[00:00:09.080] - Gordon
Hello.

[00:00:09.440] - Taylor
Hello.

[00:00:09.780] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.

[00:00:11.500] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:00:13.470] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast where we talk about things that have affected our businesses over the last seven days. And we didn't manage to make it last week, did we? Because you weren't feeling particularly well, so we were unable to do it. But we are back this week. How are you feeling?

[00:00:33.240] - Taylor
Better.

[00:00:33.850] - Gordon
Better? Okay, good. So let's get straight into it before we get side-tracked with anything else. Any news, first of all?

[00:00:42.930] - Taylor
No.

[00:00:43.690] - Gordon
No, okay. We did mention Apple's announcements a little while ago, and part of the announcement was the Mac Mini, which has, from every review that I've looked at so far, has been phenomenal. One of the best bargains in computing out there at the moment, which is great. But one of the things that they also showed was an update to Final Cut Pro. So if you are a Final Cut Pro user, version 11 is now out. Make sure you are up to date. There's lots of new features in there for you. Shall I go first today?

[00:01:19.530] - Taylor
Yeah, you can go first.

[00:01:20.830] - Gordon
So today I want to talk about accounting. This is something that as a self-employed person, you don't have a choice about. You have to do whether you understand it, whether you like doing it. If it's a pain in the backside, you still have to do it. And I have an advisor, I have someone who I send my accounts to, and she puts all the numbers in the right place and figures out what's allowed and what isn't allowed. And then we put them into an HMRC self-assessment. And this year is one of the most difficult years to do accounts because, well, two things, really. They're trying to bring everybody in line. So they're trying to make sure that everyone's accounting period is from April to April. And mine has never been April to April. Mine has always been January to December because I started my business on the first of January. And so my first year's accounts was first of January to 31st of December. And that's how my accounts have always been. But they're now trying to bring everyone in line this year or this tax year so that you have to do the normal accounting period and then any extra accounting period to get you to that April timeline so that you could be submitting two sets of accounts, or one set of account that's longer. It's very confusing. It's really not clear. So if you don't have an April to April account basis, then you need to to look at this urgently because leaving it to the last minute in January is going to be really bad for you because you'll find that you may not have the right figures available to you that you need. You might not have the time to do it. Just be forewarned that you need to get onto this as soon as you possibly can to make sure that it's all made up the way it should be. Now, from what I understand, the reason for bringing everyone to April to April is because at some point in the near future, it's been spoken about many times in the past and the time period has changed, but they are going to start doing digital tax. And from what I understand, that means that we are going to, as self-employed people, have to submit our accounts every three months and make sure that we pay probably ahead of time, like we do at the minute, so payment on account, so that we are not getting to a point where we owe lots of money and don't necessarily know where that money is coming from, which I know for some self-employed people is a big problem. I always set money aside for my tax bill because however well I'm doing, I know that the government are going to want to take an amount of tax at the end of the year, and I don't want to have to go and find that money I want it to be there ready and waiting for me so that I can just transfer it over. And this is something I actually suggested for you when you started out, wasn't it? Do you do the same thing?

[00:04:45.550] - Taylor
Yeah, I put money aside every month into an account. I just leave there.

[00:04:49.500] - Gordon
Yeah, and it's a really good thing to do because in January and July, which is when the tax bill is paid for self-employment people, finding the money after Christmas for some people, is really difficult unless you've had a really good December, in which case you could end up taking all the profits from December to pay your tax bill, but then you're going to be behind again because you're not necessarily going to do as well the following year, and that's what you're going to need to pay the tax for the year that you did well. So it's a bit of swings and roundabouts, but you do need to plan for it, in my opinion, and I always have done. But this digital tax thing is very, very difficult because I'm not a tax accountant. I don't understand necessarily how all the tax works. I'm getting better at it because I'm having to. I'm basically having to learn certain parts of it. I do keep good records and I do make sure that I have a bank account for each of my separate businesses and anything that goes in or out of them goes in and out of the bank account. So my statement is effectively my balance sheet. And I think that's a really good way of doing it rather than messing about with other accounts or personal accounts, etc. So that is another little tip. That's something I would advise doing. But this digital tax is a bit of a worry because at the moment, I don't think we know much about it. Having to submit my tax every three months, which I believe is the same as VAT. I think if you're VAT-registered, you have to do the same thing. And if you're VAT-registered and you're self-employed, you have to do both, which, that's a lot of work every three months to get those statements in, those submissions in. But am I now going to have to pay four times for an accountant/advisor to look at my accounts and get them in for me? And does that mean that if they have X number of clients that they advise, are they going to find that they can't manage all of those people because they have to do four times the work effectively every three months? I don't know. It's very, very difficult to know. The information just isn't out there at the moment. So just a heads up, this is something you will need to be aware of, and it's something you need to look into if you haven't already, because it will affect you. It's just how much it's going to affect you. Do you know anything about this? Because you've got lots of accountants and people in your BNI and so on. Have they mentioned anything to do with this?

[00:07:43.710] - Taylor
No, not really.

[00:07:45.110] - Gordon
Okay.

[00:07:45.390] - Taylor
I don't know a lot about it.

