how to achieve work-life balance during tax season.

tl;dr:

• Tax season stressing you out? This guide offers practical tips for accountants and finance professionals to achieve work-life balance.
• Learn stress management techniques, time management strategies, and how to prevent burnout.
• Discover how automated software and long-term strategies can help you thrive, not just survive.

introduction.

A few years ago, Blind conducted a survey on burnout amongst professionals and found that 73% of working professionals struggled with this issue. The finance sector seems particularly susceptible to burnout—not only does it affect more than seven in 10 finance professionals, but finance companies like PayPal and JPMorgan Chase were some of the hardest hit.

The issue is most notable during tax season, a period that all professionals dread but one that hits accountants especially hard. The deadlines are tighter, the hours are longer, and clients are more demanding, creating a perfect storm that makes stress management during tax season feel like an uphill battle.

There are solutions, though, and they can help accountants and other finance professionals maintain a healthy work-life balance during tax season.

navigating the setbacks of achieving work-life balance during tax season.

We mentioned that finance professionals are some of the most likely to struggle with burnout, but if you narrow it down to accountants, the issue is more problematic. 

Depending on who you ask and how they conducted their surveys, between 82% and 99% of accountants struggle with their mental health during tax season.

Some of the most common issues include:

• Long hours as they struggle to meet client demands
• Tight deadlines as they race to file taxes on time
• The stress of dealing with big accounts and high financial stakes
• The high workloads that come from multiple clients all needing the same thing

The issues aren’t only external, though. The job itself is part of the problem, as accountants find themselves performing a series of repetitive tasks that make it easy to switch off and leave them on a knife edge of stress and frustration.

Poor tax season stress management is another problem—if you’re not equipped to handle all of those deadlines and demands, you may struggle with the pressure.

Good tax season stress management, therefore, is imperative, and it’s something you can implement before or during this hectic period.

strategies for managing time effectively during tax season.

So, how do you find the accountant work-life balance needed to make it through tax season with your motivation and sanity intact?

Here are some work-life balance tips for accountants to help you out:

• Use Time Management Apps: Time management for accountants is often as simple as scheduling your jobs throughout the day and making sure you’re not wasting time on meaningless tasks. Apps like Todoist can help with task prioritisation during tax season, as can project management software like Asana.
• Delegate: If you get set up on Asana (Slack and Monday work just as well), you can start delegating simple tasks to assistants or virtual assistants, whether they’re working alongside you or have been hired through platforms like Fiverr and Upwork. Delegating during tax season will keep your to-do list clear while allowing you to focus your efforts on more taxing jobs.
• Try Time Blocking: Break your day down into several blocks and add specific jobs to those blocks, such as “8-10 am: check emails and schedule meetings; 10-12 am file taxes for Client X”.

Set Boundaries: Keeping your private life separate from your home life is key, especially if you work from home. Create clearly defined work and home spaces, making it easier to focus when you’re working and relax when you’re not—very important for maintaining good tax season mental health.

stress management techniques for accountants during tax season.

Stress management during tax season seems like a bit of a contradiction. Most accountants will just accept the stress, try to power through, and then recover when the chaos has died down.

But you can only get away with that for so long. It leaves a mark, and year after year, ignoring that stress will leave you prone to burnout.

Practice proactive tax season mental health with these stress management techniques:

• Learn Mindfulness: Mindfulness is all about being more aware of the moment and your body. Take time out to breathe deeply, consider your surroundings, and think before reacting. Meditation also helps.
• Exercise and Eat Well: Move more and eat well. You’ll have fewer niggling aches and pains, but more importantly, it’ll make you mentally stronger.
• Take Breaks: Good physical and mental health in accounting is tough, as you probably spend a lot of time behind your desk staring at screens and documents. Take a step back every now and then to relax, unwind, and recharge.
• Open Up: Don’t hide your feelings. Don’t bottle them up. If you’re struggling, tell someone. Seek support from your loved ones, and if that’s not enough, get professional help.

how to avoid burnout and protect your mental health.

Preventing burnout during tax season begins by understanding the symptoms of burnout:

• Feeling increasingly irritable
• Struggling to sleep despite being exhausted
• Feeling detached
• Struggling with self-doubt and a lack of motivation
• Regularly feeling overwhelmed
• Questioning your profession and purpose

You studied hard to get where you are, and you’ve worked countless hours, but you may feel like you just can’t do it anymore. That’s a sign that you’re on the brink of burnout.

There may also be physical symptoms, including heart palpitations, chronic fatigue, gastrointestinal issues, and chest pain. These can be stress-related, but you should always seek medical help just in case, as they could be indicative of more serious physical problems.

Look to your colleagues and supervisors for help. Delegate some of your work, making it clear that you’re being pushed too hard. Get help if it’s available—there’s no shame in it. CABA is a charity that provides many resources and assistance for chartered accountants. It focuses heavily on promoting mental health for accountants and can provide professional support if needed.

Building resilience for accountants is also key and can help with future struggles:

• Celebrate small victories (a snack after a big task, a lie-in after a difficult job)
• Show gratitude for your position
• Don’t ignore positive remarks from happy clients
• Maintain an organised workspace
• Remember that you’re experienced and good enough to survive any difficulties that come your way

leverage automated accounting software.

Automated accounting software like QuickBooks, ClearBooks, KashFlow, and Xero aren’t there to take your job and can actually support you in your daily duties. 

Embracing technology like this will help to reduce your workload and can maintain a healthy work-life balance for accountants. Accounting software can do most of the menial tasks that fill your day, leaving you to focus your efforts elsewhere.

It’s also a form of indirect stress management, as heavy workloads are one of the main causes of stress in this field.

long-term strategies for maintaining work-life balance after tax season.

The hardest part about achieving long-term work-life balance for accountants is getting started and making it through that first tax season. It gets much easier after that, as properly managing your time and preventing future stress will become second nature.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Keep Going: So, you implement the strategies discussed herein and breeze through a difficult period—now you can think about proper recovery after tax season, whether it comes in the form of an extended break or some retail therapy. That’s fine, but don’t lose sight of the long-term goal. It’s easy to let these strategies drop and slip back into your former routine, only to panic again when the next tax season rolls around.
• Build Boundaries: Now that you have clear boundaries for home and work, start integrating them into everything you do. Make sure your family, friends, and neighbours know that you can’t be interrupted when you’re working in your home office. If it helps, prepare for each day working from home by showering, eating breakfast, getting changed, and then shutting the door and staying there until the working day is done. Make it a ritual.
• Communicate: Talk more with your colleagues and employers. Get used to sharing more, even if you’re just ranting about a new regulation. Join WhatsApp groups, online forums, and any other kind of virtual water cooler situation that puts you face-to-face with people going through the same difficulties day in and day out. It helps to vent to like-minded people.

Reward Yourself: Treat yourself to a holiday, special purchase, or a night-out after a busy week, month, or quarter. It will become an incentive to get through the difficult periods, and it ensures you don’t get stuck in a cycle of endless work.

conclusion: maintaining a work-life balance during tax season.

Mental health in accounting is often overlooked, and its problems are massively underestimated, as the emphasis is often on directors and CEOs, and few people spare a thought for the people doing their taxes.

Don’t be part of the burnout statistics mentioned at the start of this article—practice stress management during tax season, think about how you spend your time, and always consider your mental health. If you do that, you’ll be more resilient and better equipped to deal with the next tax season.

Also, you can always explore more resources on task, time, and stress management and never forget about your mental health! And, of course, join the Randstad F&A Community for helpful resources and gain a competitive edge in this rapidly evolving landscape. 

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