Wednesday, February 23, 2011

I've Missed You - Part 2

Those words sound familiar, huh! I can't believe I haven't posted since November! Well, actually I can. Remember that "Work-Life Balance" calculator from my "About" page? Back in August, I input my "life" into the calculator to see how things fell out. Based on that, I had about 16.5 unplanned hours. At that time, I felt that 16.5 hours was a bit of a stretch. What I'd give now for 16.5 unplanned hours!

Since October I have been in what seems like a constant busy season. Typically, we are busiest from January through April. Contrary to popular belief, my busy-ness is not due to taxes whatsoever. It is purely due to the fact that TONS of companies have a 12/31 year end. My company audits those financial statements. However, my busy-ness has carried on for months now. Due to being short staffed and the numerous "quality" changes that we had to implement my schedule went from a typical 40-45 hour week to a 50-55 hour week, during the off time. Fast forward to busy season...Consider the same set backs (short staff, improved quality measures) and add to that shorter timelines for your audit turnaround and multiple jobs going on at once. You know what that equals? NO TIME. Then, go an extra mile and add to that studying for the CPA Exam and you get me - very tired, very burnt out. It kind of sucks.

Just for fun I went back and filled out the "Work-Life Balance" calculator based off my schedule from last week and here's the result:


Yep - that's right. I'm somehow wrong in my calculations because it says I'm doing more in a week than physically possible. Lumped into the "Chores" section is basic daily routine for showering/getting dressed for work and the night time routine for getting ready for bed, as well as study time.

Maybe I'm overestimating the time I sleep or eat. Luckily my boyfriend has been handling the cooking and cleaning the past few weeks, so that helps dramatically. Unfortunately the "work" hours are correct. My "Time & Expense" tracking software at work shows that I have worked 480 hours since January 3rd, 77 of which occurred last week. Over the 8 week period, that's an average of 60 hours a week. While that may or may not seem like a lot, believe me, it's enough to burn you out, especially when trying to study on top of that.

Good news is that I take my exam on Monday, the 28th. Hopefully I've managed to squeeze enough study time out of the past few weeks to enable me to pass. After that I will just be down to the typical busy season hours for about another month until busy season is OVER!!

After I take that exam I plan to post some things that will seem out of date, like my Christmas goodies that I never got around to getting on here. So while they may seem irrelevant, I still want to share them! I can't wait to get back to my life and enjoying my hobbies again!