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Make a list of everything you want to do for the week. Rank it from most to least important. Then start with #1 and work your way down. Do the best you can and you’ll get through it. If you jump from task to task without finishing, it takes longer to pick it back up and finish it.
Focus on completion and don’t be afraid to say no. It’s easy to get overwhelmed if you say yes to anything. An easy way to say no, without saying no, is to tell people “I’ve got (list of projects) and should be able to get to your project by (day). I’d be happy to help out but will need to speak with the other managers if I need to work on your project first.” Put the responsibility of determining priority on management, you shouldn’t have to make that decision as a staff. If you try, you’ll either fail and piss off people or you’ll work wayyy too much and burn out trying to meet unrealistic expectations. Very few things are actually fire drills, usually the return will sit for weeks at review anyway.
Yea. Always rank your work in terms of priority and don’t be afraid to push back. When you’re scheduled for > 40s during busy season, make sure you say no or at least make both managers/seniors aware that you already have other projects you must complete and make them (both of them) decide what comes first. If you keep taking everything on, you’d burn out, and trust me, 80% of the people you work with don’t care about your mental health or overall health! If you’re going to drop what you’re doing for something urgent, make sure you’re at a stopping point that you’re comfortable with!
I usually pull my task list into excel and sort by task, such as put all 1120s together, 1065s together, etc. As much as possible I’ll do only one type of task per day. So like Monday and Tuesday for 1120s, Wednesday for 1065s, etc. Some days I’ll go by client of the person owns multiple entities. It’s easier for me to switch by client then by task, so I can keep my productivity high without having to change my viewpoint so much. This is always possible, but it works for most days.
As a staff, a lot of your time is probably spent staring at the screen figuring out what to do. If you have a lot of similar returns, I would prepare one then ask the reviewer to look over it and apply their comments to the rest of those returns. Does save some time and helps you learn and apply it at the same time.