions, values, and interests before generating and prioritizing your tasks to gain more control in your life. Finally, it will take a long time to become good at prioritizing your tasks. I still make mistakes. You will also make mistakes. You are always in the process of learning better at prioritizing your tasks.

 

 

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Prioritization – Part 1

What I found most difficult in my life was prioritizing what I needed to do because I wanted to do too many things. When I was young, I was pretty bad at prioritizing my tasks. As a result, I ended up quitting many projects I started. For example, I began to draw a picture and started learning a piano music piece. With full-time work or school, I could not take time for both at a time. Sometimes I had to quit one project. At the worst time, I had another urgent project which I needed to do, and I had to stop all other projects. My biggest problem in prioritization was that I often ended up picking a few of among many things. I have so many things I want to do most of the time. Every failed project made me uneasy; however, I ignored the feeling.

 

There was an event that made me conscious about my priorities when I was at a high school. My friend, whom I had known from elementary school, asked to accompany saxophone music for an event.  I knew I was busy, but I agreed to do it. After a few weeks, I resigned due to a time conflict. My friend looked disappointed, although he never blamed me for it. It made me feel awful because he had to search for another piano player. Since the event, I have become very conscious about prioritization. I realized some tasks could potentially impact other people. I decided to work on my problem so that I did not repeat the same mistake.

 

Despite my efforts, prioritization was more Prioritizationdifficult than I thought. I made a lot of mistakes in how to prioritize my tasks. I am still learning to juggle my schedule. Through trial and error, I got much better at prioritizing my tasks. Over time, I found out there are some tricks in prioritizing what you need to do. Today, I want to write about how I prioritize my tasks.

 

Prioritizing Tasks

I can categorize my tasks into two types. The first type of task includes things I must do. The rest are tasks I want to do. I could not pack my schedule with only tasks I must do to keep my life more satisfied.

 

Satisfying basic needs is critical for prioritization. Maslow’s developed a Hierarchy of needs to articulate the five levels: physiological needs, safety and security, love and belonging, and Esteem and self-actualization. The lower on the hierarchy the need lies, the more critical it is to satisfy it. For example, Physiological needs are necessities for us to survive, such as eating, sleeping, etc. Even though I love reading books, I cannot sustain reading books without sleeping or eating.

 

 

I must satisfy the tasks to fulfill the following needs:

Absolute Requirements: Eat, Sleep, Exercise

High Priority Tasks: Work so that my family can live safely.

Although, I noticed that I could sacrifice physiological needs for my husband when he was ill.

 

Satisfying our basic needs is essential; however, that is not good enough. We must fulfill some things that we want to do. We must find the balance between what needs to be done and what we want to do. When we consider tasks that we want to do, we need to consider visions and values closely.

 

 

Visions & Values

I think visualizing what do you want to do in the future is like drawing or writing. When I draw a picture, I make multiple drafts even before I start drawing. After the numerous drafts, you can finally begin to remove the image. Envisioning is just like creating a draft. Without the draft, it is harder to draw a correct picture line – the lines are like our goals. The clearer they are, the easier it is to focus and prioritize things to do.

 

Our vision must be aligned with our values. Values are something we cannot compromise. So, a misaligned vision will make you uneasy and unsatisfying.

 

I have a friend who went to a veterinary school in Japan. She loves animals. Being a vet does not solely involve playing with animals. Sometimes she may need to put a puppy or a kitty to sleep. She loves animals; however, this is something she could not compromise. So, she became a dog trainer. She makes much less money; however, she is much happier with her life.

 

When I was younger, I set my vision on climbing the corporate ladder. Therefore, I took on a lot of projects, and I worked a lot of hours. I started realizing that my vision did not align with my values. There are a lot of competitions and political games involved in climbing up the corporate ladder. The higher you go up on a corporate ladder, the more impact you have on others. One day, I created a system that ended up terminating several people’s jobs. Despite my promotion, I felt guilty and unhappy. That was the moment I realized that my vision and values were misaligned. So, I started contemplating what my values were.

