How to Reduce the Pressures at Work: Effective Strategies Can Help Accounting and Finance Professionals Handle Increasing Workloads and Keep Stress to a Minimum

You know the feeling: You're working longer and harder--like a tax accountant whose busy season never ends. But at the close of the day, tasks are left undone because you didn't get to them or because you're waiting for somebody else to finish his or her part in the workflow. Accountants, auditors, and finance executives may feel this way for several good reasons. New standards and regulations, technological advances, and expanded duties are changing the profession and adding complexity and challenges. But even though CPAs may be increasingly busy, there are ways for them to avoid being swamped. Amy West, CPA, CGMA, is the CFO of not-for-profit AHRC NYC, which provides critical services to people with developmental disabilities and their families in New York City. In a business environment where the CFO's role is expanding, West oversees traditional finance, insurance, entitlements, contract negotiations, and procurement. She also is head of AHRC NYC's real property department. This includes responsibility for 170 facilities throughout the five boroughs of New York City. AHRC NYC owns about 100 of the facilities, including the organization's headquarters. That means West also serves as a landlord. She negotiates leases, manages commercial tenants, and performs other duties to ensure the not-for-profit manages its space effectively. This is a huge responsibility on top of her numerous other duties, but being organized and planning carefully help her stay on top of her tasks. "The more you plan, I think, the better you are equipped to deal with the unexpected," she said. "Planning helps you deal with the unknown." Effective and productive professionals find ways to tackle the challenges posed in a business environment that seems increasingly busy. Meanwhile, industrial-organizational psychologists and leadership coaches offer strategies for how to be more productive and less stressed. WHY BUSY SEASON SEEMS TO HAVE NO END Researchers believe the trove of information assembled by humans doubled about every 25 years at the end of World War II. Today, thanks to technology, it doubles about every 13 months, and the sharing and digitization of information continues to increase the pace. "This pace of change is the problem," said Alan Watkins, a physician and neuroscientist who is CEO of Complete Coherence, a leadership consultancy near London. To get a grasp on the changes, he said, "we need to work at a higher level of sophistication." Sophisticated tools can make the job easier, but they can also become a problem. Constant connectedness to digital devices hasn't led to higher productivity, according to Scott Eblin, a former executive turned leadership coach and author of Overworked and Overwhelmed: The Mindfulness Alternative. U.S. labor productivity growth slowed in the mid-2000s and in the past five years has been the lowest on record, research by the Federal Reserve suggests. The average working professional receives about 200 email messages per day, each often arriving with a ding that conveys more urgency than most messages deserve. Add to that instant messages, text messages, phone calls, meetings, and inquiries from colleagues sticking their heads through the open door. Workers are interrupted on average every three minutes. Research shows it takes about 20 minutes to refocus, Eblin said. "We can compensate for interruptions by working faster, but that comes at a price," said Erin Eatough, an industrial-organizational psychologist and assistant psychology professor at the City University of New York's Baruch College. "We're feeling like we're putting in more effort during the day, which I think is what's leading to a lot of these feelings of being overwhelmed but still not feeling like we're getting more done than maybe we have in the past." HOW TO IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY West said three main distractions threaten to derail her on the job, but she has strategies for dealing with each one: * Email. …

Field of study: Business