Something that's bugging me

[charlestown]

For many years I haven't enjoyed my work, but since reading Tim's book I have already made some decent steps forward and it has definitely changed my perspective on a few things. I now have a muse that pays the mortgage and basic bills. I've also just taken on a full time assistant who will start on Monday to really push with the marketing.

There are other projects in the pipeline as well and I am pretty sure they have the potential to earn me good money plus I continue to see ongoing earnings from other work I have done in the past, so for the first time in a while I am actually a bit more optimistic about my future on an economic level and the way I am organising myself.

A practical reality however, is that I have a 14 year old daughter at school beginning to study for her exams that she will take at 16 and my wife has a job at a local college which she enjoys, so I can't just skip off to some Greek Island for 6 months and live the dream that some of you guys are already managing. I live close to a beautiful beach though in a pretty fishing village though so it's not so bad in terms of location.

The part bugging me though is a pent up frustration with the amount of day to day general bureaucracy and troubleshooting I find myself having to deal with. From companies in the US that want me to supply them with EIN numbers and W-8BEN forms or lose 30% of my earnings in tax to jumping through hoops, just so I can upgrade to a pro package with PayPal for billing; I seem to lose an incredible amount of time with general bureaucracy and so much of it seems utterly futile, yet it MUST be done.

Seriously, why the hell does the government need to ask where I live when they've just sent the letter to my damned house! The tax office has been asking when I started my business at regular intervals since 1997 and I can't help but feel it's about time they took note of the answer for once!!

Apart from the above mentioned idiocy that could sound like a joke if it wasn't true I also find many companies are a pain in backside to deal with nowadays. They make a mistake that costs me money or fail to deliver a service but to correct it I find myself being passed from one department to another on a premium rate call, while I listen to automated messages, just so I can receive conflicting information. It's all very well saying a VA can deal with this but in reality they can't in many cases.

I know this sounds like a rant and in part it is but I can't help feeling the world has gone nuts with its demands on our time to deal with an endless array of stupid, petty and time consuming chores that do nothing but cause distress and frustration. As much as I want to head towards a 4 hour week it feels like there are forces at work determined to really waste our time...

Am I alone in feeling like this? Perhaps the UK is worse than other countries and I can't say I remember things being this bad when I lived in Italy previously. I pay as many bills as possible either online or by direct debit but as an average guy with a family, mortgage and running his own business the bureaucracy and general paperwork just seems to keep pouring in.

Last week I worked out a plan of 20 things I wanted to complete by the end of the week and realised after a while that there was not one thing on that list I actually wanted to do. It was all really just stupid nonsense that saps your energy and enthusiasm. Where am I going wrong?

[liam75005]

Can't you outsource admin staff ? or working with an accountant to sort things out for you ?

[phil]

Perhaps a higher qualified VA, or even someone local.

Maybe instead of £2/hr in India, try a £15/hr local, well-educated someone?

Then spend your time doing more productive / fun things.


Or batch things. Handle all your admin work for 30 minutes on say Monday mornings. Or if you need to mail in an address form every year, pre-fill the next 5 years of forms so they are ready to go? You get the idea.

[Sven]

There are facts and challenges. Government and all its inefficiencies is fact. On some details you may be able to change stuff. But for most... It is like rain. Dress for it or get wet.

Focus on the challenges that are actually worthwhile spending energy on.

[charlestown]

Thanks for your thoughts and feedback. I am sat in my office at the moment with close to 40 thick boxes full of folders containing paperwork and I have to wonder why we are required to keep so many records on everything. Various insurances, mortgage, banking, taxes, schools, health, cars, banks, credit cards, accounts, clients and more besides. Deep down I am thinking there has to be an easier way.

My wife is originally from Ukraine and our daughter was born in Italy, so over the years I have had to deal with ridiculous amounts of bureaucracy on their behalf before they gained UK citizenship, which took us more than ten years. I think this has killed my tolerance for paper shuffling because I realise that so much of it is pointless nonsense and that bureaucrats enjoy moving the goal posts.

I've been trying to look at my situation and see if there are ways I could be more efficient and on balance I think I am already pretty well organised. Everything is paid by direct debit and I do almost all my banking electronically. I shop online and recently I hired a full time assistant to help with marketing, which has been a big help in that I now have enough time to think more about strategy and where I want to go.

The problem as Sven pointed out, is that governments are very inefficient, so while you have all the normal "baggage" like a house, car and a family there will always be paperwork to handle. I do object though to companies who oblige me to jump through hoops just to avoid being ripped off and feel that many large businesses are being deliberately underhand in their dealings with customers nowadays.

On balance I think I should cancel my VAT sales tax registration. My turnover is below the threshold and they keep changing all the rules every 5 minutes. All in all it's a lot of fuss for very little gain and I believe it may well be costing me sales because I have to charge VAT on my eBook, so sales in Europe suffer. At one time I was buying a lot of equipment so being registered helped me to claim back the VAT, but for the last 2-3 years it has just felt like a burden. My last accountant was an expensive pain, so if I find a new one he'll have to do a lot better.

I am still searching for some answers though in the hope that I can cut bureaucracy and paperwork to a level where it only takes up a couple of hours a month.