Apr 23rd, 2009
The Expense of the Last Minute
In order to manage your tasks better, dealing with them before they get close to deadlines is of paramount importance. An example: taxes.
My sister was unemployed for almost a year after Aloha Airlines shut down. During this time, she spent almost no time looking for work or doing much besides watching television. Yet she was up late on the night of April 14th doing taxes and the same on April 19th doing her state taxes (due on April 20th, 2009).
Why?
What was she doing during the first months of 2009 when she wasn’t working (and honestly wasn’t actually looking very hard for employment) that was so important she couldn’t finish her taxes until the night before they were due to be in the mail?
I wish I knew. I just don’t, but as we know from Randy Pausch, waiting until the last minute to do something is very expensive (think USPS vs. Federal Express).
Despite talk of multitasking (for humans rather than computers), it’s becoming clearer and clearer that it’s far more efficient to work on one thing at a time. There’s not a thing that my sister can do that night other than her taxes–and if there’s some kind of emergency, like a sick child, she is in serious time management trouble. Because she’s rushed doing her taxes, she has no time to double check her results very little margin for error. A power outage, a computer printer without ink, a problem with her Internet connection, and she’s screwed.
Don’t wait until the last minute! There’s too much at risk. Take care of what you can before it becomes very expensive to do so.
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