The months of November, December and January are extremely busy for all accountants paticularly those heavily involved in tax. The deadline of 31 January for submission of personal tax returns tends to take over and the other urgent things, that need to be done in these months, leaves very little time for doing the other important things.
It is hard at times to realise that not putting time aside to spend on the less time critical, but no less essential, matters such as strategy and planning means that you are no more than a busy fool.
Please do not think that I do not recognise that phones need to be answered, e-mails need to be responded to, questions dealt with and scheduled work completed. It makes the business go around and is very rewarding but if you spend all your time working "in" the business you are just dealing with the present and neglecting to think about what you need to do so the business has a future.
Unfortunately having ideas and developing a plan is only part of it. Until there is action things do not happen. So you do not only have to do the "normal" work - you also need to have plans and carry them out. It sounds daunting but can be best achieved by setting aside specific time to work "in" the business and other time to work "on" the business, i.e. working on your plan.
It can help to "keep you honest" if you have someone to help you work on your plan and this is, of course, something we can do.