 

Learning

Challenge

Creating

Freedom

Effectiveness

 

Competition is not my value; therefore, my vision was completely misaligned. After I realized this problem, I felt more relaxed with my life. I specialized in creating better processes at work. My curiosity is not limited to artistic fields such as playing the piano, drawing, reading, or learning something new. I will be satisfied if I can have enough free time to do them.

 

Our time is scarce. So, we must choose which requirement we want to satisfy– this involves prioritizing your tasks. If I am not careful, I can still overload myself with too many tasks. I feel discomfort from losing control of my time. So, I try to limit the number of tasks so that I have some wiggle time. And therefore, I must prioritize what I need to do.

 

Prioritizing is essential since our time is limited. It is necessary to distinguish what you need to do and what you want to prioritize tasks. Then it would be best if you considered your vision values. Without vision, you will be unfocused. If your vision is misaligned with your values, you will be dissatisfied with your life.

 

The better I become at prioritizing my tasks, the more control I gain. Over time, I found out there are some tricks in prioritizing my tasks. I still make many mistakes in prioritizing; although, I try to improve my experience. I hope my experience can help you to prioritize your tasks.

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How to Manage Project Overload

Background

The busy season has started because of year-end. Unfortunately, we have had difficulty partially finding additional accounting staff because the position requires Japanese language skills. As the hiring manager, I do not think Japanese language skill is necessary. After all, we operate in the United States.

One of my biggest challenges was a global kaizen project presentation, which I could not be delegated to anyone. Unfortunately, this presentation is being held in the middle of my busiest season – we are in the middle of preparing three different audits, budgeting, and preparation for the third quarter consolidation report. Finally, I am still overseeing a few other continuous improvement projects.

According to my network, this is not uncommon for small or mid-size companies since it is getting harder to get qualified accountants in this area. Labor shortages in specific fields are getting worse. What I can say is this. I am confident that I am not the only busy person. This is my first time in this complicated situation, but it will not be the last. Today, I want to write about how I manage my tasks when under challenging situations.

My biggest suggestion is not to wait until the last minute. Instead, you need to start the process as soon as possible. 

List all the tasks you need to complete

First, I usually list all outstanding projects I need to complete. I do not write down little tasks required for each project, but I write down the project name. I organize all my projects and tasks digitally. Still, I write down the list on a blank letter-size paper in landscape orientation to visualize the bigger picture of the situation. I spend about one or two minutes writing down this list.

Interim Audit

Quarter Review Audit

Internal Audit

Consolidation reporting package

And so on.

Next, write down the due date to the right of each item

  1. 3rd Quarter External Audit – Nov 8
  2. Interim External Audit – Nov 8
  3. Annual Internal Audit – PBC due Nov 8, Audit Nov 16
  4. Budget – Oct 26
  5. Global Kaizen Project Presentation – Nov 3
  6. Third Quarter Consolidation Report due Nov 23

If you know how long each project will take you to complete, you can estimate the earliest and the latest start time. For example, I will not do any projects involving the 3rd quarter until the 3rd quarter is closed. That will be the earliest start date. The latest start day needs to be calculated from the due date.

I usually use a checklist – which contains all activities listed in a project. For example, I typically have approximately 50-150 items depending on the type of audit. Examples of tasks on this list are federal and state taxes estimates, inventory reserve calculations, slow-moving inventory analyses. I write down how many hours it takes to complete each task. The project time is the aggregation of times of each activity to complete the project.

Checklist

I learned this trick when I was working for an accounting firm a long time ago. A checklist is a list of all the things you need to do, and a checklist offers multiple benefits.

A checklist is an excellent tool to maintain consistency in the tasks. For example, quarter audit, an external auditor usually asks for the same type of information. If you have the list ahead of time, you can generally gather them ahead of time.

A checklist is helpful when you want to delegate certain tasks to other team members of the financially auditing team.

