How not to hate Future You

Seth Godin calls it “personal process notation”.

In my mind, I call it “How not to hate Future Me”.

Whatever you call it, it’s a useful practice for concretising how you carry out recurring tasks in work, life and the home.

Take, for example, my ****ing VAT return, which Sars wants every two months.

In the eight weeks between compiling my workings (income vs VATable expenditure for the two previous months), I tend to forget my own system. Yes, even though I’ve been using it for 15 years. Approximately 80 separate times.

It takes 13 steps, end to end, for me to prep and submit a VAT return. When I follow the 13 steps, the whole shebang requires three hours, total, split over two days. When I don’t, it’s eight to ten hours and a sweaty forehead. And swearing.

The problem is, in addition to forgetting the steps, I can’t be trusted to recall the sequence in which they must happen. This can and does make me hate myself.

A few years ago, I began to notate my personal process for VAT workings.

Now there’s a cue card in the back of my analogue diary and a matching digital note in my Notes app (which lives on my phone and in the Cloud). Both feature a carefully detailed list of steps, phrased and presented to be easily understood and followed by a harried, irritable, possibly even sleep-deprived Future Me.

Give it a try?

Happy Monday.

Tiffany