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Burn Bright But Don't Burnout: Balancing your life is a form of risk management. Its about establishing a harmonious relationship between your professional life and your personal life by instituting an effective risk management system through effective time management procedures. Risk Management, an insurance term, is defined as the attempt to eliminate the potential for loss and 'burnout' is the ultimate potential loss for any professional. One of the best ways to avoid this burnout is through effective time management techniques. That is finding time for both work and play and learning to use your time more efficiently. The first technique is to find remedies for time wasters. Identify your primary time wasting habits by keeping a precise time log documenting "where my time goes". If you follow the same pattern as many of the attorneys that I speak to, the following three time wasters are particularly troublesome for lawyers, namely: interruptions, procrastination & ineffective delegation. Learn to adjust or more importantly not to adjust to (1) interruptions. Resist the ringing phone or a colleague who drops into your office and asks, "Got a minute?" Train a skilled assistant to say "I'm sorry but Ms. Jones is not available right now. "May I take your number and have her return your call?" Make sure the assistant asks the caller what this is in reference to so that urgent calls are handled appropriately and information that is sought by the non-urgent caller can be obtained, if possible, prior to the return phone call. Always try to return phone calls within 24 hours and try to return them when you are at your best! Drop-in visitors can be handled the same way. It is imperative to make the unwanted guest feel that you will have time for them but you must finish this work first! When you have completed the tasks at hand then make time to see colleagues & clients. Lack of attention is the single biggest complaint that clients have about lawyers, and their primary reason for changing lawyers. If you get better control of your time and you'll have more of it! (2) Procrastination, the act, tendency or habit of "putting off until tomorrow...what you can do today" is another time wasting technique unto itself! To think that you work better under pressure is ludicrous. Your peak performance is more likely to occur when you do not procrastinate and are NOT under time pressure. This is preferable not only for health reasons, but it is more likely to prevent mental and professional errors and increase creativity. Keep in mind that procrastination occurs for several reasons including fear of failure. The thought process goes something like..."this is difficult and I'm going to avoid it for as long as I can. Or, you may have a genuine lack of interest in what you have to do and may be thinking "this is really going to be boring!" To resolve this issue once and for all, the most effective step you can take is to break projects down into smaller units, do-able one step at a time until the task no longer seems overwhelming.You will eventually find that it becomes easier & easier to procrastinate less and less... "The way to get things done right is to do them myself?" Are you a perfectionist or a control freak? (3) An inability to effectively delegate work can be a most debilitating and time wasting habit. You must be able to maximize your achievements through the efforts of others and you must be able to manage other people so you don't work longer hours. Change the belief that for things to be done right you have to do them all yourself. To become an effective manager hire the right people, be clear in your instructions, create a supportive environment and accept the fact that everyone is capable of making mistakes.Your staff should be expected to grow and learn from their mistakes. Provide moral support but do not do the work. Let your staff realize their achievements and advance their status. The second technique in time management is to do the important things first...Do you get into the office and think, "Let me clean up some loose ends and I'll be able to concentrate on the more important things." By the end of the day there is the realization that the important matters will have to wait until the next day...and so on...and so on...until the important things become so urgent that they must get done first, and you feel constantly stressed out. Balance your time by learning to prioritize your activities into two categories: (1) important matters and (2) urgent matters. Then try to fill your days with activities that are important but not urgent. Include pursuits that involve long term planning, creativity and crisis prevention. The key is to prevent important things from becoming urgent by finding ways of doing them first. Don't put off until tomorrow what you should be doing today, as tomorrow never comes. Once you clarify what is important and do as many important things as possible every day, your life will change in a profound way. The immediate effect will be the great sense of satisfaction that results from living the life you want and accomplishing the things that matter. Finding the cure for overwork is the third and the most difficult time management problem to control. There is only one prescription for too much work and that is, obviously, less work! And there is no expert who can help you with this. However, this may require you to seek time management advice using a consultant whose strategies are designed to make people work more efficiently. Or, you may need to consider reducing billable hours or working hour requirements through the use of part-time or flexible time. Short of that, balance your new, efficient professional life by getting involved in alternative activities, such as pro bono work or community service, activities that should give you personal satisfaction. Restructuring life's major priorities is difficult and not always the only answer. Creating a work and play schedule that you are willing to adhere to should help you find a satisfying balance. Quantitatively speaking, what would it be like to gain one extra hour per day...five extra hours per week...20 extra hours per month? To achieve these gains, all you need to do is waste less time and work with more determination. AND IT CAN BE DONE! Do you remember the last time you were going on vacation? Did you work more efficiently? You probably planned your days better, shaved a few minutes off of each conversation, procrastinated less, etc. Without going overboard, you can do the same thing every working day. Now that you have this extra time, it will be important to use it wisely, to achieve additional professional goals, seek personal adventures, express your creativity, contribute to your community and relate better to your family and friends by making yourself available. Most people think about time management in quantitative terms: "doing things faster or getting more things done." However, time management can have a qualitative meaning as well: "doing things that truly matter or that you enjoy." Then your calendar will truly represent a diary of how you are choosing to spend your life. The number of things you accomplish will be weighed against their importance and meaningfulness. The results or products of your efforts will be evaluated in the context of the extent to which you enjoyed the process. To become an effective time manager you must figure out why you want to manage your time more effectively in the first place. Take out a sheet of paper and list your goals. Start with the most abstract such as self-esteem, love, security, adventure, creativity and proceed to the most concrete...arguing before the Supreme Court, spending more time with the kids, earning $200,000, traveling to the Orient, etc. Without a set of strong motives, your attempts at time management will not be productive. You might try a few techniques and temporarily improve your productivity. However, unless this leads to greater job or life satisfaction, you will become less and less motivated to use them. To succeed, you must be clear about the personal and professional improvements that time management will help you achieve. Successful lawyers, like successful people from all walks of life, have habitual ways of thinking, performing, and relating. Now that you have developed effective ways of managing time, there are four steps to success:
Resource: Stress Management for Lawyers...How to Increase Personal & Professionalatisfaction in the Law...by Amiram Elwork, PhD. contributions by Douglas B. Marlowe, PH. D., J.D. Used with permission of the author. |
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