In-House Counsel

Habits I’m Starting In 2024

A little planning can help you avoid burning out in the new year.

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New Year 2024 ConceptsAdmittedly, I left 2023 a little burnt out and uninspired and am doing my best to ease into 2024. I gave myself some time over the holidays to lean into connection with family and community — and opted out of personal development work for some good ol’ Netflix-binging with my hubby and watching the “Star Wars” saga with the kids. But now, as January is almost over, I don’t want to repeat last year — so here are some habits I’m reviving or picking up in 2024.

Time Blocking

If you follow me, you know this is a strategy I use often. I just need to be more consistent with it — and try planning three to four weeks ahead, instead of the usual week at a time. Right now is a great time, where you have a fresh calendar, because most people haven’t scheduled much yet. If you have big projects, calendar your weekly team check-ins and time to work on the project now, whether that is in one- or two-hour increments weekly, or half-days every other week, or monthly (whatever works best for working style). Otherwise, you will find yourself working on it late at night or weekends because your time was filled up with other people’s meetings (and priorities). If you have Microsoft Teams, it has a feature where it can block off “focus time” for you, and that’s a great start if you’re new to this strategy, but I like to know what I’m using each “focus time” for — so the more project-specific method works better for me.

Other tasks I block time off for:

  • Checking email — at least a couple of 30 minute blocks during the day. This allows you to stay on top of anything urgent, even if you have back-to-back meetings or calls.
  • Lunch — the intent is so that you don’t forget to eat until you find yourself hangry at 3 p.m. but, admittedly, I have used this as buffer time — I’ll offer this up if something is truly urgent. I also use it to check email, read legal articles, listen to CLEs, mentor, for community board meetings, or to get a quick workout in.
  • Reading legal blogs and articles — I find that I do better if I set aside intentional time to learn.
  • Time for thinking and planning — Blocking time off to review my calendar and plan for the week ahead, as well as strategic thinking.
  • Travel time (for kid pickup) — Nothing worse than not blocking off the time and stressing to pick up your kid before the daycare closes because a meeting ran long. I’ve learned that I am less stressed if I block off the time and take calls only as needed and when I know that the call in question is one that I can take in the car versus one where I have to review documents on a screen.

Calendaring PTO

While this may not work for everyone, I like to block off my PTO for the entire year, even if tentatively, to make sure that I use the time. If you have kids like I do, much of this is around their breaks from school. I also like to schedule my kids’ birthdays off so I can be intentional about celebrating with them and so they don’t have a stressed-out, unpleasant mom. You may also want to consider pre-scheduling a mental health day at least once a quarter if you have the days.

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Making Time For Networking

After some reflection last year, I realized that my network is mostly outside my company, and I need to do a better job at developing relationships at my company. So something new I’ve started is just reaching out to people I meet through the normal course of work for a coffee or virtual coffee. I’m starting small with a goal of one new person a month. I’ve already met that goal for January, and it was fun. I’ll let you know how it goes!

Meyling Mey Ly OrtizMeyling “Mey” Ly Ortiz is in-house at Toyota Motor North America. Her passions include mentoring, championing belonging, and a personal blog: TheMeybe.com. At home, you can find her doing her best to be a “fun” mom to a toddler and preschooler and chasing her best self on her Peloton. You can follow her on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/meybe/). And you knew this was coming: her opinions are hers alone.

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