First budget season? Veteran budgeteer?
Maybe you’re on the tail end of the process. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel, the day the budgets are locked down and distributed. It’s been grueling, mind numbing and tedious. The day is close when the file”Consolidated Budget 2019 v23 cfo edit v2 FINAL v5″ is renamed”Budget 2019″ and loaded into your financial reporting system (or left in its excel file, sure to give panic attacks for the next 12 months to anyone who opens it and accidently saves out of habit).
Or, maybe you’ve only just begun the process. At least you won’t need to buy your own dinner for the next six weeks?And you get to miss rush hour traffic! It’s probably been kicked off with executives displaying what would be considered concerning and serious symptoms of amnesia were it not for the knowing grins of you and your fellow team.
“I want an attainable, realistic budget! I don’t understand how we ended up with what we had this year, it’s not useful if it’snot achievable!” They say.
Too true.
Look, frankly I can’t help you much right now. But it could be fun to vent a little and share some tips on how to make the experience marginally better. Hey, at least it’s a temporary distraction.
Here’s a few tips I’ve picked up over…what is it now…9 years of budgets? Jesus. Dozens of versions, hundreds of files and call it five bottles of TUMS? These are mostly serious suggestions.
- Manage your caffeine! Rookies start on the Starbucks Red Eye
on week two. Problem is there’s
nowhere stronger to go other than prescriptions (on which I’ll remain
silent, though your mileage may vary).
Diminishing returns and headaches kick in. Screams. Tears. All terrible things.
- Ramp the caffeine intake with the knowledge that the last week’s push will be at max, you still need it to work then. Skip caffeine on your weekends (lucky you) and day(s?) off.
- If your company uses Keurigs, skip them. Too much acid, too little caffeine. You’ll feel sick before you’ve got enough. Drip or pour over is your best bet when you want to down volume. Or if you still Starbucks, try the blonde roast.
- Democratize
to battle terrible catering decisions! This is your meal and your
time. If the CFO or VP or whoever
is The Decider is unilaterally deciding every night, it’s time to stage a
coup. I promise you The Decider
hates having to decide on this. She knows there’s no decision that makes
everyone happy, she wants you to suggest socializing the burden of
responsibility.
- Shortlist five places. Two rounds of blind voting. First vote narrows it to two places, majority wins. If people start to have second thoughts during ordering (inevitable), consider initiating a vote of no confidence. If passed (work those terms yourself), the previous winner is removed and voting starts over with the four remaining options. Time consuming? Sure. But where else do you think you’re going?
- Skip pizza always. Pizza is happy. Pizza is for celebrating. You want to ruin some great pizza places for yourself? Tee them up for catering and see how sick you get of them and the negative connotation that emerges. RIP iFratelli, Cavalli and Palio’s.
- Voting backfire on you? UberEats/PostMates/Favor or similar for yourself, don’t be an asshole and try to hijack the process.
- Go nuts on onions, garlic, fish, curry, maple, Italian dressing etc. Violate the crap out of Office Lunch Etiquette, your team will go nose blind and no one’s left to complain about the smell anyway.
- Meditate in the mornings! Jokes aside this really is a big one. You can (and probably have) read endless evangelizing on the topic. I’m not an expert, I won’t add to it. Just try it. Ten minutes in the morning for one week. You spend more time on your morning shit (do it during!). It is also helpful prior to going to bed, especially on account of all the caffeine.
- Go outside midday! Get some sun (or depressing wintery light) on your skin and focus your eyes on some faraway junk to give them a break. The natural light can help with sleep and circadian rhythm or something. Whatever. If you’re a zero sum type of person consider this: 15 minutes outside decompressing at midday > Getting home 15 minutes earlier in the dark, probably after some catered pizza.
- Hydrate! Eat Right! Come on,
you know this. Try looking at it
this way: You have a mix of time
and money, you only need to choose to use one of those things to eat
better. Either spend the time to
cook and prepare it yourself, or spend the money to have someone else do
it (prepared meals at Whole Foods, Freshly or your local health nut
place).
- Get your flu shot. Going down for a week during budget season can cause problems for you the rest of the year. It raises the likelihood of mistakes and takes you away from potentially critical conversations and decisions.
- Add some fiber supplements to your diet to combat some of the stress bloat (and bad food bloat if you’re ignoring this section).
- Be nice and keep people’s varying incentives in mind when things get frustrating. It’s lazy to automatically assume malicious intent in a person’s actions when the reality is just a difference of perspective. Shit, keep that in mind for everything.
Would love for people to add to this, share some budget stories or just vent generally.
Thanks.