What do you do when you load up on the personal things to do, and you end up with too much on your plate?

The answer is what I have been preaching to myself all year – don’t give a f*ck and kick some of the stuff into the long grass.

For that reason, I have had to do some quick priority setting, and I have decided not to do my Tax Return ever again. 

I was only joking. My tax return is now on top of my priority list for tomorrow.

But therein lies the problem. It was the top of my priority list for today, but I ended up getting distracted, putting it off, thinking I would get to it in the afternoon. I dillied and dallied on other to do’s more throughout the day as I had planned and then by early evening… well, you have guessed it. 

I still had not completed the tax return.

This urgent task was not held back by procrastination. I was busy all day, honest. The non-completion of the tax return was an evident absence of priority setting on my part.

It is obvious, and it is my fault because there is no one else to blame. I did it. I changed the priorities that I had set out from the night before because other things came up.

I What was so important that it took over my top priority?

Problem-solving. 

You see, my tax return is straight forward. I live and work in China, that tax is a pay-as-you-earn type system, and I have a couple of forms to complete and submit but nothing too stretching. The UK tax is more or less non-existing because I do not earn much in the UK, and so there are a couple of motions to go through and then that is it done.

Probably about an hour and a half of work, tops.

But the idea of solving a problem caught my attention. The problem was related to money and how to track the stuff, I sort of feel vindicated in a way. The root cause of the problem started with my tax information and then it snowballed from there.

You see, my usual software for tracking my hard-earned money was glitching, and something was not right, and so it needed a deep-dive investigation. Obviously!

The upshot of all of this hassle was that I needed to upgrade the accounting software to the latest version – and yep, it is now a f*cking subscription model.

This subscription model that everyone but their granny seems to be moving to is getting out of hand. P*sses me off.

So I decided that this was not for me and went for another more straightforward solution—a spreadsheet option.

As I fart*d about with downloads and uploads to save my data and transfer into a numbers file, I picked off a few other wee to do’s from my list.

Time rolled on, my frustrations with the software data transfer increased, so I had to take a time out for a walk to get a coffee. By the time I got back, things were not much better. So I took a rest on the couch while I read through the other accounting software reviews on the market.

Fascinating stuff in the personal finance software market because there is a wealth of variety and some good things and some awful things.

So, I decided to download and test a couple as recommended from the many reviews.

That is where my time went. 

I was faffing about with personal finance software programs. My time evaporated into ‘test-and-reject’ until I got something to compete with the numbers spreadsheet idea.

Truth be told, I think it was procrastination, but it was the good kind of procrastination. It was satisfying in a problem-solving type of way!

It was very productive. Honest. (Who am I trying to convince?)

I ended up with a more complete solution for the personal finance option, and I feel that I am now better off because of it. 

However, I am still lining up to pay a yearly subscription though. Damn!!

Go figure.

For the record, the top of the class goes to MoneyWiz 2021 because the quality is worth the fee. Just the basic model right enough.

The switchover to this new process tool will take time, so I need to prioritise it. 

Not like I did today. Today was an off day.

Because the absolute reality of all of this ar*ing about was that I could have kicked that software sh*t into the long grass and completed my tax return as I had planned.

So tomorrow, no more messing about – straight onto that number one priority.

Tax.