The practice this week is simple, and really comes down to one question:

“Am I struggling with something right now that I could use help with?”

Help can mean a lot of things.

It can mean advice on a file. I have had conversations with numerous lawyers over the years who have made the mistake of trying to problem solve their way through a legal question that is out of their area of experience only to realize a little late in the game that turning to another lawyer for guidance would be the best course of action. This happens with lawyers in big firms – where help is around the corner, and with solo lawyers who are trying to do it all on their own.

Help can mean forming a relationship with a senior lawyer in your practice area for support and guidance. I recently connected a junior lawyer seeking to develop a new practice area with a senior lawyer from a small firm. They are writing articles together now and the senior lawyer is providing some valuable mentorship.

Help can mean getting some coaching support on a practice challenge.  It might be that you want to improve work efficiency, or you want to get better at business development, or you are wondering if it is time to make a transition to a different firm or practice. Whatever the challenge, getting confidential support can help you to actually progress vs. getting mired down in just thinking about it.

Here’s something most people don’t know. The best coaches have coaches. Why? Because good coaches know that coaching accelerates progress.

And on that note, I am currently working with a money coach, Sheila Walkington, who writes for this blog. This year I identified some challenges and decided to invest in some coaching to help me get a plan together and make some changes. Sheila is helping with that.

And throughout North America the various Lawyers Assistance Programs are there to offer confidential support to the profession on a wide variety of challenges. Derek LaCroix, QC, who contributes to this blog, has served as Executive Director LAPBC since 1996. Prior to that he was a trial lawyer for almost 20 years. Derek knows most everyone in the LAP community across North America and so can serve as a first point of contact for any lawyer seeking to access LAP resources in their region. Derek’s contact information can be found in the contributor section of the site.

Don’t go it alone. Whether it is simple advice on how to get your dog to stop chewing the furniture, or a complex legal practice challenge, don’t take too long to get assistance. I frequently hear – I wish I had contacted you sooner – and I never hear I wish I hadn’t asked for help.

Photo credit: torbakhopper / Creative Commons

This Monday Morning Practice is for those of you who have a business plan that sits unlooked at on your computer or in your drawer for weeks or month until you have time open up in your schedule.

Business development plans and strategy are great to have but useless when they get filed for “when I have time to get to it”.

Here’s what’s important: A lot of what sits in your plan can be actioned in five to fifteen minute segments of time that can be accommodated by the busiest of schedules.

You take one small step, then another small step, then another, leading up to a bigger push.

In five minutes you can:

• Send an email to schedule a lunch date, or pass along an important news highlight, or to simply connect.
• Quickly brainstorm some ideas for your next article or blog post.
• Tweet or do a LinkedIn update.
• Review your contact list and pull out the names of 3 people you want to get in touch with.
• Flip through that important industry publication in order to stay current on your client’s business.
• Email the librarian and ask her for weekly news alerts based on some key words, or review her weekly email to you with this information.

In fifteen minutes

• You can jot down the outline for an article or presentation.
• Start writing the presentation.
• Begin drafting a newsletter, blog post, or other client alert.
• Have a quick call to get back in touch with a client to learn how they are doing since your last piece of work for them.

If you follow my Monday Morning Practice column you will have read that our brains do well with interrupted pieces of work. It can be highly productive to write articles and prepare presentations in small bits of time.

The key idea here is that much of what appears in your business development plan can be advanced effectively with small increments of time.

Don’t wait until the big space of time opens up because by then you aren’t primed to use it.

Take care of all the little steps to set yourself up to make the most of the chunk of time when you need it.

Small step

Small step

Small step

Then the big push – delivering the presentation, attending the event, going out for the lunch.

What are the small steps you can take this week?

Are you an over-promisor and under-deliverer? If so, you are not alone. Many lawyers I talk to struggle with this endless feeling of being behind in getting responses back to their clients.

Here is the question for you to consider – Are you really behind? What is actually a reasonable response time on client work?

The reality is that being a successful professional means we have a good-sized group of clients. We have a constant full plate of work. Work gets done, and more comes in to fill its place.

There is a steady line up of deliverables to take care of.

Clients pressure us to turn work around quickly. We pressure ourselves to accommodate this.

Legal work takes time. Even with the best systems and processes in place, and with top quality support, it takes time to deliver legal advice. There is a necessary delay between taking in a piece of work, entering it in the queue of legal work, and getting it done.

The practice this week is to begin paying attention to your thoughts about the time it takes to get work turned around. Are you holding yourself to turn-around times that are not reasonable in a busy practice? Notice, how are you communicating with clients about timelines?

What can you do to set reasonable expectations for yourself, and to communicate these to your clients?

The Monday morning practice this week is inspired by a hard lesson I learned this week. Don’t jump too quickly to conclusions.

Simple concept right?

And very challenging.

