Happy New Year, Everyone!
The first of the year invariably brings me lots of numbers, in the form of bookkeeping. That is to say, closing the books on four small home businesses, and setting up the books for a new year, for four small home businesses.
There was a time when people asked me "why don't you just hire that out for someone else to do?" and I actually believed there would come a time in my life when I would be able to afford doing that.
Sadly, that time has never come... and so, January 1st is often spent largely in the process of closing out one set of accounting and setting up fresh accounts for the new year.
Whenever I get into the process, I am typically reminded of one of the ironies we often face in life: Just because you are GOOD at something doesn't mean you LIKE doing it.
So it is, with accounting and bookkeeping. Over the years people have wondered out loud why I didn't become an accountant or bookkeeper... and the simple answer to that is that I simply don't enjoy the work. In fact, pretty much the only thing I like about it is being able to say "it's done!"
When I was at University, one of the many aptitude tests I took suggested that I had an understanding of mechanics and "how things work" that placed me in the top 0.5% of all people having taken the test over some 20 years... but my experience there was similar: I have zero interest in things mechanical, even though I understand them.
I can often tell what's wrong with something just by looking at it, but someone else can deal with the actual fixing of it.
The phrase "wasted talent" was often waved around...
As I often do, I ended up reflecting on having so systematically rejected any kind of "career" doing something I was really good at, but which also bored me to tears. I guess I never got the memo many people seem to subscribe to, that if you're good at something it means you enjoy it.
I am writing these words — which is something I really ENJOY doing — as part of taking a minor break in dealing with all the numbers.
In a little bit, I shall go back to that.
Perhaps the saving grace in the numbers dilemma is that I am also really good at creating systems that maximize efficiency and minimize the amount of time spent at something. I'm not very good at using such systems, but I am quite good at creating them.
One of these systems now makes it possible to deal with different numbers in such a way I can do our taxes in a couple of days, instead of three weeks.
At least it's useful!
But for now, back to doing numbers!
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great Friday — hope 2026 is treating you well, so far!
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Created at 2026.01.01 23:58 PST
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I remember have the 3 businesses I had to keep track of. But as I got more ill, I wasn't able to do the taxes thing any more, so we had to hire it out.