Schedule a meeting with yourself.

Go somewhere where you can be undisturbed.  If you stay in your office turn of your email and blackberry.  Work on your project-list, to-do list, and calendar, and spend time reviewing what you finished in the past week.  Treat this meeting with the respect you would give to a client meeting.  Put it in your calendar and don’t book over it.  This ritual is very effective for being mindful of how you are spending your time.

Here’s a Harvard Business Review blog post with great additional information:
How to Stay Focused on What’s Important by Gina Trapani

Best wishes for a productive September!

Our brains and bodies work in rhythms. We are physically designed to work best by cycling between periods of energy spending and renewing.

Fact: “Research in the 1970s showed that 90 to 120 minute ultradian rhythms (ulta dies – many times a day) account for the ebb and flow of our energy throughout the day. Physiological measures such as heart rate, hormonal levels, muscle tension and brain-wave activity all increase during the first part of the cycle. After an hour or so, these measures start to decline and the body begins to crave a period of rest and recovery. Signals include a desire to yawn and stretch, hunger pangs, increased tension, an inclination to procrastinate.” – The Power of Full Engagement, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz

Fact: Your brain can only operate at peak capacity for periods of up to 90 minutes.
“Ninety minutes appears to be the maximum amount of time that we can bring the highest level of focus to any given activity. The evidence is equally strong that great performers practice no more than 4 ½ hours a day.” – TheEnergyProject.com, Tony Schwartz

Work intensively for up to 90 minutes at a time with brief ten minute periods of recuperation to walk around the office, stretch, or fill a glass of water. Notice the impact of this practice on the quality and effectiveness of your output.

Mary is unhappy. While she enjoys commercial litigation files she is stressed all the time. The partners provide her with positive feedback as do her clients but every time she makes any kind of error she takes it as a sign of failure.

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?

Some might say the answer is simple. Sandra just needs to take a different approach. Sandra needs to do fewer revisions, record all her time and let the partners decide what needs to be written off.

As for Mary, shouldn’t she just pay attention to the positive feedback from the partners and her peers and realise that she is good at her work?

If only it were so simple.

Sandra and Mary are each in the grip of their inner critic and it is obscuring their judgment.

To learn more about dealing with your inner critic please visit my article on the Canadian legal weblog Slaw.ca.

I have had many lawyers tell me they feel they are failing at both their jobs in life – as parents and as lawyers. One thing I know for sure is that this feeling of falling behind and of failing at those things that are most important is shared by many professionals.

To be the best we can be, it is essential to parcel out time to take a deep breath, let go of stress, and return to center. I have two friends who are currently balancing busy professional practices while mothering children who are living with life threatening health challenges. The way these mothers survive is they schedule regular time each day to do those activities that provide them with stress release and re-charge their spirits. For one it is a daily yoga practice. For the other it is taking a long walk with the dog each day. What these woman both know is that these activities are not selfish breaks from their work. These are essential coping strategies that allow them to be at their best for their families and with their clients. Every day counts.

Don’t wait until you are faced with life-altering challenges. Develop a habit of taking care of yourself and matching your actions to your values and priorities. My October column for Slaw.ca is about taking action in three ways:  First, put the oxygen mask on yourself. Second, take time for some reflection to connect your values with your actions.  Third, automate and create processes to support you in making time for what is most important.

This summer why not engage in some quality lawn chair thinking?  Sit back, enjoy some sunshine and with a cold drink in hand allow yourself to contemplate. Start by exploring your strengths.  What have you got going for you? How are you making the most of your strengths in your professional life? Here are some of my favourite strength questions:

• What do you consider to be your greatest abilities and talents?
• How are you employing these gifts at this time?  How could you make the most of them?
• Where do you find yourself most often wanting to help or be of assistance to others?  What are the things that you are most motivated to do?
• What would your closest friends say are your top ten strengths?
• How are you/could you put those strengths to work in your practice?

