SC Lawyer, Sept. 2004, #4. Create balance in your life by becoming proactive.

• Author: By Mark Powers, Shawn McNalis and Courtney Kennaday

South Carolina Lawyer

2004.

SC Lawyer, Sept. 2004, #4.

Create balance in your life by becoming proactive

South Carolina LawyerSeptember 2004Create balance in your life by becoming proactiveBy Mark Powers, Shawn McNalis and Courtney KennadayAttorneys tend to approach time management by either passively responding to the demands placed upon them by their environment or by proactively creating their environment. We call these two approaches the reactive style and the proactive style.

The reactive style of time management

Those who believe they cannot control their lives, that they are at the mercy of circumstances, are operating in the reactive style. If you arrive at your office in the morning, fully expecting to make great strides on one or two important cases only to be interrupted by urgent requests from clients in crisis or staff demanding your attention, you understand the lure of the reactive mode of operating. If you succumb to the lure, you end most days wondering where the time went as the important cases or matters you intended to work on remain untouched. Not only are they untouched, but they are now buried beneath all the other files that you hastily pulled during your firefighting efforts throughout the day. You suddenly must choose whether you work on the untouched files, now that it is 6 p.m. and the phone has stopped ringing, or work over the weekend and miss your child's soccer game or dance recital or your fishing trip that you continue to miss because you have to play catch-up on the weekends.

The reactive style of operating is a short-term way of thinking, not tied to a larger vision or mission. Attorneys who labor under this short-term way of thinking often feel out of control, lack balance in their lives and don't know how to remedy the situation. Usually, they've given up even trying to control their circumstances. They feel helpless. Most people will give up the effort to assert some order upon their universe when they've decided they can't affect a change.

To see if you qualify as one who labors under the reactive style of operating, take a look at the following list of characteristics in the upcoming exercise, The Reactive Style Checklist. Chances are good that if you check off more than three items you are behaving in a reactive way.

The hazards of the reactive style

Being able to react to circumstances is a highly valued skill. However, it is a problem when the circumstances come at a higher and higher speed. If your only plan is to react faster and faster, you fall into the trap of rating your productivity only on your speed and level of "busyness." In truth, you are doing nothing more than becoming more reactive to a rhythm being beaten by the forces around you. Before too long, you become addicted to this "busyness" through the adrenaline rush that has enabled you to keep your head above water.

Our ability to release adrenaline into our system in order to run faster or fight harder has been essential to our survival as a species. Some 50,000 generations of human beings have relied upon the "fight or flight" instinct when in danger. It is our emergency energizing system, not a system that is supposed to be used every day, all day long, to help us cope with daily life. Yet for many attorneys, it is the push they rely upon every day to get the job done. There is a high cost associated with this mode of operation. Medical studies show an important link between the hormone cortisol, triggered by adrenaline release, and heart disease. In addition, there is a host of negative consequences that accompanies a constant adrenaline drain. If your style of time management is reactive, you pay a high price for the bursts of energy you may have come to depend upon - and you are not alone.

Attorneys from all over the world report that they rely upon their adrenaline to kick in and carry them in crisis situations. After making that revelation, they promptly describe their law practice as "one crisis after another." Universally speaking, any appearance in court, let alone a trial of any kind, tends to be accompanied by a significant boost of adrenaline. This boost tends to enhance initial energy and then leaves attorneys drained when they walk out of the courtroom. In fact, one of the symptoms of excessive reliance on adrenaline is that without a pending deadline, you are not motivated to lift a finger. Even typically over-achieving attorneys report to us that they find themselves sitting numbly behind their desks the day after a trial, unable to motivate themselves to do anything. When their adrenaline stores are drained, they sit without a clue as to why they can't function at their normal speed.

Moving away from the reactive style

There are steps you can take to move away from the reactive style of time management. If you think that you may be a reactive style candidate, you want to begin by tuning in when you feel the adrenaline start to pulse. That's when you need to look around and see what's triggering it. Here are some guidelines for going through that process and how to take action to move toward proactivity.

