It doesn’t matter how organized a person you are, or how thorough you do your own job. There always seems to be a need to verify details when you are leaving important things in someone’s hands.
How do we do this without coming across as micro-managing? I’ll tell you, when it affects YOUR job, YOUR life, YOUR money, and YOUR health I don’t think you really have a choice and in this case, nobody will have your own back better than you. In other words, if you won’t do the double-checking, nobody will.
I used to believe that hiring professionals to do a job would leave you feeling free and at ease that the job is in the hands of the best and most qualified people, especially when it is related to a trade or department you aren’t familiar with. I still believe in hiring professionals to get things done but often, you’ll need to do some Quality Control to ensure everything is in order.
These are examples of areas in which I have needed to verify the work of others. Learning from these examples and now implementing a “double check” has saved me time, thousands of dollars, and disaster:
- Unauthorized charges to my credit card: I was once charged for a $1000 wig.
- House Insurance: Paying for more coverage than necessary.
- Paying unnecessarily for duplicate Health Care benefits when engaging your spouse’s program in addition to your own.
- Unauthorized charges to phone bill or other home utilities: Watch for new charges that they conveniently leave unadvised. Also set a reminder in your calendar for cancellation of service dates so you can double check upcoming bills and aren’t inconveniently charged. (This also goes for Gym Memberships.
- Your paystub: Watch for deductions, overtime, and vacation accruals.
- Delegating work: Especially if you have never delegated to someone before and their work reflects on your job. Checking accuracy is essential.
- Trades during renovation or construction: Double check the contracts for what is included (and what is not), date of completion, their official tax number and contact references prior to beginning work with them. Remember…if all the details are too good to be true…there is likely a catch.
- Grocery bills: Double check that items weren’t scanned more than once, that sale prices have been reflected and that you have everything you purchased before going home.
- Sending important information to anyone: Be sure to keep a record of when you sent it, who you spoke to and if it was delivered. Schedule a follow up so you can get a status update. This is especially important when submitting important forms, payments, applications, and medical test results.
- Scheduling appointments and reservations: Verify reservations for events that have been planned well in advance, ensure the venue or vendors have all the details discussed previously. Confirming recurring appointments for health, wellness and doctors’ appointments is also important.
