Month-end Madness

Every month-end in nearly every department in every organisation I have worked in and across industries you will witness what I call "Month-end Madness".

My observation is that this is usually at least in part because we have allowed bad habits to prevail and now tell ourselves that this is just how it is in our industry. I don't think you should just accept this as normal. I know that some clients only want to be invoiced at month end, but this is not an overwhelming majority by any means.
During this last week of the month, I invite you to go through it mindfully.

• Pay attention to your activities.
• Ask yourself which of these activities could have been done earlier in the month.
• Entertain the idea of weekly "mini-month-ends".
• Decide what you wish to do differently in your business next month.

Once your month-end madness is done, meet with your team and plan for next month:

• Decide what you will do earlier in the month
• Decide what you will do at least weekly
• Try it out once, review and make changes to your plans, and then try it out again.

My bet is that you can definitely have greater month-end sanity - which is positive for everyone. It reduces stress and contributes to the resilience of the team. After all, the more organised and disciplined your team, the greater its resilience!