Notice when you are running on an adrenaline boost

The only way to overcome a cycle of constant reaction and the accompanying adrenaline addiction is to begin monitoring your own behavior. Step one is to notice when you are running on an adrenaline boost. At best, during the boost, you may feel highly motivated; at worst, you may feel fretful, anxious or even panicky. Your heart may be pounding more quickly than normal and your breathing may consist of quicker, shallower breaths. You may feel very restless, have a hard time focusing on one thing and instead feel compelled to work on many things at once, as everything seems equally important. Attention to detail is difficult at this point. Mentally you may be saying to yourself things such as:

* I'll never have enough time to finish this; * Why did I wait so long to start this?; and * I hope I make it to the courthouse on time.

Analyze the situation

These are all the behavioral and mental symptoms of an adrenaline push. When you are in such a state, it is time to take the time to analyze the situation. More than likely you will find yourself suffering from a shortage or a perception of a shortage in one or more of these three areas:

* time; * money (can also be thought of as cash flow or financial security); and * energy (can be thought of as your personal energy or availability of manpower to assist you).

If you experienced a feeling of abundance in the areas of time, money and/or energy, your mind would not be constantly triggering your body into overdrive. When most stressors are traced back to their roots, it is a shortage in one of these three areas that is responsible.

Symptoms of a time shortage perception

When you do notice an adrenaline rush and your analysis of the situation points to time as the area in which you feel there is a lack, you probably can relate to the following:

* always feel pressed for time; * run a half-hour to an hour behind; * Say "yes" to many more tasks, appointments and meetings than can be completed; * have no daily or weekly plans; * wonder why others seem to be achieving more; and * close associates and friends always expect you to be late.

Think of this as "hurry sickness." Attorneys are especially susceptible to this predicament because of the highly charged nature of their work as problem solvers. Even when your day is well scheduled, it can rapidly deteriorate when a client has a crisis. By the time the second client crisis hits, your planned activities are now either compressed into the rest of your day or you work late (or over the weekend) to make up the time displaced by the crisis. The sense that there is not enough time to handle what life brings is the number one reason that adrenaline is relied upon so heavily.

Symptoms of a money shortage consciousness

When you notice an adrenaline rush and your analysis of the situation points to money as the area in which you feel there is a lack, you might:

* accept clients that are outside normal standards because you need the income; * disregard risk of liability or not getting paid if even a promise of income is present; * remain with law partners despite waning compatibility simply for financial security; and * practice in an area of law because it pays well even though the passion is not there.

There are innumerable ways in which a lack of money will add to the stress, the adrenaline rush and the subsequent adrenaline addiction. In a law practice the lack of money will most often lead to the attorney practicing "threshold law," working with clients who have unreasonable expectations, who desire revenge or who present some other situation that the law is not designed to handle. This is often the client who doesn't respect you and may be unable to pay in the end. In addition, unpleasant and uncooperative clients can be very demanding, which can lead to time crises in other areas of your professional and personal life. The attorney is then forced into overdrive and the adrenaline addiction increases its hold.

Symptoms of an energy shortage consciousness

When you notice an adrenaline rush and your analysis of the situation points to energy as the area in which you feel there is a lack, you probably can relate to the following:

* feel burned out and drained by dealing with difficult clients; * work long hours and are unable to function as well as you used to; * sense of humor may have disappeared; * find no pleasure in helping clients and often resent them; and * painfully aware of no one to delegate work to if working as a sole practitioner with little or no staff support.

Whether the lack is expressed by a shortage of personal energy or shows up as no one to help you - you may be dealing with a chronic lack of energy, which can be very debilitating.

Take action

Now, you are ready to take the final step toward proactivity. Having figured out whether it is the shortage of time, money or energy, or a combination therein, that has forced you into the reactive style of time management, you have the opportunity to move beyond the behaviors that have kept you there. The key to moving beyond this destructive style is to take action by trying on new proactive behaviors.

The proactive style of time management

When lawyers exhibit the proactive style, they are relying on tools and implementing strategies that enable them to choose behaviors that create desirable circumstances in both their personal and professional lives. They are the designers of their circumstances, not the victims.