I use a checklist to gauge how many hours each project takes. Once you have the due date, you can estimate the earliest and the latest start date for each project.

If you do not have a checklist for repeating a project, I strongly recommend you create one.

Task Delegation

I know I cannot do all tasks by myself. I usually delegate out as many tasks as possible to junior positions. Delegation does not only help you to ease your workload, but it helps to develop your subordinates.

The critical thing to remember when you delegate your work is you still need to hold responsibility for the tasks.  If you need to train them, you should prepare and review their work. Make sure to give feedback immediately when the tasks are done. Immediate feedback enhances their task efficiency for the future.

I also have written instructions for individual tasks or activities, which I create whenever I have extra time. This instruction also helps train your subordinates.

Negotiate the Due Dates ahead of time

I often negotiate the due dates with our auditors when multiple projects need to be done spontaneously. In my case, I usually negotiate the timing of interim and quarter audits with our external auditors. Our interim audit was initially scheduled for Nov 4, but I dealt with our auditor no make it 8th. We had an internal audit starting on Nov 16.

I requested the consolidation report due date to Nov 23 instead of the 18th because we have an internal audit in the same week. Sometimes it is impossible to do two projects simultaneously because you do not have the time to do two things.

Tasks completion status

I made this list in mid-September, and I made my plan to complete all of them. I am still working on the tasks, but I managed to complete some of them.

  1. 3rd Quarter External Audit – Nov 8 – 85% completed (review delegated tasks left)
  2. Interim External Audit – Nov 8 – PBC submitted
  3. Annual Internal Audit – PBC due Nov 8, Audit Nov 16 – PBC expected to be completed Nov 4
  4. Budget – Oct 26 completed
  5. Global Kaizen Project Presentation – Nov 3 (Slide submitted, currently practicing presentation)
  6. Third Quarter Consolidation Report due Nov 23 (Starting Nov 16)

Conclusion

This was quite a challenging period since I also had to work on the global kaizen project presentation. I still think the key is to list all of the tasks and plan them well. The important thing is to start the planning process as soon as possible. I am 95% certain that I will complete all of them without any delay.

I acquired this process from my experience. The process can be applied to anything. You should try it. It is probably better than becoming stressed out.

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Let’s Play Habitica #1 – Using a Role Playing Game (RPG) App to Track Habits

I have been looking into a method to maintain and build good habits more fun for a while because it can be tedious. I made more time available than usual over the last couple of weeks, and I used my free time mainly looking at apps on my mobile phone to track my habits. I found Habitica, a phone app to track habits in the form of a role-playing game (RPG). It is an online task management tool while playing an RPG game, which can be a fun way to gain good habits for people like me who like RPG games.

Anyone who tries to develop new habits will find that acquiring a completely new habit is quite challenging. Getting a new habit involves stepping out of one’s comfort zone; therefore, it is natural to feel discomfort. For example, I found acquiring meditation practice to be challenging despite understanding how beneficial meditation will be. It is natural for people to stay in their comfort zone as part of their survival instinct. So, it is vital to develop new habits slowly. Taking little steps outside of your comfort zone will eventually convince your brain to see the new zone as a part of your comfort zone.

Determine which habits you want to keep requires careful evaluation since not all habits are good for you. In some way, habits are like a double-edged sword- they can be good, bad, or both. It is because a habit works for others. It does not necessarily have the same positive effect on you. Therefore, you should customize your habits to your needs and for yourself.

It is critical to evaluate, so you acquire and keep only habits that are good for you. In many cases, you may not even know whether a habit is good for you until you try it out. For example, it is difficult for a night owl to create a task to run at 5 a.m. So, it is essential to develop our habits slowly. It is a slow and tedious process, which makes the process challenging for many people. Therefore, many end up giving up on acquiring the habits.  

It is possible to make the tedious process more enjoyable by applying gamification theory, game design elements in non-game contexts. My elementary teacher used to give us a sticker for attending school. Periodically, students who accumulated the most stickers got a small reward. The competition and the rewards motivate students to attend school. So, I was looking for a way to make this process more fun by using gamification.

