Three productivity tips for accountants

There are countless podcasts, articles and blogs about productivity. I’m a listener/reader of some and I don’t think I have ever come across one specifically made or written with accountants in mind.

Allow me to step into that gap with (my first) three productivity tips for accountants.

Use keyboard shortcuts

Navigating documents and spreadsheets is quicker using the arrow keys than using a mouse or trackpad. There are shortcuts for most of the popular actions such as copy (Cmd/Ctrl + C), paste (Cmd/Ctrl + V), save (Cmd/Ctrl + S), and open (Cmd/Ctrl + O). In Word the shift key combined with arrow keys highlights text faster than you can drag a mouse.

You can see the shortcuts next to the items in the menus in apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. You could also do a web search for lists of shortcuts

Don’t try to learn every shortcut in one go. Learn one or two and when they become second nature learn another couple.

Use text expansion

There are some phrases, sentences and paragraphs you use over and again. This could be contact info like your email address or a standard reply to email requests or standard disclaimer text for a report. Whenever you notice you are writing something you have written before, or find yourself looking for an existing document to copy the text for re-use, there is a candidate for text expansion.

Text expansion is a service where you link a short trigger phrase to a longer piece of text so that when you type the trigger phrase it is replaced by the text. For example, when I type ‘socf’ it is replaced by ‘statement of cash flows’ and ‘xbs’ is replaced by balance sheet. I also use text expansion for auto-correction of words. For example, when I type ‘cipfa’ it will automatically be capitalised to CIPFA.

There are many text expansion apps available and which suits you depends in part on the devices you have and how much you are willing to pay to save time. TextExpander is the one I use. (If you use Apple devices you can do text expansion for free because it is built into the operating systems. Go to the Keyboard section of settings to set it up.)

Use your voice

I am sure you can speak faster than you can type. Smartphones are getting better and better at voice to text translate. Now, we can all dictate our writing without having a personal assistant and the artificial intelligence means the translation improves the more you use it.

I suggest next time you have a document or long email to write that is a few paragraphs long try dictating the first draft on your phone. I think you could save a stack of time and effort. The more you use dictation the

Let me know your productivity tips and perhaps I could include them in a future post.

"Writing is easy."

Mark Twain said “Writing is easy. You just cross out the wrong words.”

Ernest Hemingway said, “The first draft of anything is shit.”

Whilst we may not be the equal of these great storytellers we can learn from them and every other author.

Once you have written your first draft you should not click Save and send it off to the audience. Revise and edit your work. Make it as good as you reasonably can before you declare it finished.

I know sometimes we can be up against a deadline. The report is due at 5pm and you finish it at 4.55. Well, yes that does happen, but if something is important you need to manage your time to get it right. That means leaving enough time to edit your first draft.

And let me be clear — I mean you should edit the draft of the content BEFORE it is formatted for despatch.

I have several tips for you about revising and editing.

• If you can, leave the draft for a day or two so you come back to it with a fresh mind.

• Fewer words is usually better than more words so try to reduce the document by at least 10 per cent. Sometimes a lot more than 10 per cent can be cut.

• Reading your words aloud can really help you with making sure it flows properly.

• Grammar checking software, like Grammarly and even an app called Hemingway, can help.

• Work hard on getting the opening right. Often I find the first draft includes lots of unnecessary information in the introduction, words written as a sort of warm up, to get the thing going. These can be quickly deleted and the document will be the better for it

• Don’t be afraid to “kill your darlings”. Do not keep something in the document just because you spent a long time writing it. If it does not add value to the reader it needs to be cut out.

What are the signs that you could improve your writing?

Allow me to make some suggestions.

First, your boss or mentor or a client tells you so.

I suspect that is quite rare. More subtle is the case where your boss or mentor or client does not tell you outright but asks questions that you thought your document had answered.

Or maybe you receive documents by other finance people and you’re impressed by how well technical material is explained. Or you wonder how they managed to make the text, charts and tables look so good.

If (when?) you identify that there is room for improvement what should you do? Here are some ideas:

• Learn some more about grammar, typography and data visualisation

• Practice your skills as much as you can

• Get a coach to work with you

• Hire an editor to refine the documents you write

• Hire a ghost writer to write documents for you

I can help you with the last three of these. Contact me by email or go to my page on Calendly and arrange an introductory call with me.

Write first drafts in a text editor

A minister caused a stir on Wednesday with a hand-written resignation letter.

Writing by hand can help with creativity but realistically I suggest you write the first drafts in a text-editor app rather than with a pen.

Here’s why.

A text editor app is just you and your words. There’s no formatting to play with or other distractions.

The files are very small and can easily be uploaded to a cloud storage service (Google Drive, One Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, wherever you use) and be accessible from other devices including your smartphone. It becomes possible to work on the text in at different times, in different places with different devices.

The text file you create is universal. Once done the text can be copied and pasted into any word processing app, but also could be pasted into the body of an email or a text message or the content management system for a website and so on. As there was no formatting in the text there is no formatting to be screwed up by the transfer.

If you use different devices you can use different apps to edit the text because the text is not in a proprietary format. I happen to use an app called Ulysses because it is available on all my devices. It manages the 140,000 words of my book manuscript just as well as these shorts posts of fewer than 500 words. You may need to do some research to find the best apps to suit you but you can start with the built-in apps: TextEdit app on MacOS and Notepad on Windows.