Finding Balance in Busy Season: Technology, Planning, and Humanity

Just I was diving in to write this, I came across this quote from a productivity newsletter I follow:

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing."

— Annie Dillard, 'The Writing Life', 1989

I was 22 years old, part of a bright-eyed audit and tax class of 77 recent graduates embarking on their professional career at a Big 4 firm in Silicon Valley. I had believed this full-time position was going to be like an extension of last summer's internship…what we got instead were 75-80 hour weeks, more free takeout food than the body should healthfully consume, and conference rooms that were more lived in than my own home.

Didn't the company know this was coming? We've had this client for over a decade. This audit happens every year at the same time. We test the same areas with the same methodologies. I understand crunch time when unexpected variables pop up that you didn't plan for, but wasn't all of this planned for? If they were not adequately planning for unexpected variables after 10+ years on this engagement, then they were doing something wrong. And if they had actually planned for it, and this was the outcome, then they were…doing something wrong. Someone somewhere was either not planning, or was really bad at planning, and all of this was being done on a grand scale, repetitively.

It was a quiet Tuesday evening (technically Wednesday morning) as I sat staring at the remains of my third takeout meal of the day - one of the many corporate-funded meals that was supposed to make up for the fact that I hadn't done anything for personal enjoyment in several weeks. The free food was a trick, that as a recent college graduate I was easily susceptible to. My breaking point wasn't dramatic. It wasn't a single terrible client engagement or even the particularly demoralizing $750 bonus I got after my first busy season. It was when I looked up to see the Partner talking with the Senior Manager about some mundane audit area on the white board, and I realized the guy with the most control and flexibility is here at 12:30 am instead of home with his family. This was not how I wanted to spend my days, or my life.

I left Big 4 after my first busy season and endured a few more in Audit until I found myself drawn to, and good at, the operational roles where I could impact change for the better - to improve last year's processes, build processes where they didn't exist, find and connect tools to automate or streamline how we do something. “Busy season” is a thing of the past for me, but I'm still on a mission to make sure every accountant has more impact and control over their schedule.

How to make Busy Season feel less busy:

• Systematize and leverage technology.
• Plan ahead.
• Remember you're human and you work with other humans.

Systematize and Leverage Technology

Every minute spent on manual tasks is a minute stolen from either strategic work or personal life. Companies like Intuit are constantly seeking ways to make our lives easier through convenient automation. With each passing year, we have more tools and features at our disposal to automate the mundane. QuickBooks Online is coming out with new features all the time. A few ways they've transformed the daily grind with technological advancements:

• Bank feeds automating transaction download
• Rules to automatically categorizing transactions
• Digital receipt management
• Integrations across systems to streamline and automate elements of client proposals, onboarding, invoicing, and payments

It’s a huge win when your software is working behind the scenes for you 24/7. The automated bank feed is still syncing while you're at your kid's soccer game. Those smart categorization rules are doing their job while you're getting a full night's sleep.

With every repetitive task you find yourself doing, ask yourself if it truly requires human intelligence, or if it can be programmed. Even if it takes more time in the moment to set up a system, rather than just doing the task, consider the long run investment of time back if you are diligent about setting up a more automated process.

Plan ahead.

Plan your work, know what’s coming, and be reasonable and conservative about your work and capacity estimations - you’ve done this before, and have more control over the situation than you might realize.

Then, plan time off. Time off doesn't just happen. You have to plan it and take it. First, get it on your calendar - not as a tentative 'maybe’ but as a hard commitment. It’s critical for your mental health to have that break to look forward to.

A couple weeks before extended time off, I add a line in my email signature: "Planned time off: I will be out of the office February 23 - 28th." That way, all your correspondence leading up to your time off has that tagged. This isn't just courtesy to others, it's a strategy. It puts the responsibility on others to plan ahead if they're going to need something of you, it removes the guilt of feeling like you're 'abandoning' your customers and colleagues because you've let them know in advance, and it reminds everyone you correspond with that people need time off and certain things can wait.

Then go be a human and celebrate others being human!

I know what it feels like to get sucked into the grind, but remember, you're a human and you work with other humans. You need fresh air, sunlight, good nutrition, regular movement, and human connection - and so do your co-humans. At Dark Horse, we embrace the human side of each other at work:

• We have Microsoft community groups for talking about interests, hobbies, and sharing life outside work
• We have recurring breathwork sessions (hosted by one of our Dark Horse Private Wealth managers) and chair yoga for movement breaks
• Humor is a big part of our culture! The power of human connection should not be underestimated. We have a company wide chat room that is a little less than PC and keeps us connected and laughing through the longer days.

Looking to 2025:

Last month, I took a week off to travel to Mexico for a beach volleyball camp for adults (yes, they have those!) For anyone who has experienced an audit or tax busy season, taking time off at this time of year is unheard of. But it's the result of intentionally planning and building a life where I can make this happen - while still serving my company and my colleagues.

I'm on a mission to continue Dark Horse's work as a leader in culture change for the accounting industry. I openly share and post pictures of my outside activities and travel adventures because I want to show others what's important to me and that I make space for those things. When I'm visible and vocal about my life outside work, I hope it gives others permission to do the same. The accounting industry needs more whole humans who can bring their full selves to their work, so we need to promote the culture and environment that elicit that.

Our leadership team is hyper focused on supporting our CPAs, especially during their most demanding periods. But we plan ahead for busy seasons, by investing in the right tools and providing resources so they don’t get bogged down in manual admin processes. We encourage balance and time off. We embrace the whole human.

My goal isn't for our accountants to just survive busy season - it's to redefine what busy season means for modern accountants. Dark Horse was created to be a place where accountants have control over and can craft the balance they want in their life - however it makes sense for them. It’s no coincidence that my career led me here.

*This is my content from my experiences, please note this is presented as part of a paid partnership with Intuit.

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