Gamification is a robust process to encourage people to engage in certain activities. The method is so powerful that some scholars even claim it is used as a tool to manipulate people to engage in radicalization – although both the theoretical and empirical basis of the theory does not support it well (Schlegel, 2021). Gamification is still an effective way to motivate people for a higher likelihood of prolonged engagement.

Gamification has been getting a lot of attention as it is powerfully manipulative by nature. By observing games on social media platforms, gaming platforms, and private chats, Marczewski developed a framework to analyze the user types in the gamification setting. According to Maczewski (cited in Schlegel, 2021), there are six categories of users:

  • Socializer, motivated by connecting to others
  • Free spirits, inspired by expressing themselves or creativities
  • Achiever, motivated by acquiring new skills or knowledge
  • Philanthropists, motivated by a feeling of purpose or meaning by helping others 
  • disruptor, motivated by trolling and upsetting others in the game
  • Players, motivating by getting extrinsic rewards

Schlegel investigated the user types identified by Maczewski and summarized them into five user types.

User TypeDriver of RadicalizationMotivational DriverGame Elements
SocializerIdentify SeekerRelatednessGilds, team,
CompetitorStatus SeekerExtrinsic rewardspoints, leaderboard, achievements
AchieverNeed for certainty about the worldExploration, masteryquests, certification, progress bar
Meaning SeekerNeed of meaning or purposePurpose, meaningEpic story, sharing items
DisruptorThrill SeekerChallenging OthersRewards for disruption

Maczewski’s Five User Framework

Of course, it is nearly impossible to tailor all game features to appeal to all people. Many people will enjoy the components of the same game to some extent; although, we must keep in mind that the effect of the gamified results will differ for everyone. Therefore, a good game contains all of those elements to appeal to many users.

Habitica seems to contain game elements that provide some fun components such as positive reinforcement and opportunities for collaboration or competition, which will lead to a higher likelihood of prolonged engagement. I think it may spice up my reasonable habit-building efforts in a good way. So, I decided to download the app to try it out.

First, I listed the critical daily tasks I wanted to track. Then, I allocated points according to the difficulty of completing the tasks. 

  1. Sleep by 10:00 p.m. This will be a challenging task since I often pass my bedtime by preventing sleep. Thus, this task should have both a plus and a minus sign. This task will be moderately challenging. 
  2. Wake up by 5:30 a.m. Waking up by 5:30 a.m. gets more challenging if I go to sleep later than 10:00 p.m. Thus, this task should have both a plus and a minus sign. This task will be moderately strenuous. 
  3. Drink more than 80 oz water. Most days, I drink more than 80oz of water. It is a critical task to be acquired, just like sleeping. Thus, this task should have both a plus and a minus sign.
  4. Enter a food Journal on Fitbits. This task will be easy, but it is essential. Thus, this task should have both a plus and a minus sign. 
  5. Do A 2-minute meditation before going to bed. This task will be a challenging task. 
  6. Weigh first thing in the morning. Challenging. This task should have both a plus and a minus sign. I put this task as difficult because I often forget weight in the morning since I changed my phone. This task is critical for my goals. So, I decided to assign a more considerable negative consequence for not doing.
Daily HabitsRate” + “” – “
Sleep by 10:00 p.m.Moderate2-2
Wake up by 5:30 a.m.Moderate2-2
Drink more than 80 ozEasy1-1
Enter food JournalEasy11
Do a 2-minute meditation before going to bedDifficult3-3
Weigh first thing in the morningModerate2-3
My Six Tasks in Habitica

I am considering the above six tasks that I cared about the most for two weeks starting this Monday.  After two weeks, I plan to add challenges. Challenge is a series of tasks set up by another player or officials. You will be doing the challenge with another player. If you achieve higher points in the challenge, you may end up with germs by completing the tasks assigned by a challenge. Once you have some gems, you can spend them on getting some quests and equipment. Some challenges are created monthly, so I may need to wait until the start of next month.

