Why a Tax Firm Is Starting a Book Club (and Why We Picked Atomic Habits)
Every fall I end up giving clients the same advice. Log your mileage when you drive it, not in December. Move money for taxes out of checking the day a payment lands. Open your P&L once a month, even if it's only for five minutes.
Nobody argues with any of it. And by April, most of it didn't happen.
That isn't a knowledge problem. It's a habit problem. So this year we're trying something a little different for a tax firm: a book club.
What we're reading
We're starting with Atomic Habits by James Clear. It's one of the most popular books ever written about building habits, and part of the reason is that it doesn't ask you to become a different person overnight.
The core idea is that small improvements, repeated consistently, add up to big results over time. Clear argues that your results come more from your systems, the routines you run every day, than from your goals.
Here's the difference in tax terms. A goal says, "I'm going to get my books in order this year." A system says, "Every Friday at 9 AM, I spend ten minutes categorizing last week's transactions." The goal sounds better. The system is the one that actually works.
He also makes the case that habits stick when they're easy to notice, appealing, simple to start, and rewarding. If a habit is hidden, painful, complicated or thankless, it usually doesn't survive past February.
What this looks like in a small business
Most of the tax and money problems we see aren't caused by bad decisions. They're caused by good intentions that never turned into routines.
A few small systems that pay off at tax time:
A weekly money check. Ten minutes every Friday to categorize transactions and glance at your bank balance. Year-end cleanup goes from a lost weekend to an afternoon.
A tax savings transfer. Every time a client payment lands, move a set percentage into a separate savings account for taxes. When estimated payments come due, the money is already there. (How much to set aside is a your-situation conversation. Ask us.)
Mileage logged in the moment. At 72.5 cents a mile for he back half of 2026, a 20-mile round trip to a client is a $14.50 deduction. Logging it takes ten seconds in the car and a lot longer to reconstruct in April.
W-9s up front. Ask for a W-9 before you pay a new contractor, not after. January stays quiet.
None of those is hard. Each one is just easy to skip. That gap between knowing and doing is exactly what the book is about.
If quarterly estimated payments are part of your system, keep our tax due dates calendar bookmarked.
It's not only about business
We picked a book whose ideas apply everywhere: health, family, the side project you keep meaning to start. Most of our clients wear every hat in their business, and the business and the rest of life aren't really separate. We'll talk about both.
How the book club works
When: four Tuesdays, Nov 10, Nov 17, Nov 24 and Dec 1, from 10 to 11 AM Central.
Where: all virtual, on video.
What to bring: your own copy of Atomic Habits. Grab one before Nov 10 if you can.
Commitment: come to all four sessions or just a few. Jump in whenever it works for you.
Each session, we'll talk through how the book's ideas apply to running a business and to life outside it. Expect a conversation, not a lecture.
Why start in November?
Most people wait for January to make changes. By then, the year has already started without them.
Starting a habit in November means it's already running when the new year begins, instead of being one more resolution on a list. And the end of the year is when a lot of next year's tax picture gets set, so it's a good time to build the routines that make it simpler.
The bottom line
Most tax stress comes from small things left undone, not from big mistakes. A handful of small habits fixes most of it. Come build a few with us.
Join us
The book club starts Tuesday, Nov 10. Save your seat here, and bring your questions, your copy of the book, and one habit you'd like to finally make stick.
This article is general information, not personalized tax advice. Your situation is unique, and that's what we're here for.