Next, move on to some goal setting.  What is it you want to make happen in your legal practice?  Do you want to grow your practice?  Bring in new clients?  Move your practice to another firm or in-house?  Here are some questions to lead you in your lawn chair pondering:

• What would count as a really big professional win for you?  This question is a way to explore some of what motivates you at the office.  One client once told me “having a patent client make a huge amount of money from their invention”.  Another client told me “winning the lottery and never having to come back here” which just said loud and clear that a career transition was called for!
• Looking forward five years what do you want to be doing?  This question gives you a chance to think beyond the next twelve months.
• Who are your preferred clients? It’s always good to explore who are the clients you most enjoy working with.  What is it about them?  How can you get more clients like them?
• What are the opportunities right now you are not taking advantage of?  This question is a helpful reminder about the opportunities around you.

And the best questions are quite simply:

• What do you enjoy most about your legal practice?  And the converse, what do you least enjoy? What percentage of your time at work is spent, on a weekly basis, doing what you most enjoy and conversely least enjoy?

These get to the heart of what lightens your life and what weighs you down.  Ultimately whether you are on a job hunt or in a secure position in a law firm, the question always comes down to: “how can you get more of the good stuff on your plate and the bad stuff off?”  When you move out of your comfortable summer seat and into action what can you do to make your work life more enjoyable?

I’m a professional business coach, goals and resolutions are the heart of my business, so trust me when I tell you, this year ditch the resolutions and abandon the guilt.  Life’s too short!  Replace all the gloom and puritanical posturing with some first class day dreaming.  You know the kind you did when you were a kid.  What do you want to be when you grow up?  There’s always something new to learn, or see, or do.  What to you want to get out of 2008?  When you are raising your glass to bring in the New Year on December 31, 2008 what do you want to look back on? 

Compelling and inspiring goals are the key ingredients of a fulfilling and successful professional life.  They give you a reason to get out of bed in the morning.  They encourage your creativity.  They get you thinking, and planning, and moving forward.  They provide the challenge and the meaning that is so easy to lose when things get busy at work.

For my own guide to goal setting follow this link to the full article posted on the Canadian Legal Research site Slaw.ca.

I was just speaking to a lawyer friend I worked with a few years back. I asked him the usual “how are you doing?” and he replied with a great “happily ever after” success story.

He works in a particular niche area of litigation and because of the seeds he planted over several years he is now the recognized expert in the niche and getting the biggest and best files. He absolutely loves his legal practice.

Here’s what made it happen: 

We met when he was a senior associate who had just joined the firm as a lateral hire. He had a goal to build up his practice in a particular niche litigation area. He’d been junior counsel on a number of important cases and it was time for him to take the lead.

At that time there were not many files in the area. But the prospects for the future were good. We developed his personal marketing plan. The emphasis of the plan was on building relationships with referral sources and potential clients and raising his profile.

He invested a great deal of time and effort in developing and expanding his network of contacts. He used his lunch hours for meeting people and developing existing relationships. He wrote articles and presented at conferences.  Always with a focus on the niche area of law.

Then he took the initiative and pitched the idea of a book on the subject to a legal publisher who agreed.  Of course not everyone at the firm supported the project.  Some wondered if the time might be better spent on further relationship building.  It was a gamble. Nonetheless he persisted and the first edition was published, followed by a second edition the following year.

Still the files were not coming in.  Had all that effort been for nothing?

All this marketing and business development and still only a small trickle of files. What was crucial is that he did not give up. Nor did his firm.

He began speaking at the law school. Kept writing. Kept presenting. Kept relationship building. And he stayed the course.

The word spread and finally after four years the files began to flow in. My friend is now the lawyer “who wrote the book” on this area of law. He has a completely full plate of his favorite type of legal work and is having the time of his life.

It’s a real success story.

And the firm?  The firm supported his investments of non-billable time, partners gave him work to keep his plate full and he was made partner even before the tides had turned in his favor.

What did he do right? He knew what he wanted. He completely focused his marketing and business development efforts on the goal. He invested a lot of time and effort. He took the initiative and created opportunities for raising his profile. He was not dissuaded by the naysayers.

And he just didn’t give up.

The issue arrived in my mail last month and is now live on the web.  Have a look.  It’s a great guide for new associates to making the most of the first years and establishing a foundation for their legal practice.

My article is all about what new associates should know about marketing.  I was directed to answer the question – what do managing partners wish their associates knew about marketing? I interviewed a number of managing partners and practice group leaders to find out what was most on their minds.  Here’s what they had to say:

Understand that Law Firms Are Businesses 
Invest Early and Frequently
Invest Non-billable Time with Existing Clients
Talk Less and Listen More
Develop a Meaningful Introduction
Learn How to Close the Deal
Find your Personal Style

Associates, if you want to end up with a practice you enjoy and clients you like, it is critical that you learn to chart your own course. Marketing can help you do that. It is your time to discover the kind of work and clients you find the most interesting. It is also time to explore the kind of marketing and business development activities that you like best. It might be writing articles or maintaining a blog. It could be you have a flair for presenting. Find out what works best for you while advancing you toward your goals, and do it. Don’t wait until you have some free time.  Weave a little marketing into everyday.  Keep your own professional goals moving forward.

The first chapter of my guide starts with Mission, Vision, and Values - three simple concepts that are easy to get mixed up. 

Your Mission Statement describes what your firm does and who your clients are.  It captures the very essence of your practice, the relationship with the client.  A Mission Statement is focused on what you do in the present.

A Vision Statement describes how the future will look if the firm achieves its mission. A Mission Statement gives the overall purpose of an organization, while a Vision Statement describes a picture of the preferred future result your firm is after.  Your Vision Statement will tell a compelling story about the future you are going to create. 

Once you have your Mission and Vision figured out, it is important to take some time to think about values.  Values are the core beliefs at the heart of your firm’s culture, and are the foundation of all the actions you will take, and investments you will make. 

Here is a list of questions to guide you through the process of determining your firm’s Mission, Vision, and Values.  You can also use these questions for developing your own personal plan.

Mission questions:

What do we do?
Who do we do it for?
What is the benefit to the clients?

Vision questions:

What do we ultimately want to achieve with our practice, in terms of service to others?
What do we want the firm to be known for? 
What reputation do we wish the firm to have in the business, legal, or other communities?

Value questions:

What professional and personal attributes do we value most?
What professional and personal qualities do we wish to be known for in the legal community and by our clients?
What qualities and attributes do we wish to characterize our firm?

The answers to these questions form the foundation of your plan.  The next step is strategy.  Stay tuned for that next week!

If you have your own questions and ideas on this topic, I would really enjoy hearing from you.  I am always interested in learning powerful new questions for exploring Missing, Vision, and Values.   If you have some you’d like to share, or other suggestions, please add them in a comment below or send me an email. 

Here’s the difference: The right strategy makes any tactic work better. The right strategy puts less pressure on executing your tactics perfectly.

Here’s the obligatory January skiing analogy: Carving your turns better is a tactic. Choosing the right ski area in the first place is a strategy. Everyone skis better in Utah, it turns out.

If you are tired of hammering your head against the wall, if it feels like you never are good enough, or that you’re working way too hard, it doesn’t mean you’re a loser. It means you’ve got the wrong strategy.

Here’s the big question for consideration.  Are your tactics bringing in the big wins or are they just barely keeping your head above water?

For another story that describes the distinction between strategy and tactics we can look to the Second World War when Winston Churchill proposed the strategy:

“Attack the soft underbelly of Europe.”

This strategy determined the tactic of advancing on the German empire from North Africa, Egypt, to Sicily, and through Italy.  The strategy was dead on.  The tactics worked.

Here’s the caveat. Once we have bought into a strategy, and are deep into tactics, it’s easy to loose sight of the distinction. When the tactics fail or underperform it is tempting to look to different tactics rather than back to the strategic vision and plans.

In addition, many lawyers, administrators, and legal marketers, are trapped in a tactical silo, as so many firms still lack the strategic plans that come first.

If your firm, practice group, client team, or your own practice is struggling, take the time this January to review and re-think your strategy and ask:

“What is our strategy?” This should be answered in one or two sentences.

“Is this strategy paying off?” If not, “what’s working?” “What’s not?” “What could make a difference?”

And if you don’t have a strategy, make this the year that you develop one.