I am starting this little sprint for pure curiosity. Gamification is an effective way to motivate people, and this is a fun approach to deal with my habit building. If this works well, I will use the app for future kaizen projects.

Reference

Schlegel, L. (2021). Connecting, Competing, and Trolling: “User Types” in Digital Gamified Radicalization Processes. Perspectives on Terrorism, 15(4), 54–64.

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Completing Project Management Principles and Practices Specialization

I have led many financial transformation projects throughout my career. I gained knowledge from years of experience and certification courses provided by companies I worked with. I have been leading much more challenging projects at work last several years. So, I have been seriously considering becoming certified with a PMP certification. The objective of taking this course is to determine if I want to proceed with actual PMP certification.

This specialization consists of 4 Courses:

Initiating and Planning Projects: the key roles and responsibilities of the project manager and project team are to define the objectives for the project is the critical component of a project. In this course, you will also learn how to defines the goals of the projects.

Budgeting and Scheduling Projects: The project budget defines the constraints that can prevent a project team from completing the project. This course teaches you how to plan and monitor your schedule, costs, and any other constraint to ensure the success of your project.

Managing Project Risks and Changes: In this course, you will learn how to manage the risk of projects. You will learn the tools to monitor and manage the identified risks to minimize or mitigate risks for your team and other project stakeholders.

Project Management Project: Capstone course: In this course, you will create several key project planning deliverables using the knowledge you gained from the specialization courses.

Capstone:

  1. A narrative charter statements
  2. Work breakdown structure
  3. Sequence project activities
  4. A Project Schedule
  5. A Project Budget
  6. A responsibility assignment matrix
  7. Project risks and define responses for those risks

This course is offered by the University of California, Irvine. The courses consisted of videos, slides, reading materials, quizzes, and guided capstone for the last course. Additionally, there are optional reading materials:  I obtained the suggested reading materials: a guide to the project management body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) and Fast Forward MBA in Project Management. They are optional reading materials, but those books helped me a lot in completing these courses.  Since I decided to read all the suggested materials, completing each course took longer than recommended.

Paid courses in COURSERA have multiple choice quizzes or Peer graded assignments. The first three courses had quizzes, and the capstone had peer-graded assignments and a guided project. Make sure to read the requirements. I found that it is easier to find reviewers if you submit the assignment on Friday night. Many students seem to work on their course from Friday to Sunday.

You can start a course any day of the week for this course. The good thing was you could begin the capstone as soon as you complete all prerequisite courses. In the past, I had to wait a few months to take the capstone course because it started on a specific day.

Challenges

I did not have a lot of time to study. So, I spent at least 30 – 45 minutes working on this course every day. It can be hard to complete courses if you sorely relied on your motivation. Once I started studying for 10 minutes, I found it was easy to continue for another 20-30 minutes.

The Specialization course in 3 Sentences:

This specialization course teaches the most effective method to deliver the required product or function within the target cost and schedule. You will gain the fundamental knowledge to manage a project after taking these courses. You will produce a project plan that includes the product scope, a work breakdown structure, a project plan, a project schedule, budget, and risk management for the capstone course.

Impressions

Most videos are short; however, they are clear and concise. The videos and reading materials provide essential knowledge, and they are easy to understand. There are two optional reading materials for this course. If you want to take your learning to a higher level, these optional reading materials help. There is no limit on how much you can learn from the courses.

** Make sure to check the current PMBOK edition. This course recommends the 6th edition, but there is the 7th edition. 

How I Discovered It

I discovered this course from Coursera. I have a subscription from Coursera, and I am always taking courses from their website. I decided to take this course because I want to refine my project management skills. I also want to determine whether I want to obtain professional certification.

Who should take this course?

You do not have to own a title in project management to do these specialization courses. Anyone should take this course. We are often working on projects at work and personal life. You can apply the project management skills gained from these courses for your projects, such as wedding planning or home renovations.

