Even though this course isn’t actual tax preparation, I feel like I’ve been doing a pretty good job of treating like it is. At least I thought I was until this past weekend. As much as I try not to act on it, when I get to the learning activities I usually have a pretty good idea of what subject matter they are going to focus on. Unfortunately for me, on one activity this led me to see the problem I was expecting to see instead of the one sitting right in front of me. I thought I already knew what the activity wanted and proceeded to act on that faulty initial premise for 3 hours before realizing what a silly mistake I had made. I got a little too comfortable with the flow of the course and failed to treat my tax prep assignment with the same attention to detail that I would use for a client. Time-wise, it was an expensive lesson but it was also a good reminder not to get too comfortable and to start every new return on a blank slate, even if it’s not the real thing.