[00:07:47.250] - Gordon
No, I don't think anyone does, and that's the problem. So there we go. That's my little topic for today. Just look into it if you haven't already, see how it's going to affect you. It's always good to be prepared and know that it's coming rather than all of a sudden have the government saying, "Right, we need your accounts in three months, please." And it's like, "What? No, I don't understand." Just get there ahead of the time. Be ahead of the game. Let's go with that. What would you like to talk about, Taylor?

[00:08:15.430] - Taylor
So I've been reading a book called The Five Second Rule by Mel Robbins.

[00:08:20.790] - Gordon
That's when you have to pick up food from the floor before it gets contaminated, right?

[00:08:24.320] - Taylor
No.

[00:08:25.290] - Gordon
Oh, okay.

[00:08:25.960] - Taylor
So the idea is that whenever you have something to do or you have to make a decision, and normally you retreat back, some sort of courage decision, you just count backwards from five and then you just do it. And what it does is it allows, or it stops you from thinking, in terms of talking yourself out of it.

[00:08:52.800] - Gordon
Okay.

[00:08:53.130] - Taylor
So it's an interesting idea. The biggest one that she says is for for people that struggle to wake up in the morning. So count backwards and then just get up and move. And once you're up, you're up. But you can use it in lots of different situations. If you wanted to talk up at a meeting, for example, just count. And by doing that, you've then stopped your brain from thinking about all the things that could go wrong, might go wrong, what you're worried about. And you focus your brain on this counting, and then you do it. And it pushes you forward and to do things that you otherwise would struggle with, or wouldn't have the courage to do. It's been really good. I'm still reading it, but it's been really good to think about. And a lot of the stuff that she says is really interesting.

[00:09:47.530] - Gordon
Can you give us an example of something that's not getting up that you think this might help you with? Just so that I can understand it better as well.

[00:09:59.530] - Taylor
I think the whole point is whenever you are faced with something that you're not sure about.

[00:10:10.830] - Gordon
I mean, we're not talking huge company-wide decisions, right? We're talking about personal, smaller things that affect you.

[00:10:19.010] - Taylor
Yes, so they're just small things that what happens is something... Your decision needs to be made, and most of the time you'll go, "Oh, I can't do that because of this, I can't do that because of that, or what if this happened?" And all these hypotheticals. And the idea is that you want to do it, but your brain stops you because it goes into this stuck thinking mode. And so the idea is it just activates something in your brain to then focus on the counting, and then you just go for it. And so it's not decisions that you should make without thinking. It's the decisions that you want to make, but you sometimes don't have the courage to do.

[00:11:05.730] - Gordon
So is it like an action decision? I want to take action on something, but I'm not sure if I can or want to.

[00:11:13.510] - Taylor
A very small example would be putting away your clothes. Everyone knows they need to put away their clothes, but the actual bringing yourself to do it. Sometimes you know you need to do it, but actually bringing yourself to put your clothes away is something that you make excuses for sometimes. And so the whole point is that by counting down, you stop yourself thinking, "Oh, I can't do it because of this. I can't do it because of that." And so it just helps you get over hurdles of things and gives you courage, essentially.

[00:11:48.330] - Gordon
And probably more productivity as well, because you're not putting things off. You're going, "Right, that needs doing five, four, three, two. Right, let's do it."

[00:11:59.050] - Taylor
Yeah. And the whole point is that your brain then focuses on the counting and not all of these other things that could happen, making up excuses of why you can't do something, essentially.

[00:12:11.120] - Gordon
Okay. Right, so we'll put a link to this. It's a book, is it?

[00:12:15.450] - Taylor
Yeah, it's a book, but I think she also goes and does talks and stuff like that.

[00:12:22.710] - Gordon
Okay, but the book is how you found it?

[00:12:24.930] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:12:25.320] - Gordon
Right, so we'll find the book and we'll put a link to that in the show notes, because I think that could be of interest to other people as well.

[00:12:33.010] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:12:34.630] - Gordon
Yeah, okay. When you finish the book, will you come back and give us a bit more insight as to how you think it's going to work for your life?

[00:12:42.280] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:12:42.980] - Gordon
Okay, that'll be good. How's the challenge going?

[00:12:45.950] - Taylor
It's going all right. Still going. It's been some tough days, but I'm still going.

[00:12:49.900] - Gordon
Yeah. I mean, it wouldn't be a challenge if it wasn't difficult, right?

[00:12:54.220] - Taylor
Of course.

[00:12:54.630] - Gordon
Yeah. So good on you. Well done for getting this far. Anything else you wish to say today?

[00:13:02.260] - Taylor
I don't think so.

[00:13:03.430] - Gordon
Good. Okay. Well, thank you very much for joining us. As always, we can be found on YouTube. Please like, share, and subscribe.

[00:13:12.320] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes.

[00:13:17.080] - Gordon
And if you prefer to listen to us, we are on all the major podcast platforms, so please go and find us there. "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," is all you need to search for, and you can then get all of our new episodes directly appearing in your feed by magic. And then you can listen to us in the car, on the train, in the bus, whatever, wherever you like, really. While you're on holiday in the pool, wherever you want to listen to us. Thank you for joining us. We'll be back with you 1pm next Friday, assuming everything is good. Until then, my name is Gordon, and I'm from Drayson Design.

[00:13:56.560] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:13:59.120] - Gordon
Goodbye.

[00:13:59.480] - Taylor
Bye.

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