Ease up a little: how to step back from daily stressors

Does it ever seem that being a lawyer is a 24/7 responsibility that leaves no time for a personal life? The General Practice/Solo and Small Firm Division has compiled a list of resources that provide tools and insights on how to have a successful career and a fulfilling personal life, on its "Quality of Life" Web page. Many of the links lead to thought-provoking articles on how to get out of the stress cycle, or how to stay fresh and avoid burn-out.

For example, Anne Whitaker, on "Navigating Your Career," points to signs that a person is working and living in the "stress cycle." If an individual never stops – always seems to be living life in a relentless rush – there's a good chance he or she is in the stress cycle. Further indications include living with a short-term focus, concentrating on the task at hand rather than deliberately acting with a focus on the bigger picture and goals, making decisions reactively, responding to everyday issues as if they were crises, having status-driven goals, and living with outer-directed priorities as opposed to living life according to one's personal vision.

"While cell phones and calendaring systems are helpful (and I use them), I don't think that shoehorning more and more into an already busy life will somehow provide balance, or satisfaction," writes Dennis Coyne in an article titled, "An Impossible Challenge: Mastering Life-Work Balance." As Coyne says, "I question... that life and work are separate, and that it makes sense to balance life against work." Coyne suggests that lawyers conduct a mini-transition in which they decide what to let go of, what to hold on to, what to take on (new learning and exploration), and when to move on to new commitments.

The stress cycle and too much shoehorning can even lead to physical ailments. The GP/Solo Web page includes links to the WebMD and the Mayo Clinic sites, from which the reader may learn more about healthy living and specific conditions or diseases.

Other links lead to Web sites that allow readers to easily take advantage of amusements for the short coffee breaks during the workday, such as Web sites that test your reflexes, or suggest a book to read based on past reading history, or that allow you to search music by song or artist to learn the real (as opposed to what we thought we heard) lyrics. Warning for those sudoko junkies, there's a link to Web sudoko.

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