What makes this hard is that our brains are all about jumping to conclusions. Our brains function as prediction machines. We are constantly scanning incoming information and making predictions based on our previous experience. We are wired for jumping to conclusions.

In a recent article in The Journal of Neuroscience, the authors describe this predictive function in this way:

“The human brain, it is being increasingly argued in the scientific literature, is best viewed as an advanced prediction machine. By this view, the sophistication with which brains perceive and act upon the world has evolved to minimise the amount of surprise, or unpredictability experienced in a particular situation.” Chennu, V. Noreika, D. Gueorguiev, A. Blenkmann, S. Kochen, A. Ibáñez, A. M. Owen, and T. A. Bekinschtein. “Expectation and attention in hierarchical auditory prediction.” The Journal of Neuroscience, 33(27):11194–11205, 2013.

Here’s what happened to me this week with my prediction machine:

On Monday my mom who lives in a senior’s residence had a health scare. While eating supper with her friends she suddenly became delirious, pale, and sweaty, and then was sick.

The care attendant rushed her to the hospital within 5 minutes. She believed my mother may have suffered a heart attack. I thought my mother had come down with a sudden case of the Norwalk virus.

In my defence my brain was primed to draw a quick and false conclusion about my mother’s health scare:

• That same day I had run into the director of another seniors home in my facility who told me that all the residents in her home had come down with the Norwalk virus.

• When I walked into the hospital a sign told me that the acute care ward was on lock down due to an outbreak of the Norwalk virus.

• My mom is from a long line of long-lived women with no heart disease.

When I saw my mother’s condition, delirious, grey, vomiting, I jumped to the conclusion – she has come down with Norwalk. I mentioned this to the doctor and he agreed. He was in the midst of treating our local Norwalk outbreak and was primed to draw this conclusion as well.

The next day I realised my error. After sleeping ten hours mom awoke feeling perfectly healthy. There was no way she had the virus.

A second look at the evidence – the lack of fever, the sudden onset, the cold sweat, delirium, all pointed to something more serious. AND since we didn’t get the blood work done at the hospital we won’t know what really was going on.

My lesson, hard learned, is not to jump to conclusions. Instead pause and seek information.

The Monday morning practice this week is dedicated to my mother and this tough lesson. This week watch and reflect on your predictions, have you considered all the angles? Would more information help?

Is it all in your head?

The Monday Morning Practice this week is for those of you who keep big portions of your to do list in your head.

I made the transition from a mental to a paper to-do list many years ago, but when I get busy I start to slip up and revert to old habits until dropped balls and creeping anxiety remind me to get back on the list habit.

Here’s what’s important to know. Your brain is a wonderfully powerful organ and it is a rotten list keeper. As David Allen writes in his productivity classic:

Do you have a flashlight somewhere with dead batteries in it? When does your mind tend to remind you that you need new batteries? When you notice the dead ones! That’s not very smart. If your mind had any innate intelligence it would remind you of those dead batteries only when you passed live ones in a store. And ones the right size, to boot. (Getting Things Done, page 16)

In lawyerly terms, when does your mind tell you about that email you need to get to the client? Probably at midnight as you are trying to get to sleep!

Mental to-do lists are anxiety producing. They are demanding our brain handle a task that it was not designed for when a pen and paper could serve just as well.

With a to-do list you can be incredibly efficient. Have then minutes before the next meeting, check the do to list for what you can get done quickly.

Deciding whether you can help your colleague with that file, have a look at the to-do list for what is on the go in order to make a sound judgment call about your capacity to take on new work.

I am back on my to-do list habit, and my Monday has started with zooming through a whole lot of overdue tasks and it feels good.

If it is all in your head, start today by getting it all out onto a external list and notice what a difference this makes.

Every week I spend a good chunk of time with lawyers discussing practice management issues. There is a simple tool I learned in coach training called the three B’s that is often very useful for discovering solutions or improvements to everyday practice challenges.

The three B’s are:

Better it.

Barter it.

Bag it.

Better it – what can I do to make this situation better? In the case of a lawyer who had a big piece of research to do that felt heavy heavy and time consuming, this question raised the answer – I will change settings and get myself a treat. I will take my laptop to the glassed-in terrace in my building and read the materials while enjoying a latte.

Barter it – who can do this for me? This is the delegation option. Can someone else do this task in part or completely? For lawyers delegation is a critical skill to develop. Once you are over three years of call there are opportunities for delegating, and some people even start earlier. Delegation is key to productivity, and the habit of asking each morning – what do I need to delegate? – is immensely valuable. For tips on developing this habit – read my Slaw article Advice for the Reluctant Delegator.

Bag it – what can I pass on? What can I let go of? It is quite amazing how many tasks pile onto our to do lists that frankly don’t belong there. There is great wisdom to knowing what to say no to, and what to take off our plates entirely. Bag it is a reminder to guard your time, and take on only those things that are essential to you. Having a simple business plan, can help you to remain clear about what you want to invest your time on, and what belongs off your plate. My Slaw article Mastering the Positive No has a list of tips for helping you to strengthen your ability to set boundaries around your time by saying no.

