In-House Counsel, Technology

The Road Not Taken: Kicking It Old School

Technology can be a big distraction for lawyers. Why not try doing work with a pencil and paper sometimes?

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We had an IT issue this week at work. Email and phones went down. It was mayhem. Communication was practically impossible as employees congregated helplessly in the hallway blinking through the foreignness of actually seeing each other in person for what felt like the first time.

Well, that’s what my colleagues did. I took the opportunity to kick it old school and do some work with a pencil and paper. I had printed out some documents before the unexpected catastrophe, so I was in a prime position to mark-up my documents by hand. No phone calls, no distractions; just me and my writing utensils.

We are told we need to be efficient. Our teachers tell us this, our employers all want more from us: do more, think faster, respond immediately. We are told that technology can help us be more efficient, and it does. It helps us work smarter, faster, longer, harder. Technology has fulfilled its end of the deal. It allows us to do more things more quickly. But sometimes it is worthwhile to take a step back and consider if we are fulfilling our part of this bargain.

Just because I can fly through a document while on a conference call and answering email doesn’t mean I should. Just because I can do three things at once doesn’t mean it is smart. There are studies about whether multi-tasking is even possible (see here and here) or if we are actually wasting energy by jumping from project to project. Add to this studies that find that handwriting uses different neural pathways than typing and can improve retention in some circumstances, and there is just cause for carving out some pen and paper time in your workday.

When the computers and phones went down, I took my pencil and papers and gave my full attention to what I was doing. It wasn’t horrible. It didn’t take twice as long. But most importantly, it wasn’t as stressful as it usually is because I was focused on what I was doing without distractions. A long time ago (like, twenty years ago), this was how lawyers worked. Attorneys handwrote revisions to documents and those revisions were transcribed into a word processing program by a legal secretary. Nowadays, we don’t have the luxury of time to create artisanal documents. We are all pressed for time and productivity. Handwriting instead of typing has its merits, most notably for me that it is very difficult to do anything other than focusing on the document I am working on. I cannot read, analyze, summarize, handwrite the notes of my summary, and do something else all at the same time. I probably can’t read, summarize, type the notes of my summary, check email, answer a chat, and look for puppy videos, but I do it anyway. It is so easy to think that I can do two things at once, when really, I’m only moving between two things and not doing either well.

The IT downtime this week was a nice reminder to me that there are ways I can slow down to take a little extra time with my work without completely losing productivity. Unlike attorneys of days of yore, I do not have a dedicated secretary ready to transcribe my handwritten notes, but by handwriting my notes I can remind myself of how productive I can be when I focus on one thing only instead of trying to do everything at once.

When the computers and phones went down, I took my pencil and papers and gave my full attention to what I was doing. It wasn’t horrible. It didn’t take twice as long. But most importantly, the work wasn’t as stressful as it usually is because I was focused on what I was doing without distractions.

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Celeste Harrison Forst has practiced in small and mid-sized firms and is now in-house at a large manufacturing and technology company where she receives daily hugs from her colleagues. You can reach Celeste directly at C.harrisonforst@gmail.com.

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