Law Practice Today

Part One:

Manage Your Life

Time has an elastic quality to it. When you are busy and engaged in what you are doing, there doesn’t seem to be enough of it. When you are bored, it stretches on endlessly. While 24 hours is the same for everyone, it is the perception of time that is different.

The ultimate intent of time management is to improve the quality and balance of your life—not just to speed it up. By striving for balance and harmony in all areas of your life, you can alter your current perception of time thereby reducing your stress and increasing your productivity.

Understanding your personal and professional needs is the key to striking the balance between the two. Successful living isn’t a matter of success in the workplace OR at home. It is the product of their combination. Think about how you really want to spend your time. With only 168 hours in a week, it is important to analyze how you currently spend it and how you would reallocate those hours in a “perfect” world. Remember, you only have 24 hours a day to work with!

 

	Exercise	Number of Hours
		Reality	Perfect World
1.	Working
2.	Commuting
3.	Professional development activities (Reading publications, attending conferences, external meetings, etc.)
4.	Paying bills, tending to finances
5.	Performing household chores/tasks
6.	Participating in family activities
7.	Partaking in physical activities
8.	Sleeping
9.	Pursuing personal interests/hobbies
10.	Reading for pleasure
11.	Watching TV/DVDs
12.	Socializing (via phone, email or events)
13.	Attending religious/spiritual services or praying
14.	Volunteering/participating in community life
15.	Attending cultural/social events
16.	Performing “obligatory” duties
17.	Other ___________________
	TOTAL	24 hrs	24 hrs

 

Is there is a discrepancy between your “reality” and your “perfect world”? What areas are taking up more of your time than you would like? Are there steps you can take to make your “perfect world” become your “reality?”

Aim to identify 30 or 40 minutes each day – that is 3.5 hours per week!—to spend more productively. “More productively” does not mean “doing more.” Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is nothing to give your battery a chance to recharge. Trying to squeeze more in to each day leads you to do less of it well and makes it all less enjoyable. Your goal is to remove energy drains and replace them with pleasurable activities to increase your verve and expand your perception of time. It may feel counterintuitive, but hurrying is the enemy of time management. Slow down and you will become more effective and fulfilled.

Once you determine what needs to change, the question becomes how to change.

Consider this four-step process.

 

Model for Change

• Step 1: Identify routine activities. Consider every mundane activity from the moment you get out of bed until the moment you go to sleep at night. Do this for 2 weeks.
• Step 2: Study existing procedures. Question the value of each activity and consider if it could be altered, delegated, or eliminated to save time.
• Step 3: Develop new procedure.
• Step 4: Apply new procedure. This is the hardest step. You must be disciplined so as not to slip back into your old habits.
• Step 5: Form new “habit.” Once you have mastered Step 4, you will have a new time-saving “habit.”

For example, perhaps you notice you spend 10 – 15 minutes each morning searching for your keys. You determine this is time that could be better spent, so you develop a procedure whereby each night when you walk in the door, you place your keys in a glass bowl on the table next to the door. Over the next few days, you apply this new procedure with various degrees of success. You might catch yourself stuffing the keys in your pocket or perhaps one night you notice the keys on the kitchen counter while you are making dinner. When that happens, stop what you are doing immediately and go place them in the bowl. If you do this with enough discipline, in a short time, you will form a new habit and the keys will be placed in the bowl automatically each time you walk in the door, freeing up 10 minutes our your day to reallocate. Then you can move on to the next routine activity that needs to be altered.

Employing the Model for Change will enable you to make “environmental” changes. Environmental changes are tangible. They include implementing structures and organizing things; limiting outside commitments; developing a new skill or acquiring a new knowledge base to enable you to be more efficient. Environmental changes also include ridding your life of clutter by getting rid of unused/unappreciated possessions or toxic relationships that drain your time.

But, it isn’t enough to only change your environment. Sometimes, in order to sustain environmental changes, you must also change your belief system or attitude. Changing your attitude is a bit harder. It involves altering your mindset.

For example, perhaps in addition to your professional responsibilities, you believe in order to be the ideal parent, you should also be President of the PTA, Coach of Little League and Boy Scout troop leader. Each role requires a significant commitment of time. Altering your environment by simply dropping those external roles will certainly free up some time, but it may also lead to guilt and a sense of failure unless you also change your belief system to reflect a different definition of the “ideal” parent.

The secret to balance all boils down to the choices you make. Everything you do requires a choice. There are the big choices: where to live, what career path to follow, who to share your life with, your faith, etc. Then there are the small choices: what time to wake up each morning; what to eat, what to wear, how to spend the day, how to respond to people and events. The small choices seem inconsequential. Some people would argue they aren’t really choices at all, but rather decisions dictated by life’s external pressures or requirements. But they are choices. You choose to get up at 6 a.m. to catch the 7:09 train to get to work despite the fact you’d rather sleep till noon because you know that the price you would have to pay to sleep till noon is too high to pay. If your goal truly is to sleep till noon each day, you would choose a different job and lifestyle to accommodate that goal. The seemingly small choices you make day in and day out determine your perception of time and ultimately, the quality of your life.

Many people feel their success and ultimately their happiness is impeded by their life circumstances. “If only I had more time, then I would… ( fill in the blank). So many things in life seem beyond our control. Yet, the world really is the same for everyone. We each have 24 hours a day to spend. We all face life’s interruptions, inconveniences and hazards. It isn’t a question of if you will encounter these distractions; it is a question of how you will deal with them. Your level of stress and sense of balance depends on the choices you make NOT on your circumstances. If you aren’t getting what you want out of life, if you are overwhelmed, overlooked, undervalued or unfulfilled in your personal or profession life, it could be you are making bad choices. People who do the best in life are those who realize they have the power to choose. 

Jot down 30-50 activities that drain your energy. Divide them into categories (work/home/friends/family). Review your list and determine what choices you could make to minimize or eliminate each drain. Next, list the reasons preventing you from making the choice. How could you modify the choice to eliminate the reason?

 

EXERCISE

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Alice asks the Cheshire Cat, “would you tell me, please, which way I ought to walk from here?” without any clear ideas of where it is she wants to go.

`Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’ `That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat. `I don't much care where--' said Alice. `Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat. `--so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation. `Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'

Are you “somewhere” or are you where you want to be?

Many of us spend more time planning our vaca­tions than we do planning our lives or careers. We are not particularly clear about what is most important to us and make choices not on the basis of any reason at all, but rather reactively. Many times, obligations and justifications become overriding consider­ations in choosing life paths. To help you move from “somewhere” to where you want to be, start by asking yourself:

• What are my priorities?
• What do I want from life?
• What will it do for me?
• What am I willing to sacrifice to achieve my goals?

By focusing on the answers to these questions you can live your life less “reactively” and more clearly align your choices to your goals, wants and needs to regain your sense of balance.

In Success in Not an Accident, Tommy Newberry wrote: “The first rule of holes: if you’re in one, stop digging. Most people have difficulty climbing out of the holes in their lives simply because they focus more on the hole (which represents their current circumstances), than on where they want to climb (which is the goal or solution.).”

Achieving life/work balance is akin to solving a business problem. Every successful business venture begins with a comprehensive business plan, updated annually, outlining goals and objectives. Such plans are designed to be flexible in order to accommodate unexpected market changes and opportunities. Likewise, you need to have a focused but flexible comprehensive career plan/life strategy.

Start by allowing yourself to dream. Imagine what your future could be so you can design an action plan to make it happen. Think about what you want to have; what you want to be; what you want to do and what impact you want to have. Consider all areas of your life: career/financial; social/cultural; spiritual; family/home; education; health/fitness. Remember, goals needs to be adjustable to new information, otherwise you feel trapped. Flexible goals allow you to change course if a great opportunity presents itself.

 

EXERCISE

GOAL SETTING

 

• Step 1: List at least fifteen things you want to accomplish during your lifetime.
• Step 2: Select the five lifetime goals you want to accomplish in the next 5 years. (Each goal should start with an active verb!)
• Step 3: From your five year plan, select two or three goals that you want to accomplish during the coming year.
• Step 4: For each ANNUAL GOAL listed, answer he following questions.
  • WHY do I want to achieve this goal?
  • WHEN will I achieve this goal?
  • HOW will I achieve this goal? (Or: What 3 things do I need to DO?)
  • What is my excuse (obstacle/challenges) for not achieving this goal?
  • What possible strategies exist to mitigate my excuse/obstacles/challenges? (TIP: Analyze your fear; consider the worst case scenario and gather information to empower you to achieve or revamp your goal.)
  • WHO can help me achieve this goal?
• Step 5: Repeat these steps annually.

Written goals give your dreams structure. They create a long term perspective and enable you to prioritize so that you can manage conflicting goals. Written goals also heighten awareness of opportunities, help you manage transitions, stay focused, make better decisions and maintain your sense of balance.

Creating goals and action plans requires looking to the future. But career/life planning also requires evaluating your life in light of where you have been and where you are right now. You must be willing to face the choices you have already made and be prepared to make course corrections when necessary.

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Next Month: Manage Your TIME