INTHEBLACK September 2026 - Flipbook - Page 59
C L O S I N G T H E B O O KS
Audit
your life
The principles of accounting bring order
to finance. Can they also help professionals
live better, more intentional lives?
Words Sonakshi Babbar
Accounting has always been about more than arithmetic.
At its core, it is a way of thinking: deciding where limited
resources should go, weighing trade-offs, making
judgements under uncertainty and understanding
long-term value.
The interesting question is whether those same principles
work outside the office, too. After all, most finance
professionals spend their days allocating resources that
never appear on a balance sheet, such as time, attention
and energy.
WHAT’S IMPORTANT?
Start with materiality. In accounting, materiality determines
whether information is significant enough to influence
a decision. Not every number deserves equal attention; what
matters is whether leaving it out changes the bigger picture.
Many things in life feel important simply because they arrive
loudly. A delayed reply or a forgotten birthday message can
seem significant in the moment, even when it does little to
alter the broader direction of things. A useful question is:
will this still matter six months from now? The point is not
to dismiss small things, but to avoid giving everything the
same weight. Otherwise, genuinely important things risk
getting buried in the noise.
WHAT’S BEING NEGLECTED?
Then there is depreciation. Few assets hold their value
forever. Time, use and neglect all leave a mark, which is
why accountants spread a loss in value over an asset’s
useful life rather than treating it as a one-off event.
Missing one morning walk rarely changes anything.
Skipping one catch-up with a friend is unlikely to
damage a relationship. But small decisions accumulate.
A missed workout can turn into weeks without exercise.
One postponed catch-up becomes a friendship maintained
mostly through birthday wishes. Neglect is rarely obvious
until the cost has already been paid.
WHAT’S MISSING?
Another accounting principle is opportunity cost,
the hidden trade-off behind every yes. The price of
a decision is often not what it gives us, but what it
leaves behind. This blind spot even has a name. In the
paper Opportunity Cost Neglect, researchers found that
people often overlook the alternatives they give up because
those costs are invisible.
People notice the meeting added to the calendar, but
not the conversation that never happened or the hour of
rest that quietly disappeared. The real cost of a choice
is often felt in the life it crowded out.
CHECK YOUR ROI
Taken together, materiality, depreciation and opportunity cost
become tools for better judgement. They help answer simple
questions: what deserves my attention? What am I neglecting?
What am I giving up by choosing this?
Those questions matter because attention and energy are
scarce assets. Once spent, they cannot simply be topped up
next quarter. Small choices — another late evening at work,
a rushed meal or pushing rest down the list — may seem
minor on their own, but repeated often enough, they shape
the life being built.
That is where return on investment becomes useful
beyond finance. Not every worthwhile return appears as
profit. Some pay back through stronger relationships, better
health, more energy or simply the sense that time is being
spent with purpose. What are you investing in?
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