This week pick three “heavy” items off your to do list and apply the three B’s. How can you better, barter, or bag them?

My thanks to author, columnist, and life coach Martha Beck for developing the three B’s approach and sharing it widely through her coach-training program and written works.

Beneath so many life challenges from clearing out the basement to improving productivity, lie the thinking traps that get us stuck in delay, procrastination, or simply do-it-later-itis.

Here are five versions of one simple I’ll get around to it later thinking trap that has major implications for our productivity:

I need a dedicated block of time for this task.

There’s not enough time for it now.

I will find time for it when I am not so busy.

That’s too big a project to start right now, and it’s not due right away anyway.

I just don’t have the capacity to deal with that now.

Yes, wouldn’t it be nice if all of a sudden a huge block of time with no clients and no deadlines opened up in your calendar. And we all know how often that happens!

Here’s what it important to know. Big projects are best tackled, initially, with some small steps.  My April article for Slaw.ca was all about getting free of the thinking traps that are holding you back. You can read it here.

Bottom line?  Break your large projects into small, actionable next steps.  For the basement, start by sorting through one box and getting rid of or recycling what you don’t need. For productivity in the office, get moving on big projects earlier with small actionable next steps to get the ball rolling.  Even a ten minute investment in “getting started” can have a significant impact.  I use this strategy every day, and it is a life saver. Try it today!

Talk, talk, talk.

Elevator speeches.

Presentation skills.

In our law firm cultures we place a great deal of emphasis on our verbal communication skills ranging from learning to speak up at meetings, developing our presentation abilities, and polishing our elevator speeches.  And yes, these are important skills, and even more important is how well we listen.

Powerful listening builds rapport faster than any other method.  It is an established truth that the person who is enjoying the conversation the most is the one doing most of the talking.

Listening ensures we are learning everything we need to from our clients.

Listening helps to resolve conflicts.

Listening tells the people we are in dialogue with that they matter, and that their viewpoint is valued.

Listening helps us to delegate more effectively.

In our personal lives, giving the gift our our complete attention is one of the best ways to express our love to our friends and family.

Listening and questioning go hand in hand. Curiosity-led questions open up dialogue. They help to stimulate deeper thinking.  They are the key to effective leadership.

This week, focus your attention on developing your listening abilities with this simple self-observation practice:

Stop at the end of the day – and ask yourself the following questions. Please do this for the next seven days.

1. When did I listen attentively? How was this received by the person I was listening to?
2. How did I demonstrate active listening – or in other words, how did I communicate that I was listening?

Active Listening Tips:

In order to let people know that you are actively attending to their words try out the following active listening cues:

• Periodically offer non-verbal comments such as nodding or mmm
• Make very short phrases such as “tell me more” “yes, I see”
• Ask questions such as “what is your thinking on that? “How did that come about? “What led you to that conclusion?”
• Mirror what you have heard: “What I hear you saying is…” “What I understand is…”

“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute understanding from people of ill will.” – Martin Luther King, Jr

This Monday morning I am thinking about resilience, and specifically what can we do to become better at facing up to life’s challenges.  While there are many resilience to do’s ranging from being physically fit, taking breaks for recuperation, eating well, sleeping enough, and making sure you get values-aligned experiences every day, what I have learned is critical is something called “mindset” and specifically “growth mindset”.

Here are some excerpts from the article I wrote for Slaw.ca about Growth Mindset:

Late last year I moderated a Grit and Growth Panel with three partners and one associate from large law firms in Vancouver at the Canadian Bar Association’s Leadership Conference for Women Professionals.

Grit and Growth… truth be told, when I first learned of the American Bar Association program for women lawyers of the same name, I shuddered, thinking “the last thing we need to be doing is telling women lawyers they need to work harder.”

I conflated the concept of Grit with nose to the grindstone effort, and was mistaken.

Grit is a personality attribute that Dr. Angela Duckworth at the University of Pennsylvania discovered that helps people succeed in life. I highly recommend her TED Talk.

Dr. Duckworth says, “Grit is perseverance and passion for long-term goals.”

“Grit is not just having resilience in the face of failure, but also having deep commitments that you remain loyal to over many years.”

“Grit is having stamina.”

“Sticking with your future, day in and day out.”

“Living life as a marathon not a sprint.”

How gritty are you? You can take Dr. Duckworth’s free on-line assessment here.

Most important for legal professionals Grit predicts achievement in law above and beyond other metrics such as GPA, or rank in law school.

This finding came from ground-breaking doctoral research by Milana Hogan, director of recruiting and professional development at Sullivan Cromwell in New York city and further research she conducted with Katie Katherine Larkin-Wong, associate at Latham & Watkins in San Francisco and President of the valuable organization for the advancement of women lawyer Ms. JD.