I do not think this counts toward the required 35 PMP contract hours; however, the course gives you an idea of whether you want to proceed with the PMP certification.

How this Course Changed Me

I decided to proceed with PMP certifications, and then I will get a SCRUM master certification. Since most project leading involves change management or continuous improvement, I hardly use the SCRUM technique to manage a project. First, it would be better for me to learn the traditional method because the methods used for SCRUM are based on the traditional project management approach.

I found a great project plan that was submitted by one of the students. The project plan was clear and concise. Many stakeholders (especially sponsors) do not want to spend time figuring out the details of the project. I was fortunate to see his assignment, and I applied some of his techniques to improve my future project plans.

During this course, I realized the APA format changed again. Not to promoting my university but use Purdue OWL if you do not know how to style your academic paper.

About Coursera Courses

Finally, I want to mention few things about the courses offered in Coursera. Generally, there are optional reading materials recommended by instructors. You can adjust the depth of learning by reading optional reading material. If you want more intensity, don’t stop at just optional reading—research external academic journals for the assignments. I use JSTOR, Scientific Research, and Academia since I can read some free journals. There are also YouTube courses. Since I have a Skillsoft account, I use it for some business-related research. It takes me longer to complete courses, but I end up acquiring more knowledge than it offers. I have a subscription to Coursera because I can access more courses with the subscription. If you do not care for assignments or certifications, you can audit courses for free.

Interested in taking this specialization course? Check the link below.

https://www.coursera.org/specializations/project-management

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The Day of Doing Nothing Can Benefit Us

One day, I decided to do nothing because I felt my attrition rate increase, especially in tasks requiring creativity. It is because I have been extremely busy with year-end audits, taxes, and other year activities. Although, it was not as bad as the prior year since my husband took over many household chores. I also have been working on improving my lifestyle to be healthier by getting adequate sleep, meditation, proper diet, and exercise. Yet, I noticed that I tend to be less focused. It was high time to relax and refresh my brain.

I wanted to take a week off from work; however, it was impossible to take a whole week off. So, I took two days off—a day for only reading, playing the piano, writing, and thinking. I did the exercise for one of the two days. I made a strict rule not to think about work at all during these two days. I intentionally created two days without a to-do list or appointments, which was surprisingly challenging.

In total, I had two days of vacation. I decided to do whatever I wanted to do that day. One rule I strictly enforced was not to think about my work at all. On the first day, I mostly spend my time reading and playing the piano on these days. I did approximately 90 minutes of exercise during the day. I was physically tired, so I slept so well. I scored 91 on my sleep quality score according to my Fitbit. On the second day, I was doing the same activities as the first day, but I did not exercise. I had too much energy to sleep that night. I am usually busy on my vacation days doing something, and I never noticed this problem. I need to test it again. It will be better for me physically active on my vacation days. Although, I thought two days were too short to be effective.

Sometimes, people purposely take days off from daily routines to be more creatives and focused. Bill Gates takes one week off from his busy life twice a year so that he does nothing but reading articles and books, studying and thinking about the bigger picture (McKeown, 2021). I do not remember when I took a week off for vacation the last time because I spent all my vacation and holidays doing projects. So, I decided to take to see what would happen from the day off.

Surprisingly, many Americans forfeit their vacation times. According to the Washington Post (August 28, 2019), 55% of Americans did not even use their vacation time, leaving 768 million days of unused paid time off. The average number of American’s paid days off is 17.4 days in 2018; however, this number includes paid holidays (para. 9-11). When I came to the United States, I was surprised by this. I am from Canada, and I worked in Germany, where we must provide paid statutory holidays.

Many Americans indeed chose not to use up their paid day off. Perhaps, many of us feel guilty about taking a vacation. Many of us fear we may be seen as more of a liability for the company to take time off. The question we must look into is – are those beliefs are correct? When I thought about this question, I realized that I do not know. I have heard about the benefit of taking breaks from problems or taking a vacation to affect people positively. I assumed that taking breaks allows us to get recharged. Since I was interested, I researched the benefits. Surprisingly, there is ample research about the effects of taking breaks.

