Pre-busy season audit resolutions.

Every year so far in my short career I become officially unassigned right before busy season. Basically once SAS 70 reports have been signed off I am free and clear until Mid January. I have been on vacation since Christmas and by vacation I mean that I have been on call via Blackberry and working only 1 to 2 hours per day. (This is huge for me, I would never stop doing firm business if the significant other didn't convince me that I have a working problem.) So I have taken the time to come up with some professional resolutions for the new year in between reading the news, playing video games, pressing the Stumbleupon button and doing all the chores.

There are four things:

1) I will not let my career get my partner's life harder - The job asks a lot but family is really more important. I can stand to make less money if it means that my family is happier. I will do this by focusing on her needs and letting go of more of my competitive nature when it comes to promotion and evaluations.

2) I will be as passionate about coaching as I was when I didn't know anything. When I first started at my firm, I would stop to teach anyone anything but as my responsibilities have grown I have not made as much of an effort to go above and beyond to teach people. I have started to do this during SAS 70 season, and I am hoping that it will translate to busy season. The big thing for me is not losing focus on what my job description actually is in order to pursue more responsibilities at the manager position. The managers that I respect the most take the time to coach in a patient and effective manner, and for some reason I haven't done the best job at emulating this as a best practice. Shame on me.

3) I will write consistently - My goal is to get to a post in this blog a week and one "tweet" a day. One interesting tweet, that is. Sometimes I twitter things just because its lunch. I will get better at witting about what is going on in this great profession and use this blog as a tool to learn and spread knowledge.

4) I will streamline the task management system I already use, and not look for new ones. - I am the kind of person that likes to organize but hates being organized. When I first got promoted to senior I spent a lot of time reading David Allen and trying to fit that to what I was doing from the day to day but in reality what I have done in my quest to be more productive is tear down perfectly good productivity systems for no reason. So no new software, no new applications, no new planner forms with random timetable mechanics and icons that make no sense. I am just going to stick to my Evernote+RTM+Toggl+Big Ass Mead notebook system (or the ERTBAM system) and any improvements will be toward making it more efficient.

Well there it is. I head back to work next week, teaching a class on evaluating and relying on controls for hedge fund and private equity mutual fund audits. Teaching is the best way to get back from vacation.