Law Schools, Small Law Firms

10 Ways To Be Less Busy And More Productive

Busyness runs us into the ground, causes burnout, and isn’t good for our mental health. Why not focus on efficiency instead?

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For many lawyers, we wear our busyness like a badge of honor. The busier we are, the more important we feel. We spend a lot of time saying no to things that we want to do because we simply can’t find time. But the truth is that while we do have a lot going on, often times our busyness is our own doing, and more the result of a lack of prioritization and productivity rather than anything else. Further, being busy doesn’t serve us, or our clients, well. It runs us into the ground, causes burnout, and isn’t good for our mental health. Instead, we’d do better to focus on becoming more efficient and figuring out how to spend less time producing better results. Here are some tips to get you started.

1. Limit obligations

Overcommitting is often the number one reason for unnecessary busyness. In other words, we need to stop taking on too many obligations and making ourselves busy for the sake of being busy. I often find, particularly as a woman, that “yes” is the default setting when I am asked to do something. I don’t actually take the time to assess whether I have the time, energy, or interest to do what I am being asked to do. This is the critical first step in being less busy. And if you are currently overcommitted, your first step should be to take stock of your schedule and see what can be eliminated.

2. Setting realistic goals

Effective time management and productivity requires realistic goal setting. Often people schedule 12 hours worth of things to do in a day where they only have four hours free. This sets you up for failure from the start and actually makes it impossible for you to reach your goals. And, if you repeatedly do this day after day, you reinforce the thought that you are always too busy and never have enough time. Then, the habit of busyness becomes even harder to break. It is important for you to look at the things you want to accomplish in a day and set realistic goals for how long they will take. If you wind up with too many things on your to-do list, prioritize and move things to other days.

3. Be specific

One trap that keeps us busy is putting vague tasks on our to-do lists. For example, you might put “Miller trial prep” or “outline for contracts final exam” on your to-do list. But what does that really mean? Both of those things can, and likely will, take several days, weeks, or even months. So, putting it on your list that way automatically triggers your brain to feel overwhelmed when you look at it. Your brain knows you can’t possibly finish all of “Miller trial prep” today, so it keeps you from even wanting to start or figuring out what you need to do. Instead, be specific. Try something like “write direct exam for Mr. Miller” or “outline all of contract formation.” These are tasks that are specific enough to be time-bound and your brain can wrap itself around accomplishing them.

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4. Batch like tasks

Have you ever just gotten in the groove of your day and felt like a productivity machine? Well, you likely have momentum to thank for that. Momentum is a magical thing when it comes to time management. And, luckily for you, it is something you can manufacture for yourself on days it doesn’t naturally occur. The secret to creating momentum? Batching. Simply put, batching is the act of grouping like tasks together. For example, don’t answer one email at a time, or return one phone call at a time. Rather, schedule a block of time to return all outstanding emails, another to do legal research, and another for client meetings. After you move through the first task, you will start to feel yourself fall into a rhythm, and things will be faster and more efficient.  You’ll experience a mental win, which can actually help motivate you to stay on track and keep going with your day.

5. Set the one thing

In his book “The One Thing,” Gary Keller challenges us to ask, “What’s the one thing that you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” This one question alone has saved me countless hours of spinning my wheels with procrastination. Essentially, this question is really about the “order of operations,” or in what order you complete tasks. After you set your goals and break them down into smaller, more manageable tasks, you can use this question to figure out in what order you need to do things to be more efficient.

6. Eat the frog

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“If the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that was probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long. “ – Credited to Mark Twain, but the internet wasn’t entirely in agreement on that. In his book “Eat That Frog,” Brian Tracy applied this quote to productivity and personal development by suggesting that we do our most daunting task first thing in the morning. Once you figure out what your “one thing” is, plan to do it first in your day. This is great advice because the emotional energy we spend avoiding the things we need to do is draining and it is how we get to the end of the day feeling exhausted without having really accomplished anything. Also, usually when people eat the frog, they find that it wasn’t as bad or as time consuming as they thought it would be.

7. Delegate

Have you ever fallen into the trap of “I am the only person in the whole world who can do this task?” Well, unless that task is going to the bathroom… you’re probably being dramatic. And, I say this from a place of falling into this trap alllllllll the time. Delegation is probably the fastest and easiest way to free up your time, and it is also probably the thing you’re not doing enough of today. The question I ask when I am trying to force myself to delegate more is “am I really the best person to do this task?” To date my answer has been no 100 percent of the time.

8. Play to your strengths

There are a ton of books, podcasts, courses, and articles out there to help you be more productive. It can be easy to get information overwhelm. When this happens, don’t forget that you know yourself best and what works for you. Read 12 articles that say “successful people wake up at 5 a.m.” but know you are more of a night owl? Then do your important work at night.  You know how your energy ebbs and flows throughout the day. You know when you are most and least focused. Yes, if your system isn’t working, switch it up and try new things. But don’t get so wrapped up in achieving some elusive perfect system that you throw out all your good habits in the process.

9. Find and fix your time wasters

The best time management plan in the world won’t save you if you are constantly being distracted and wasting time. Distractions are different than tasks in that these aren’t things that make you busy, but rather they keep you busy. You need to figure out what your big distractions and time wasters are and make a plan to minimize their impact.

10. Single task

In our ever connected, ever plugged-in world, we find ourselves multitasking all the time. But, multitasking is actually a lie. Rather, what we are doing is context shifting. Meaning, we are quickly going back and forth between single tasks. But, context shifting is actually super inefficient. Once we break our focus from the task we are working on, it can take us more than 15 minutes to recover our focus up to the level it was. I’m sure you can see how this could slow you down and make your day busier than it needs to be. The solution to this is single tasking, which is made much easier if you incorporate the tips above regarding batching and mitigating distractions.

I hope you can implement some of these tips to not only create more efficient, streamlined workdays, but also find some more free time for yourself to get out there and enjoy your life.

Kerriann Stout is a millennial law school professor and founder of Vinco (a bar exam coaching company) who is generationally trapped between her students and colleagues. Kerriann has helped hundreds of students survive law school and the bar exam with less stress and more confidence. She lives, works, and writes in the northeast. You can reach her by email at [email protected].

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