Hogan found that “gritty women lawyers” work harder than peers, are more likely to engage in deliberate efforts to improve performance, are more likely to “stay the course” and make it through challenges.

Hogan also took great pains to explain what Grit is not.

Grit is NOT:

Working hard, hard, hard, motivated primarily by fear, stress, anxiety.

Hogan stresses that having Grit does not mean that lawyers have to work harder. But what is essential is feeling “good and passionate” about what they are doing because it is that passion that allows them to sustain grit.

Grit IS:

Motivation by passion and perseverance for long term goals.

Hogan also stressed that passion doesn’t always precede grit, she noted, but often follows it. “So if you don’t have it at the outset,” she says, “you don’t need to panic.”

I would also add, with a nod to this recent New York times article about resilience, that Grit is not about accepting the status quo, but indeed can be about having the ability to persevere with a course of action towards long term goals for cultural, socioeconomic, and societal change and transformation. Writes New York Times journalist Parul Sehgal:

“It’s not just the strength to stay the course but to question it and propose others, not just to survive but to thrive.”

On the gritty path, what is also key is the idea of living life as a marathon, not a sprint. This means taking breaks. It means learning to take care of yourself as you would a loved one. It means being clear about what goes on your plate, and what does not.

How do you get Grit?

The answer to this question brings us to Growth and the work of Dr. Carol Dweck, currently with Stanford University.

Dr. Dweck discovered that people generally hold one of two mindsets, a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. And these mindsets have a strong influence on how we approach challenge.

With a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them.

Dr. Dweck says that with a fixed mindset every situation is evaluated: Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? Will I be accepted or rejected? Will I feel like a winner or a loser?

With a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities are things that can be cultivated through effort.

Grit is a by-product of a growth mindset.

She explains in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success:

“The passion for stretching yourself, and sticking to it when it is not going well, is the hallmark of a growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.”

Dr. Dweck has found that when people with a growth mindset are faced with challenging situations they ask themselves:

What is there to learn?

What do I need to do differently?

And are able to tell themselves – this is hard, and I am going to make it through.

When I was preparing to facilitate the Grit and Growth panel for the conference, I knew that I would be speaking in front of over 250 women lawyers, and I caught myself stuck in a fixed mindset, thinking in terms of my success or failure, looking good or looking bad.

This fixed mindset made me stress about the conference. This mindset caused me anxiety, which mounted as the day of the event approached.

A conversation with a fellow coach alerted me to the fact that even as I prepared a presentation about Grit and Growth I was still stuck in a fixed mindset. She asked “what are you doing to get yourself in a growth mindset?”

My answer was “nothing”.

Fixed or Growth – these mindsets are powerful beliefs, but they are in the end just thoughts in your mind, and you can change your mind.

Once I realised I was in a fixed mindset about the conference I took it upon myself to change my mind.

I focused on the panel presentation as a learning opportunity for me and all those women attending the conference. I turned my emphasis from “how would I look” to “what could I do to teach the material really well?”

The morning of the conference when the keynote speaker Ritu Bhasin presented her opening address, I caught myself thinking, “I won’t present as well as her”, and again shifted my mindset to one of opportunity to observe a brilliant presentation and to learn instead of envy.

With this mindset in place I was able to connect some of Bhasin’s core teachings with my materials in the afternoon, making the learning experience all the more valuable for the audience.

What is your mindset?

What can you do to change it?

Start by beginning each day with this thought: What are the opportunities for learning and growth for me today? For the people around me?

Notice during the day as your stress level starts to rise, what mindset am I in?

Read and Ted Talk up on Grit and Growth.

Visit the ABA on-line Grit and Growth toolkit to access all their free resources.

I am also currently running a pilot  in-depth Grit and Growth on-line training program that you can learn more about here.  The course will reopen for new students this summer.

Share what you learn with your friends. Get them to nudge you, just like my colleague nudged me, “what are you doing to get yourself into a growth mindset?”

Discover your own inspiring goals. This can take time, sometimes years, to uncover, but tracking your values, your inspirations, and what truly motivates you can help you to uncover what you are passionate about. Sometimes your goal can be as simple as “being open to the opportunities that present themselves.”

Is there something you always wanted to try, but haven’t because you are afraid you won’t be good at it? Make a plan to do it.

Take the next step to shift from a beating up mindset to a mindset that will support you when the going gets tough.

Men and women, the growth mindset is the most powerful resource you have in your personal and professional toolkits.

Martha has a busy legal practice and this week has deadlines looming. On Monday she was feeling anxious about one tough factum but instead of spending the morning hammering it out she wasted 30 minutes surfing the net reading on-line news. Sound familiar?

Martha is in good company. Most lawyers have struggled with a problem with procrastination at one time and indeed the Canadian expert on procrastination, Dr. Piers Steel, reports in his book “The Procrastination Equation” that about 95% of people admit to procrastinating.

It isn’t though all bad news. Procrastination is very much like weeds in the garden. You may not be able to eliminate them entirely but you can weed many out.

Here is a simple two-step practice of inquiry for reducing time lost to procrastination:

Step one is to understand why you are procrastinating. Pay attention. Set a goal of noting the following: What are you procrastinating about? What are you doing when you are procrastinating? What are you thinking and physically and emotionally experiencing right before you procrastinate?

Review this information and determine your root causes. Are you avoiding something? Are you distracting yourself to relieve discomfort? You might procrastinate when you don’t know what to do, or when you encounter difficulties with a file. You might procrastinate about things that are unpleasant such as communicating with difficult clients. Learn and make note of your triggers for procrastination.

Step two is to develop your reduction strategy. Notice when you are feeling anxious and catch yourself as you start to procrastinate. Pause and return your focus to the present. Draw your attention to your feet on the floor supporting you, and take a few slow deep breaths to relieve your anxiety and bring you back to center. Now ask yourself: What is making me anxious? Or, what am I avoiding? Simply notice the answer to that question. Next ask yourself this second question: What would be a useful next step to take?

There are also a number of simple tactics you can implement to increase focus:

• Divide up your complex projects into a series of smaller milestones. Schedule time for working on these instead of waiting until the last minute to start on the project as a whole.
• Get your to-do-list out of your head and onto a list. Each morning set down your daily priorities and check them off as you go.
• Try starting the day with a win. Knock some quick but troublesome tasks off your list or by handle the toughest piece of work in the pile. As a former litigation partner now a judge once told me: “do the dog file first.”
• Reserve your peak periods of focus for concentration for your most difficult tasks.
• Make a personal rule that your office computer is for professional work exclusively. Do web surfing and personal email on another device. Turn off your audio alerts and mailbox pop-ups.
• Eliminate distractions in your office by keeping a tidy desk. Make the most of your periods of low energy to organize. Taking just 10 minutes a day for this can make an enormous difference.
• Bring in visual reminders about why you want to be more productive at work. If you want to be home in time for dinner with your family then take a photo of you all together at dinner and keep it on your desk as a valuable reminder.

Most all remember to get the goal right – it’s not about eliminating but reducing.  Like weeds procrastination is going to crop up, and the key is to simply keep it under control.

I’ll get to it after this transaction.

I am really busy right now, I’ll make time for this once I am caught up.

You can have the best, most strategic plan, and the ripest opportunities within your grasp but this one thought – there’s not enough time right now – is what will stop you dead in your tracks each and every time.

Nodding your head right about now? Had this thought before? You are not alone. In my experience this – not now, later – thought is what throws most lawyers off their best intentioned plans, and causes them to spend money calling up coaches like me for accountability.

Here’s what is important to know: A lot of business development happens in small steps, often very small steps. A five-minute investment can be enough to keep your plan on track. And with five to fifteen minutes you can get some important things done.

Here are some examples:

• With two minutes – send an email to your contact, suggesting a lunch date, and offering a time.

• With five minutes – set up a goggle alert tracking topics of interest to your clients. Or if you are fortunate to have access to a staff librarian, email them to set up a weekly summary of important news items related to your client’s business interests.

• With five minutes – email an article or link to a client saying, I thought of you when I read this, and include a small summary of what is important for the client to know.

• With five minutes – take a look at your business plan or contact list and decide – who do I want to connect with this week? Or, what action do I want to take this week?

• With ten minutes – start jotting down some ideas for an article or presentation topic. Or, if you have a topic, begin writing up a short to do list of how you can break down the project into smaller steps. With another ten minutes set about gathering the research materials you need. Or take a stab at drafting an outline. Or just write for ten minutes and see how far you can progress. It can be highly effective to tackle writing and presentation planning in small steps: http://www.slaw.ca/2016/04/13/think-again-improved-productivity-starts-here/

Next time you find yourself thinking, I don’t have enough time, think again. What can I get done today with just five minutes? Then do it.

Don’t believe everything you think.

I don’t believe everything I think.

I have learned that our monkey brains have all kinds of voices and many opinions.  Some come from the fear centre of our brain – the amygdala – and its job is to protect us, at all costs. This is when you will hear all the what if’s and oh no’s!  These catastrophic thoughts will get our hearts racing in fear but aren’t real.

Then there is our inner critic, which also wants us to be safe at all costs. Take no risks. Be polite. Fit in. Perform at your best – in fact be perfect. It says things like: Don’t ask that, you could sound stupid!

You are a lousy public speaker, don’t take on that presentation, you might really fail and embarrass yourself and the firm.

When we believe these thoughts we stop taking on challenges. We hide and stagnate.

And then there is the judge, which is the inner critic’s take on everyone else.

She looks fat in that dress.

He is clueless.

These thoughts just make us feel superior or guilty for thinking them.

It is a very good thing that we cannot read each others minds!

Yes, it is noisy up there in our noggins and much of it is just that – noise.

The better we can get at observing the action in our head, the more distance we get, and the more room for choice.

Mindfulness is often advocated in a secular context as a practice for reducing stress and getting calm. I like mindfulness as a practice for strengthening my ability to step out of the action and simply notice what I am thinking so I can choose to think again.

This week engage in a simple observation practice: Three times a day, pause, and notice: What is going on in my head right now? What am I experiencing physically? What emotion am I experiencing?

There are so many things you can do with a law degree, so many different types of law to practice, so many spinoff opportunities.

There are also many ways you can get stuck in a legal practice that sucks the life out of you. Some of these traps are external, and many internal. Here are just a few that I have come across in my practice as a coach.

• I can’t afford to walk away from this salary.
• If I stop being a litigator I will be looked down on by my colleagues, I will be a failure.
• If I go in-house I won’t be able to get back into private practice down the road.
• It is too late to change practice areas.
• This firm has been good to me, I owe it to them to stay.
• People will say I was crazy to leave this pretigious law firm for a job at a small boutique.
• I’m afraid I’m just being a quitter if I leave.
• I’m afraid that if I leave it will just prove I don’t have what it takes.

Here’s what is important to know – no matter where you are in your legal practice – if you aren’t happy at work, don’t like your colleagues, or don’t like the clients or the work, this unhappiness will creep into all other areas of your life. It is vital to take action.

There are a lot of reasons that will come up to argue for not making a change. Our reptile brains (the amygdala) hate change and will think up any number of reasons for you to stay stuck in misery. Think again, and reach out to a coach or a Lawyers Assistance Program counsellor for support.

I know many lawyers who faced the above challenges and were able to make a change for the better:

• Litigators who are making the transition to collaborative law.
• Big firm lawyers who have left, or are leaving, for smaller law firms where they get more freedom to practice as they like, with less bureaucracy, and lower targets.
• Private practice lawyers moving in-house and in-house lawyers returning to private practice.
• Lawyers who choose their own billable targets with no need to be one of their firm’s highest billing lawyers.
• Lawyers who work part-time while their kids are home, and others who work remotely to avoid long commutes.

All these lawyers discovered what they needed to make legal practice work for them and made it happen.

What do you need to thrive? Make going after that a priority.

This post was inspired by Gary Mason’s article from the Globe and Mail this weekend – writing about watching his son’s Call Ceremony in Vancouver.

Money fears, we all have them.

What if I lose my job?

What if I can’t make the mortgage payment?

What if I can’t feed my kids?

My respect goes to those of you who have faced these money issues head-on, they are tough. Job loss is tough. Being responsible for the well being of not just yourself but your family is also hard. I am the primary provider for my family and so experience that responsibility every day.

And here’s what I know – money fears are a major trap keeping many lawyers in jobs that give little satisfaction and lots of stress.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Thanks to AWAL contributor David E. Behrend for pointing me to the Above the Law article by Zach Abramowitz: How to say goodbye to your big law salary.

Abramowitz had some assets that made his transition from lawyer to entrepreneur easier – no law school debt thanks to his parents – and it is important to note that wealthy parents or a spouse with a big salary are not requirements for making a successful career transition.

Big Law works as a great career choice for some and not so well for others. I have been privy to many successful transitions out of big law firms by people without major financial backing.

• Former trial lawyer Doug Jasinsky moved out of a big Canadian firm and founded the marketing agency Skunkworks.
• My friend, a single mom and former McCarthy Tetrault business lawyer, opened a successful boutique legal practice with a close friend.
• I know a single mom and former big firm lawyer who now happily runs her own solo wills and estates practice.
• A sole-provider dad with a young child at home, who left his big law practice to join a small regional firm.

And I know many other lawyers who have successfully transitioned their practices out of large firms to smaller firms, in-house, or out of law all together.

If your job feels like a straightjacket that is squeezing the life out of you, trust me on this one, change for the better is possible. It doesn’t have to be done in one go. Making a career change happens in small steps. The steps to take will depend on the transition you want to make. If you are feeling stuck, the first step is to reach out for help. A Coach or a Lawyers Assistance Program Counsellor can help you with figuring out your path forward.

Money can be an obstacle and not an insurmountable one. Beware of assuming that no movement is possible – get some advice instead.

Having problems with maintaining your concentration at work? Try drinking more water.

This is so very simple yet not something I had thought of before a client mentioned this to me last week.

John reported that his efforts to drink more water were reaping unexpected dividends for him – better concentration and focus at work.

There has been very little scientific research into the effects of mild dehydration, but John and I did find a number of studies pointing to a connection between dehydration and lack of focus.

One study reported in December 2011 by the Journal of Nutrition researched the effects of mild dehydration on healthy young women. The study concluded that “degraded mood, increased perception of task difficulty, lower concentration, and headache symptoms resulted from 1.36% dehydration in females.”

This is a simple experiment to try at work. If you are having trouble focusing at work, up your water intake and see if you notice any improvement.

Let me know what you discover.

(And in case you are wondering, I consumed a glass of water while writing this post.)

On a scale of one to ten, one being you have never delegated a thing in your life, and ten being you are a star delegator, how would you rate yourself?

Delegation is a critical practice skill. There is no better way for a lawyer to develop practice management and leadership abilities than through delegation.

Delegation is where personal leadership skills are put to the test. Here are five leadership attributes that are honed when you learn to delegate effectively:

• Integrity: You treat others as you would like to be treated, respectfully and honestly.

• Communication: You don’t cut corners on communication. You take time to explain details effectively. You keep people informed about what is going on.

• Feedback: You know how to give both positive and constructive feedback that is meaningful and can help a person develop.

• Leadership under duress: When things go sideways you can talk yourself down from the ledge and take positive corrective action. In fact you built in time just in case something went wrong.

• Planning: You have routines in place that keep you organized. Your reserve time for thinking ahead and planning for what is coming. You don’t create emergencies because of poor organization and bad planning.

The first step is to examine what is currently getting in your way. Here are some of the common roadblocks to delegation, recognize any?

• It will take too much time to show someone how to do this, I am better off doing it myself. 

• They won’t do it as well as I will.

• It’s my responsibility.

• I am embarrassed about the state of the file, I don’t want to have to show it to anyone.

What these all have in common is that they are thinking traps.

The key to making positive change is in starting with investigating your thoughts. Remember not to believe everything you think. To start delegating, pay attention to your thoughts. How are they blocking you? Investigate them and shift your thinking to make it possible for you to delegate.

Thought: It will take too much time.
Rebuttal: Delegation does take time but in the not so long run it creates capacity in a legal practice and allows you to do the more interesting and challenging work.

Thought: They won’t do it as well as I will.
Rebuttal: Not everything requires the ability of someone at my year of call. I will review it and ensure that it is done well.

Thought: It’s my responsibility.
Rebuttal: Yes, to see that the client doesn’t pay more than need be for the work. And to be responsible for helping lawyers in my office grow and develop.

Thought: I am embarrassed about the state of the file.
Rebuttal: It’s not the end of the world. I am not perfect and am not going to pretend to be.

There is one additional common obstacle that you might run into:

I have left this to the last minute and now there isn’t enough time to delegate it.

In many cases this is a fact, plain and simple. If this is your challenge than the starting point is to introduce some regular planning sessions into your practice as you will read below.

To improve at delegation follow this simple checklist:

• Take a few minutes daily to see what work is coming up in the week and month ahead and decide what can be delegated.

• Make delegation the first priority each morning.

• Communicate: Meet in-person (if possible) with the delegatee. Walk them through the assignment. Provide the larger context.

• Check: Check on the delgatee’s workload. If they appear hesitant and use words such as “try” or “I think I can” seek out more information. This will help surface any unspoken issues and help you strategize with them on how they can ensure they meet the timeline.

• Clarify: Ask the delegatee to repeat back what you have told them. Explain this is not to test them but to ensure you haven’t left out something important. If the person seems unsure then you can either have them email you with the instructions in writing, or you can email them.

• Schedule: Schedule a check-in with the delegatee. This is a chance for them to ask questions and share drafts with you at the early stage.

• Clear Timelines: Provide clear timelines and explain them. If plans change and more time presents itself, let them know.

• Follow Up: Follow-up with the delegatee before the assignment is due to check on progress.

• Feedback: The last step in the delegation process is to provide feedback about what was good about the work they did, what changes you made to the document and why, and what happened next with the project.

• Give thanks: Include a thank you for the delegatee’s efforts and contributions at the end of the assignment. It will go a long way.

And by the way, things will at times go sideways. You will train up a great junior and they will leave the firm. You will get something back late and in bad shape. The key is to keep your eye on the big picture. Don’t let yourself be derailed by a setback. Remember your goals and why they are important.

Persevere. When you are a good delegator you will find that juniors like to work with you and will be available to help when you need them.

I am procrastinating over four cardboard boxes. Have been all weekend.

There are two cardboard boxes sitting on the floor of my guest bathroom, and two on the floor of the master bathroom too. They have been sitting there since Wednesday.

I have to step over them, push past them, gaze at them each time I enter these rooms. But I haven’t tackled them. They just feel like too much to deal with.

I moved house last week and after days of sorting through a seemingly endless pile of possessions these four boxes are all that remains. After weeks of diligent productivity I find I cannot muster the energy to cross the finish line with these boxes.

My head almost hurts at the thought of sorting through all the things in those boxes and finding appropriate homes for them.

Do I really have to?

Procrastination is like weeds in the garden. You can control it but can never entirely eliminate it. (From Dr. Piers Steel’s book The Procrastination Equation.) To help myself uproot these weeds I have unearthed a practice from my coaching toolkit:

Practice for taking action on something you have been procrastinating about

The purpose of this practice is for you to immediately deal with something you are procrastinating on AND to observe what obstacles internal/external come up and what you can do to overcome them.

Pick a specific thing that you are procrastinating on – and make a commitment to complete it. Develop a simple plan:

1. I will take this first step…. (Today at 8:30 am, unpacking one box.)
2. I will spend this amount of time on this….. (Twenty minutes at a time.)
3. I will complete this task by….. (I will have the boxes sorted through, items put away, and boxes collapsed in the recycling bin by Thursday this week.)

Watch yourself in action:

• What choices are you making? (Not to do it.)
• What are you telling yourself? (It’s too hard! I will get to it later.)
• What are your most common obstacles and what can you do about them? (Putting it off. Thinking I need to do them all at once. Instead, I will commit to a limited time for the project each day, and will work through it in chunks.)

What are you procrastinating about? Try putting this practice into action to get at least one weed pulled from the garden this week.

Now, I will sign off here. I have a cardboard box to attend to.

The Monday Morning practice for this week is inspired by Lori Chavat’s article of Friday last week about putting a halt to the shoulds. If you missed it, read it here.

This week watch what you are letting creep into your schedule and your life. When someone comes to you with a request your inner taskmaster thinks you “should do” take one simple step: pause.

The purpose of the pause is to consider, is this really something I want to do? Does it make sense to do it considering other priorities and projects on the go?

And as Chavat suggests, ask yourself “If I do this, what am I giving up?”

This week listen to the answer to these questions and choose to say “no” when this makes sense.

You might find as Chavat did that “the world continued to spin and I was not I deemed an unworthy colleague, a partner, or a friend when I chose to say “no”.

Overwhelm can find you anywhere.

I am sitting in my peaceful home office on Salt Spring Island.  The sun is shining.  The garden is full of beautiful flowers.  What could be better?

BUT inside my mind is scrambling.  The beauty around me vanishes under the barrage of my thoughts.

There’s too much.  I feel overwhelmed. There are many projects on the go.  Many emails to answer.  Much administrative work that is become urgent.  Bills that need to be paid.

The list goes on and on while the email continues to pile up.  I can feel the temptation creeping up to run away from it all by escaping to a coffee shop.

I would guess that you have experienced this same thing, and might be experiencing it today.

Here’s the 5 step strategy I will be implementing today to shift out of this state of rising panic and into a sense of appreciation for what I have, and a feeling of being in control or at least at the helm with my  attention where it needs to be.

1. Breathe.  Pause and breathe.
2. Do a quick gratitude check in while I continue to breathe slowly and deeply.  What are five things that I have experienced today that I am grateful for?
3. Drink some water.
4. Rebuild the command centre.  For me, my command centre is my ongoing project and to do list.  This is where I can get all that stuff referenced above out of my head and into my system.  Once it is down in writing I can then get strategic about where I place my focus.  With it bouncing around in my head I just get overwhelmed and jump from task to task without consideration of where it would be best to put my attention and actions.
5. Decide what to do next and do it.

Then repeat the steps above as needed.

What do you find most effective for when it all becomes too much?  Send me an email to let me know.

I was faced with a tough person dilemma this weekend. It was a challenge involving close relationships and I couldn’t find a way out of it to a peaceful outcome. Every option seemed to lead to at least one broken relationship.

Faced with this, I stepped out of the emotionally charged situation and took a walk with my dogs.

With the dogs on leash my left-brain was kept busy ensuring leashes remained untangled, noticing the bunnies on the road in the distance, and then taking steps to prevent my dogs from tearing my arm off chasing after the bunnies.

While my left brain and conscious mind dealt with these immediate concerns it had no capacity for worrying over the dilemma and my creative right brain was freed up to consider the challenge in the background.

By the time I turned around and headed home with the dogs my creative right-brain had delivered a simple and appropriate solution. Within ten minutes of my return home the plan had been implemented and a peaceful solution achieved.

If there had been a labyrinth available in my neighbourhood I could have walked one instead of taking the dogs out. The designer and builder of the labyrinth at the Bayview Medical Centre at Johns Hopkins University, David Tolzman, explains: “As the left brain engages in the logical progression of walking the path, the right brain is free to think creatively.” (Quoted by author Daniel Pink in A Whole New Mind.)

Our best thinking rarely happens when we are trying to force it.

Next time you are at an impasse, take it to a labyrinth, or simply get out and engage in an activity that moves your body and keeps your left brain busy while freeing up your right brain to tackle the challenge.

(Above photo is of the labyrinth at St. Joseph Memorial Hospital in Santa Rosa, California.)