Paper work, the love hate relationship

Paper work; the bane and the back bone for my business and life.

Paper work makes the world go round and is the joy of bureaucrats everywhere.  Bean counters, lawyers, accountants, actuaries, all of them live by and love to have records.  There are so many things that can’t be done without records.  It doesn't matter if you have a pulse; if you don’t have a birth certificate, you don’t exist to our government.

I live by my paperwork and my records.  When I don’t follow through with them, boy do I notice.  I have been trying to simplify my life by making only one record of my work but still haven’t gotten it worked out.  Good thing I haven’t gotten rid of the second, I found out today.  I received an inquiry about a piece of art and when I looked it up, it said available.  I couldn’t find it anywhere!  Back to the other record, there was the name of the gallery that had it.  Thank God!  I called the gallery and found that they had sold it and hadn’t actually told me.  Galleries will send an artist a check but not make a "record" of what they are paying you for.

Fortunately for me, I was able to find a piece they liked just as much.  I felt so bad though that I gave the buyer a discount on the larger piece.  (It is going to a nice home).  They decided to have me do another one for her as well.  Makes my heart happy.

If I hadn’t been keeping records, this would have been so much worse for me and everyone else.  See, because of records, I know that this buyer made an inquiry before.  I wanted to be especially kind to them because of their continued efforts to own a piece of mine.

Keep good records, do the paperwork and follow through.  It saves your backside and keeps things running smoother than if you were hack handed about it.  I for one, always feel a sense of accomplishment when my records help me complete a task.  It is like crossing something off a list but maybe even better.