GP|Solo Law Student

Making Time…

By Jeremy R. Moss, Esq.

For lawyers and law students, time is a precious commodity. For practicing attorneys, the cliché “time is money” is especially true. As pressures of exams for law students, and billable hour requirements for young lawyers loom, it is imperative to find a balance in your life between your professional and personal life. The practice of law has the ability to consume your life, if you let it. In this article, you will find nine ways to make time for your personal life and maintain success in your professional life.

Pay Yourself First

Because time is so valuable, it is important that it is invested well. Conscious investments of time for your personal life can pay off long term dividends. These dividends come in the form of increased happiness and decreased stress levels. To “invest” time in your personal life effectively, you should identify time that you consider especially valuable to you and purposely protect it from your professional endeavors. Paying yourself first requires a shift in priorities for many, but once you change your mindset, you should find it easier to set aside time for yourself.

Get Command of Your Calendar

In order to be able to invest time in yourself effectively, you must also get command of your calendar. In both the practice and study of law, your calendar can be your best friend or your worst enemy. Your calendar, no matter what medium you run it on, should be specific, accurate, and manageable. A calendar is not a tool to micromanage your life, but rather a tool to expend your time more efficiently.

Getting command of your calendar will also help balance your work and professional life by forcing you to plan ahead and will consistently remind you of important upcoming events, both professional and personal. Planning personal events well in advance also allows you the flexibility to more easily schedule around them.

As was said above, however, your calendar can also be your worst enemy. In order to be effective, your calendar must be specific, but it must also be manageable. A problem that many fall victim to is creating a calendar as an attempt to micromanage their lives. Calendars should be not be rigid, but should maintain the flexibility to allow for spontaneity. Spontaneity is difficult to embrace for many young lawyers as we are trained to analyze all situations. However, as some of the best time spent with family and friends is the time that was not planned in advance, it is important to embrace spontaneity. Remember, the work will still be at your desk if you take some time away for an unexpected rendezvous or unplanned trip and if you have not procrastinated, no deadlines will be looming.

Keep Your Time Efficiently

A problem for many young lawyers is keeping time efficiently. Keeping time is a new concept for many young lawyers and is both a skill and habit developed over time. Performance is often evaluated almost exclusively on billable time, and it is important that none of the time you actually spent working on client matters is lost. Make a habit of keeping time as you work. Be specific about beginning and ending times, as well as what exactly was done. Many have a natural worry that they are spending too much time on a matter and are hesitant to mark the true time spent on finishing an assignment. Amending time before sending a bill to the client is not the responsibility of a young lawyer or associate, but is rather the responsibility of a partner at your firm.

Similarly, you should always avoid procrastination. It is important to stay on top of things as they come in, both personal and professional, and procrastination will only compound time issues you may be having. By avoiding procrastination, you will avoid work pile-ups and conflicting deadlines. The easiest way to avoid procrastination is to start projects. Once a project is started, it is much easier to continue working on it and finish it in advance of the deadline.

Expand Your Day (Slightly) on Both Ends

For most, it always seems as there is just not enough time in the day to keep a good balance. A relatively easy way to make extra time at home is to extend your day slightly on both ends. By waking up fifteen minutes earlier and going to bed fifteen minutes later, you can easily buy yourself an extra half-hour at home. While this may not sound like much, if you add an extra half-hour at home a day, you increase the time for family and personal matters by 12.5%, or more.

Minimize the Impact of Your Commute

According to the 2000 Census, Americans spent close to 51 minutes a day commuting to and from work. In order to find extra time in your day to spend on personal and family matters, it is important to minimize the impact your commute has on your time. For law students starting their first positions next August, it is wise to choose a place to live that is both easy and convenient to your office. For existing young lawyers, you should consider car-pooling and public transportation, if available, as ways to spend commuting time more effectively. While riding as a passenger on train, bus, and car rides, it is easy to take care of a number of things ranging from scheduling, work, and small errands.

Learn To Unwind Quickly

Finally, one of the easiest ways to help balance your professional and personal life is to leave your work and its stresses at work. With limited time at home, it is important to learn to unwind quickly. On the commute home, take several deep breaths to clear your head and leave work with a good attitude. You’ve put in your time at work, now is the chance to put in your time at home. Talk about everything other than what you did at work or what deadlines you have coming up. Ask questions to your loved ones, listen to them, and enjoy their company. Plan nightly and weekend activities that will allow you to relax and forget about the office for a while.

Remember, although billing time and studying for class are ways to achieve professional success, spending time on personal affairs and relationship are ways to achieve happiness and decreased stress levels. The amount of time in a day is limited, and sometimes when you can’t just find time, you have to make it.

Jeremy R. Moss, Esq. is an Associate at MercerTrigiani LLP in Alexandria, Virginia and a 2007 graduate of the Columbus School of Law at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Copyright 2008