I've now been at this bookkeeping thing for a few months, and I'm getting the hang of some of it, but much of it is still as confusing as ever. I realized the other day what is so confounding about this experience: I'm not used to doing something I'm not good at. I feel confident that I will someday be good at bookkeeping, but that day is not today. I'm also not used to making mistakes. It horrifies me when I make a mistake. (And I'm talking here about my professional life; Lord knows I make plenty of mistakes in cooking, driving, playing games, etc.)
Luckily for me, I have a big safety net: The former bookkeeper is available whenever I have questions or problems. I try not to bother her too much, but it's nice to know that she's there to sort things out for me when I'm stuck—and to look things over and point out my errors even when I didn't realize I was stuck!
It's also comforting that I haven't given up my editorial business (Never!), so I still spend many hours doing work that I know I'm good at. That helps temper the frustration of the hours I spend doing, undoing, and redoing the accounting stuff.
Everyone keeps joking with me about embezzling, but man! I have a long way to go before I can figure out how to do everything properly ... then I can concentrate on how to whisk myself away to a tropical island with a suitcase full of cash.
I used to always do both accounting and marketing in my job (years ago). I was actually good at both, but the constantly switching back and forth between the left & right sides of the brain finally got to me (plus the conflicting deadlines). I finally had to pick a lane.
Posted by: Tonya | October 11, 2008 at 09:24 PM