Ask HN: What's your biggest schlep?

Several years ago I went through a depressive episode that led to most of my life falling apart because I didn't feel invested enough in my own life to do things. It wasn't like I was preoccupied with more entertaining options, it was more like I had set fire to my life and wanted to watch it burn. I spent some time in a hospital, and the most useful thing I took from that experience was a talk with a social worker about getting things done before you were buried under shit to do. "Do it now" became my mantra and that got me back on my feet. The mindset isn't as vivid as it once was, but it's still very much ingrained - I've just gotten worse at listening to that voice in my head.<p>Since then, I have very limited tolerance for people who don't share that mindset. Unfortunately, that seems to describe most people I know. but even still I don't know many people I'd count on to take care of something important without nagging. I hate to feel like I have to follow up any time I ask someone to take care of something, but more than that I hate the disappointment I feel when someone doesn't and doesn't have a good reason.

I just formed an LLC in California, and the process and the associated hassles suck. It's a bootstrapped business that's profitable, but barely, so I didn't have a lot to spend. However, I needed to get the LLC in place relatively quickly (days, not weeks or months) to sign a contract. Here's some of the schleping involved:<p>- Creating the LLC itself sucks/is expensive. I ended up using Legal Zoom to create the LLC because California's government is so understaffed that they're weeks and weeks behind on processing LLC paperwork, so the only way to get your stuff processed quickly is to have a courier walk it into the office by hand, in addition to paying all sorts of expediting feeds. I think I ended up paying Legal Zoom $900, in addition to the $800 franchise tax, etc.<p>- Figuring out how taxes works sucks. I'm a sole founder, and have only offshore contractors, no employees. It should be really simple. But I honestly still don't have a solid idea how I should be paying myself, what paperwork I should be filing for taxes, and what witholding and estimate payments I should be doing.<p>- Setting up proper accounting sucks. I used quickbooks to run a small freelance business 10 years ago, but I suspect there's something better out there that's web based. I'd really like to just be able to hand accounting and taxes off to someone who knows more about it than me, but I don't know where to go about finding someone, and am worried they'd cost more than I could afford.<p>- Figuring out how to get healthcare as a bootstrapped small business sucks. I'm on COBRA right now, but once that runs out, I have no idea what my gameplan is. This is separate from the suckage that is healthcare in general once you have it.<p>These are all things that are necessary to start a business, but at least for me, none of them are fun, or really increase the value of my business. They only cause headaches if I screw them up.<p>For most if not all of these, I'd actually be willing to pay someone to just say "Here's a checklist of how to get through all this stuff. Here's the paperwork to fill out, here's who to talk to, here's the service worth paying for."

Bureaucracy, i know its rather generic and quite a large subject but i absolutely detest it and i feel its only purpose it to make everyones lives harder. Whether its doing the mandatory paperwork i need to do for running my company (which is always late cuz i procrastinate) or absolutely ridiculous requirements like the umpteen amount of papers and ID i have to provide to get something as simple as a Costco card.<p>I do recognise the government is getting gradually better at a very slow pace but it grates on me so much that i will refuse to participate in something unless i really really want it or have to do it by law.

Licensing, compliance with endless laws and regs, and quarterly and annual reports for several departments of government. It's especially discouraging when you speak with a particular branch of government and they have no official interpretation of their new laws, as a result you may or may not be in compliance, they're still deciding.

False Emergencies. As an "IT Guy" my life consists of fixing false emergencies.

All of the things below could be ideas for startups. I 'd pay for them:<p>- Find a domain name (and a name) for your site<p>- Recruit beta version users<p>- Writing the documentation/help pages for your startup<p>- Making those pretty screencast videos where a cute girl explains how (awesome|exciting|hippy) your site is<p>- Brand advertising. For example while there are tons of ways with which you could advertise a brand in your website, there's no easy service for that.

My biggest schlep is being involved in too many meaningless activities and meaningless interactions. Things that don't really contribute to my long-term goals, or purpose. Of course, we all have obligations, but it seems like my daily life is 99% filled with meaningless activities.

I'd love for Outlook to magically identify events in emails and ask to add them to the calendar. copy &#38; paste of date/times from email to calendar seems so 1990's. (this is where someone politely alerts me to a simple option I only have to enable)

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