Richard and I had the privilege of attending the Management Summit convention Las Vegas in January.  Many of the top mid sized accounting firms from United States and Canada were in attendance.  Sadly only two Canadian firms were represented. 

One of the guest speakers was Sam Allred, CPA, a partner of Anderson ZurMuehlen & Co., Helena, Montana and the director of UpstreamAcademy.  His topic was time management or as he preferred to call it Work/Life Balance.  The title of his presentation was "Taking Your Life Back".

I suspect as you head into tax season the Work/Life balance is really unbalanced with the scale tipping heavier on the work side.  To achieve any sense of balance it is going to take some careful planning now and willingness to stick to your goals for balance during this busy time.  Sam provided a number of ideas for effective time management for leaders.  I believe those principles can be applied now to your practice whether you are a sole practitioner or a multi partner firm.

Sam has personally given me his permission to share part of his presentation with you.

·         Crisis management

·         Doing too much-or at least trying to

·         Procrastination

·         Poor organization

·         Work space clutter

·         Reluctance to say "no"

·         Telephone tag

·         Poor planning for engagements

·         Interruptions

·         Lack of discipline to complete tasks

·         Unexpected visitors