This is the second in a three-part series that explores life in the practice of law. The first article (The Practice of Law Just Ain’t What It Used to Be) dealt with developing perspective and taking stock of our lives. This segment (Taking Control and Making Right Decisions) will address key issues related to effecting changes that will make a difference, and the third (Getting Your Life Back) will deal with key issues and tools to use when stress seems to be getting the better of us.

Taking Control and Making Right Decisions

In the first segment in this series we examined how the practice has changed over the past thirty years and how we perceive those changes. In the interim we have looked at how we spend our time, by taking a very imprecise inventory or time log. Here we hope to look at tools for effective decision-making.

The place to start is with values—what is really important in our life. Practice what you preach, live your values, or do unto others as you would have them do unto you are all old sayings that relate to keeping life in congruity. If you visualize two circles side by side with one being what we believe and one being what we do, life is not congruous. As we slide one on top of the other, the part that overlaps represents the part of our lives that are congruous or in harmony. Our goal then is to make as great a portion of our beliefs and actions overlap. When we do this we will have the greatest chance of finding joy and balance in our personal and professional lives.

The key here is to understand our current time management paradigm as it relates to our values structure. I am not talking about having the best new organizer (computer or paper, it matters not), rather I am referring to taking stock of how we spend our time and what we can do to make all our commitments fit into the allotted time. Charles Hobbs, a time management expert from the 1980s, perhaps said it best when he defined “time” as a series of events occurring in succession and “managed time” as a series of events occurring in ordered succession. This leads us to the clear beginning of this discussion. We can all accept that there are just 24 hours in a day. The problem then becomes how do we pack all we need (or at least think we need) to do into the limited time we have. By dissecting our day we understand that if we are to live (physically), we really control less than 24 hours. We all need between 6 to 8 hours for sleep and at least 2 hours for meals, snacks and other personal breaks so that leaves us with between 14 to 16 hours that we can allocate between all the things we want or need to do. First, determine what time we need for our own well-being. Issues like family time, exercise, social needs will be the keys here. Second, what do we need for commute time and what will our firm or practice require to service the existing client base or billable expectations are the other parts of the equation. If the total of the two equals less than the 14 to 16 hours we have available we are doing well, if not then we need to make adjustments and this may well require some hard decisions relative to what our practice looks like and what we and our family needs to be healthy and viable.

Incidentally, it is important to note that the decision process must include others; if it doesn’t the process can wreak havoc on our life and those around us. It is essential for those of us who are married or have significant others to understand their needs and expectations (realistic or otherwise). We need to evaluate our own work load and determine what our clients’ realistic expectations are at this moment in time. Lastly, it is equally important for those of us working in firms or who have partners to understand their needs and expectations (also realistic or otherwise). Like it or not what we have done personally and professionally to this point in our lives impacts others and to effect change we need a clear understanding of what all that means.

Once we have accomplished the inventory of our needs and others’ expectations we need to put it all in order and determine the appropriate order of priority. For each of us this will look different as we put different weight on personal vs. professional endeavors. The key to developing our future life plan is to fully understand the impact of each decision we make. For example a decision to put more emphasis on personal needs (sometimes a very wise decision when trying to manage our stressors) will necessarily impact our practice. We may decide to limit new client intake, or refocus our practice in a particular area. In any case we need to plan how the changes will take place, over what period of time and communicate the plan to family, clients, partners and employers. These are not small issues. Over the years I have observed firm and family dynamics change (yes, even divorce and firm splits) because of failure to recognize and deal with dysfunction in our lives. During the planning process to reclaim our lives, we need to pay close attention to these issues. Will our new ordered priorities change our relationships and if so how? It takes a lot of work by all parties to repair dysfunctional relationships and in some cases there may well be the unfortunate acceptance that we simply don’t have the energy or desire to continue. If this happens it is not a good thing or a bad thing it is just a new chapter in our lives that must be dealt with. The process here is really focused on not what we have done in the past, but rather (as they say in twelve step programs) on making the next right decision in our life. This understanding will hopefully lead to the next right decision and the next until we begin to see the life that we want for ourselves.

Incidentally, this article is not intended to be a definitive work on life values or time management, but rather it intends to nudge us into considering some broad concepts and how they might apply to our lives. If you are interested in digging deeper, ALPS has an article on managing your time and your life available on its website and there are many great books and articles on the subject in book stores and public libraries.

In the last segment that will follow we will deal with managing the stress in our lives and getting joy and balance back in our lives.