Some consulting firms are discovering whether employees taking vacations benefits a company. According to Rook from JP Griff Group (June 3, 2019), the 2017 project study they conducted revealed that the employees who forfeit their vacation were 4 % less likely to receive raises and 6 % less likely to receive bonuses (para. 10). They found out that people who continue to work without a break or vacation; are less focused and less engaged. They are more likely to make mistakes because they are fatigued. It gets much harder to generate new ideas with an overused brain.

Taking days off improves our productivity has been empirically observed and is a generally accepted scientific theory. Some researchers observed the benefits from it; then, they further investigated how the benefits are created. Being away from work allows our brain to generate more ideas and solutions to the problem, which psychologists call the incubation effect. According to Ritter & Dijksterhuis (2014), the effects of incubation are generally accepted; however, there are two opposing theories of how the benefits are created, the Unconscious work theory and the conscious work theory. The Unconscious work theory suggests that our unconscious activity of solving the problem contributes to the effect. The Conscious work theory argues that the effect is caused by actively relaxing the brain by being away from the problem (pp.4-5).

A few days of incubating problems allows us to solve the problems, especially problems that require remote association. Researchers theorized that sleep has an essential role in the incubation effect. Scientists have found that REM sleep enhances our creativity. According to Wagner et al. (as cited in Ritter and Dijkstehuis, 2014), students who slept more than seven hours at least twice were more creative and solved problems faster than people who did not. Sleep enhances cognitive flexibility and the ability to find remote associations.

Furthermore, sleep allows students to find solutions to abstract problems (p. 4). This theory interested me because I had found that I could solve problems during dreaming when I was in high school. It tends to happen when I have been thinking about the same problem for at least three days. It happens a lot with me with math problems. The last time it occurred to me was a few months ago when I was building a query. Unfortunately, I cannot control this ability. I always speculated that my brain removes the limit of my creativity during sleep, which allowed me to solve the problem.  So, sleeping has a vital role in the incubation effect. Then we should not be spending our days off partying all night.

People need days off because taking days off allows us to walk away from the problems at work. There will be no phones, tablets, or laptops. Stay away from the work because you want to be actively not thinking about the work. Another important part is we still need to get adequate sleep during days off. After struggling to solve a problem, try to walk away from it. Sometimes working away from the problems leads us to their solutions.

This little research made me view vacations differently. Perhaps, we need breaks to be more productive and creative. I thought people say it to sound and humanely compliant for a company. We, accountants, flags other accountants if they do not take breaks—accountants believe in taking vacations to prevent fraud. We gain benefits from taking days off. After my investigation, I realized that we should take days off to be more focused, creative, and productive. Getting adequate sleep is also important while doing so. Sometimes, walking away from problems leads you to the solutions. Although, this may not be economically feasible for some people. According to the Center for Economic and Research, The United States requires zero yearly time off, much lower than France, Austria, Spain, Germany, Canada, and Japan (as cited in Sampson, August 28, 2019, para. 3). In some cases, people do not get paid off at all. Although, many of us do have paid vacation. If you choose not to use up the paid days off, you may want to reconsider taking them. I will try to use up my vacation this year, and I will try to go somewhere next time and note any differences.

References

McKeown, Greg. (2021). Essentialism. [Kindle edition].

Ritter, S. M., &Dijksterhuis, A. (2014). Creativity—The unconscious foundations of the incubation period. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00215

Rook, David. (June 3, 2019). JP Griffin Group. The Importance of Paid Time Off (PTO). https://www.griffinbenefits.com/blog/the-importance-of-paid-time-off-as-an-employee-benefit

Sampson, Hannah. (August 28, 2019). What Does America Have Against Vacation?https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2019/08/28/what-does-america-have-against-vacation/