Overcoming Procrastination

“We are all procrastinators.”  I heard a managing partner say this about himself and his partners the other day.  He’s not alone – we see it across our industry – it seems to be inherent in the personalities of accountants.

What makes us procrastinate? A quick Google search showed me that procrastination is caused by feeling overwhelm – so much to do that we put off certain tasks; poor time management – we consistently underestimate how long tasks will take, leading us to last-minute crunches; fear of failure and/or perfectionism – avoiding something we don’t do well until it’s urgent; and lastly, that belief that “I work better under pressure.”  

Does any of this sound familiar?

As leaders, our teams and the success of our firms are truly built on orienting towards deadlines, and managing our resources – our people – towards those deadlines to produce deliverables that are quality and timely for our clients.  Further, most of those deadlines occur at or around the same times of the year in busy seasons, while there is typically a significant dip in our productivity in summer to early fall.  

We know who our clients are, what their deadlines are, and generally when the work will run, and yet, we somehow still bump ourselves right into the deadline causing frustration to our clients and our teams. The good news is that there is definitely a way to break that cycle – and I will credit the leaders in my prior firm for the methods I learned.

How to Break the Cycle

At our firm, we realized that no matter how many hours we spent agonizing to match budgets to hours on the staff boards, or analyzing recognized revenue against our staffing models for each engagement, we still had an issue that the scheduled engagements would end, fire drills would occur, and staff would get pulled from one engagement to another. 

Too often, we had managers or partners reviewing and clearing comments right up against a deadline, and it was unclear why. Motivation dropped, staff (especially our senior associates) grew frustrated by the tug and pull of engagements not ending on time, and in some cases, clients grew frustrated with timing.

To address the issue, a few of our emerging leaders surveyed other offices and found that the most successful practices were those who performed bi-weekly readouts, led by senior associates, as to the status of each project to which they were assigned.In doing so, the seniors became accountable in knowing the status of their engagements, a skill many were just learning since they were recently promoted; managers took more time to ensure the clients were also committed to adhering to their deadlines during the engagement, and partners were more accountable to their teams and to each other to ensure that their review was timely, issues were resolved timely, and we were properly tracking towards issuance.

The process all started with effective project management – designing the client service plans WITH the client's buy-in during the summer/fall months – making a to-do list for the engagement and for all members of the team.  As interim work was completed, major issues were already addressed and the timeline for the busy season was challenged and re-set as necessary.  This eased the burden of late surprises, reduced the hours and hours we spent on scheduling, and allowed our partners and managers to focus and lead their teams versus lagging behind.

The Key to Success

Experts say that the key to solving procrastination is to create a to-do list and celebrate accomplishments. Effective project planning combined with engagement status report-outs allowed us to do that, while also building experience and accountability in our teams.

Are you ready to accelerate your leadership and power skills? Explore leadership development programs that meet you where you are, and take you where you want to go.