(Photo by Allison Peryea)
It’s a new year, which means it is time to adopt resolutions that we struggle to accomplish before eventually accepting failure. This year I set a goal of being in the office on time each day. While to some that might not seem like such a lofty aspiration—isn’t this something we are expected to do as employed adults?—in my law firm it is no joke.
Other than my two law partners and my early bird paralegal, the rest of us have started slinking in closer to nine than 8:30 every morning. Nobody says anything about it, since we are all guilty of the offense and we all hate getting out of bed in the morning. It’s reached the point where if I am on time I feel the need to prance around the office to say hello to everybody just to document my punctual presence.
Keeping Law School Accessible When Federal Loans Fall Short
As federal borrowing caps tighten financing options for law students, one organization is stepping in to negotiate the terms they can't secure alone.
To kick things off, I decided to try to be through the office door by 8:30 every day for a week, regardless of traffic or whether my cat is especially cuddly on any particular morning. The fact that it is the middle of winter and I only heat one room in my house at night, due to a combination of thriftiness and Mother Earth, wouldn’t make this an easy feat for me.
I started off trying to cheat the system on Day One by getting up later my usual time but skipping any remotely avoidable tasks relating to appearance or personal hygiene. No shower, no hair straightener. I wore an outfit that I had set out the night before like one of those uptight women in a romantic comedy before she meets the man who will provide her life with meaning. I left the house five minutes later than intended, but still made it with a minute to spare because traffic was light. I got the best parking spot ever and rode up in the elevator with only one person. (Typically the elevator car is packed with people, including one person who reeks of cigarette smoke and another who appears to be suffering from some sort of contagious plague.)
The next day I showered but left with soggy hair and didn’t have time to find my Seahawks T-shirt for Blue Friday. I was hampered by pedestrians on the drive to work, who due to my resolution had become mere impediments in my race against the clock. I was two minutes late.
On Tuesday, post-New Year’s, I knew I had to make a more meaningful change if I was going to make being on time for work a regular affair. So I bit the bullet and set my alarm for half an hour earlier. This triggered my brain into thinking I had an early flight or court appearance, so I woke up hours earlier than necessary, giving me an opportunity to wallow in anxiety about all the things I needed to get done at work during the next year. (My insomnia’s motto is: Why panic about one day when you could panic about 365 of them?) But I did have enough time that day to look presentable. I was still one minute late, but I beat my paralegal through the door.
How Checkbox’s ‘Legal Front Door’ Can Transform Your Workflow
Leveraging agentic AI to triage, prioritize, and automate the law department inbox.
By Day Four I was tired from lack of sleep, but I wanted to add a new wrinkle to the challenge—running an errand before work. I went to bed early, had a pleasant-though-non-sexual dream about Bradley Cooper, and woke up well rested. I stopped by the dry cleaner’s and made it to the office six minutes early. To celebrate, I parked my car really close to someone who sucked at parking within the lines so they would have trouble getting into their car at the end of the day.
On the last night of my five-day experiment, it was 8 p.m. and I couldn’t wait to give into the siren call of sleep. For the third day in a row I set my alarm early and dragged myself out of bed while it was still pitch black outside. But I left for work with plenty of extra time, getting in three minutes early despite traffic getting back to its usual post-holiday crawl.
The Verdict: This “being on time” thing takes effort but seems to be worth that effort. It gave me an extra half hour or so to check emails, enter my time from the day before, and chat with co-workers. I am now starting my billable work at the same time I used to walk in the door. Traffic is lighter and parking in my building, which fills up by 9 a.m., is no longer a daily struggle. It was easier to meet my daily billable goals despite lunch meetings or trips to the gym. And I now have something to hold over the heads of the people who come into the office later than me.
But there are tradeoffs. Getting up earlier in the winter is like ripping yourself from your mother’s womb before your due date and then jumping into a pile of snow naked. It got easier as the week progressed, but more and more I was going to bed at the same time I used to meet friends for drinks.
One thing that became apparent is that late mornings are often directly linked to a higher than usual level of dread about the upcoming day or week. It was much easier for me to get up earlier once I had tackled a couple of projects at the top of my week’s To-Procrastinate List.
Another thing I noticed was that the stress of trying to be perfectly on time every day made my mornings—which are already a waking nightmare—even less enjoyable. You can’t control everything on your morning commute. And being a couple minutes late isn’t going to change your day much, especially if you are like me and begin it with a yogurt and a perusal of online gossip magazines.
I plan on making being on-time every day a sustainable goal. It’s just a matter of making a habit out of something that is good for you but makes you miserable, which I think is the definition of adulthood. I might even start coming in early once in a while, if I can be sure there is someone present to witness the occasion.
Allison Peryea is a shareholder attorney at Leahy Fjelstad Peryea, a boutique law firm in downtown Seattle that primarily serves community association clients. Her practice focuses on covenant enforcement and dispute resolution. She is a longtime humor writer with a background in journalism and cat ownership. You can reach her by email at [email protected].