They have taken the view that time management is actually self-management. This is the style exhibited by people who take responsibility for their time and how they spend it. They stop, take stock and set goals for themselves so they won't be constantly buffeted by the events life hands them or thrown off track by the challenge of getting through the daily grind. These are the attorneys who set themselves up to succeed by measuring the results they achieve financially. They know that it is important for clients to experience accessibility and a feeling of being taken care of by the law office. Each of these attorneys is careful about client selection. Each creates systems to pre-empt crisis and takes a team approach to client care. There is not the sense of helplessness and resignation, which characterizes the reactive attorney. They are not victimized by their practice. In this style, the truly important issues are not sacrificed for the seemingly urgent day-to-day issues that may not make a difference in the long run. For this group, the business of the law office is as interesting as the practice itself.

One way this group hits the high mark when it comes to maintaining a proactive style of time management is by monitoring themselves. Use the following checklist in the exercise entitled The Proactive Style Checklist to give you an idea as to your level of proactive time management skills. If you check more than three boxes, chances are good that you have begun to take control of your practice. We have seen over and over that it is possible to lead a successful practice, one that makes sustainable profits and allows you to have a satisfying personal life.

Set up boundaries

On the road toward the proactive style, the first thing you want to do is set up boundaries to protect yourself from yourself. As you may have sometimes suspected, you are often your own worst enemy. The boundaries you set up for yourself can be thought of as your personal perimeters, designed not to limit your behaviors in a negative way, but to create a healthier, more balanced way of operating for the long-term.

Here are some examples of boundaries. They are broken down into the areas in which most lawyers feel the biggest pinch: time, money and energy. Feel free to borrow, modify, eliminate and add to the list in order to assemble healthy perimeters of your own.

If you feel you don't have enough time, consider adopting some or all of these boundaries when you are setting up your schedule:

* not working past 6 p.m.; * not working on weekends; * no more than two evenings out during the work week; (if it drains your energy) * no interruptions during production time at the office; * reducing your charity and community involvement if you are over-committed; * habitually calendaring preparation time well in advance of important deadlines, legal or otherwise; * creating private "retreat" days to proactively plan your professional and personal goals; * arriving home before dinner is on the table; * arriving home before the kids go to bed; * creating a "date night" with your significant other; * planning weekly family nights; * taking the kids to school in the morning; and * planning a yearly vacation of two weeks in a row.

If you feel you don't have enough money, consider adopting some or all of these boundaries when you are setting up your schedule:

* engaging only in work that is profitable for you (this means firing clients who don't or won't pay); * requiring a retainer prior to beginning work with a client; * systemizing your bookkeeping practices by creating a monthly template for all of your recurring financial tasks; * hiring a trained bookkeeper to assist with your accounting; * creating and maintaining a reserve account as an emergency cushion; * using a financial team whom you trust; and * monitoring the financial status of your files consistently to ensure that you are being paid (and stopping work when you aren't being paid, when ethical and appropriate).

If you feel you don't have enough energy, consider adopting some or all of these boundaries when you are setting up your schedule:

* being very selective and not working with high maintenance or difficult clients (they demand a lot of attention and often don't pay you what you are worth); * eating lunch every day to support your energy level; * establishing daily closed-door production time to handle your highest priority work (it energizes you to accomplish your production goals); * arriving at the office early if you are most energetic in the morning; * leveraging yourself by hiring competent staff members to whom you delegate lower-level tasks; and * exercising a minimum of three times per week in order to bleed off the stress and stay physically and mentally balanced.

Without these or your own particular boundaries in place, you may find it easy to slip back into the reactive mode of operating. In fact, there will be a constant pull in that direction. You will still be constantly bombarded with demands that range from the unimportant to crisis-level firefighting. Having boundaries in place, and committing to them faithfully, gives you and those around you a sense of stability, a foundation upon which to build a high performing practice and a balanced life.

Mark Powers is the President of Atticus, Inc., a practice management education and training organization for attorneys. Shawn McNalis is Atticus' Curriculum Director and a Senior Practice Advisor. Courtney Kennaday is the Practice Management Advisor for the Bar. For more information on Atticus seminars and programs, call toll-free-1-888-644-0022.

Copyright (c) 2004 by the South Carolina Bar. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission.