For some reason, I see the end of the summer as a time for reset and the start of a new year. This may be because I operated on the school calendar for many years, going straight through college to law school, and then starting my BigLaw career as a first-year associate with the typical fall start date. This may be because of the Jewish calendar, where the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) and Yom Kippur occur in the early fall, and are a time for serious reflection and resolution for the new year ahead. (Now that I have kids, I can’t avoid the school year cadence if I tried.)
Well, I guess I chose the right industry, because this is certainly the case for the world of legal recruiting and professional development. For those who work on law student recruiting, the academic calendar reigns supreme: there is a sigh of relief in the late summer/early fall as the madness wraps up. This is even the case for lateral and clerk hiring too, which tend to pick up during Q4. Same for PD - a lot of planning for the summer program (in addition to continued programs for associates), and then a reset for the new class of associates starting in the fall and programs for those being promoted (for example, new mid-level, senior associate, or partner trainings).
As we are now in (gasp) August, and past what was probably an insanely busy few months, it is the perfect time to reset and think about how to get organized for the new “year.” (August is also a popular time to take off before the school year starts again, and disconnecting even for a few days at the beach or lake can provide the right environment for clear thinking.)
I’ve been going this process myself, resetting and getting organized for the new “year” - July and August are the perfect time for our strategic planning, with a busy fall ahead for meetings with firms, preparing for the busy lateral/clerk hiring cycle in Q4, and launching our programs for the new class of 1Ls. For me, this process has centered around two books that are different but have a lot in common.
One book is Joy at Work, by Marie Kondo and Scott Sonenshein. You may recognize Marie Kondo as the popular organizing expert with her own Netflix show. This book, specifically for organizing and tidying up in the professional context (as opposed to your home), covers both tidying your workspace as well as the way you and your team operate. It is a short and easy read, perfect for a commute.
Another book is Deep Work, by Cal Newport. This book provides practical strategies for professionals to allocate time in their work schedule to perform “deep work,” the type of work that requires focus and no distraction, such as writing (I’m doing this right now, with my wi-fi off and my phone in my bag), strategic planning, creative thinking, and others - many of which are important for legal professionals in any category.
I’m taking in what I’ve read in these books and implementing (and already seeing the results of) the takeaways. Although this blog post is approaching the length of one of these books, here are a few key insights that may be helpful for you as we prepare for the next “year” starting in September:
Clean your physical workspace - This is something I always said I wanted to do, and finally did. Wow, what a difference. Marie Kondo recommends cleaning “all in one go” instead of trying to do it little by little, so that’s what I did. Over the span of a couple days, during several hours, I cleaned my home office relentlessly. I strategically scheduled this during the late afternoons/early evenings, when it is harder to focus on real work, my kids are running around, and I can chat on the phone/with my wife while I’m cleaning. Consider the same for your schedule in the office, if you have a free afternoon. Or if you need to listen in on a call or program without actively participating.
Every single drawer and shelf, putting items into categories — nothing was spared. Garbage/shred, scan, or keep (either it’s useful or it has sentimental value). The amount of useless papers from old meetings, notes, etc was surprising. Swag, materials from conferences, supplies from our Job Fair, etc were thrown into a corner with no system, in the heat of the moment as I rushed to get to the next project. As much as I love a good pen, I didn’t need 45 different types. The actual desk where you work should be treated as a shrine, with nothing on it except for your computer and maybe a pen and pad - whatever you are using at the time.
One tip that is so easy but I would have never thought of on my own — papers should always be stored vertically. Otherwise, you will never be able to keep track of which papers you are keeping, as it sits under piles. If you have papers that you are meaning to get to, store them in a vertical paper holder near (not on) your desk.
Now that I’ve cleaned my home office, it is a pleasure to work in and I can think much more clearly. I can’t recommend this enough.
Clean your digital workspace - Your computer desktop should be treated like your physical desktop - a shrine that only includes the most important items. Otherwise, things should be deleted or stored in folders. During a dedicated cleaning session, go through your desktop relentlessly. Can I delete this? Most of the time, the answer is yes, especially if it is stored electronically in the firm’s file system. You don’t need to have it on your desktop also. If it should be in the firm’s system, then take the time to add it, and then delete from your desktop.
- Same with email. Managing your inbox is a loaded topic and everybody has their own system - I won’t go into detail here since it depends on your preference. (At the NYCRA Mini-Conference in March, I picked up some great tips from the panel there, including using the Outlook “pin” feature to pin messages to the top of your inbox that you don’t want to lose track off, but also don’t want cluttering up your inbox. You might say “Oh, my inbox is a mess, I can never clean it” - but that is the case for everyone. Rest assured, it is possible! No matter what your preferences or working styles are, here are a few tips that are helpful and can apply to anyone:
- Your inbox should not be to-do list: If you leave messages in your inbox unread for things that you want to get to later, it will only keep nagging. Move those items to a dedicated to-do list. This will address a very large chunk of your inbox.
- Do a purge session: If your inbox always has 1,000 unread messages, your brain will constantly be figuring out what to do every time you open your inbox. Do a “cleaning session” and go through everything in your inbox. Should this email be deleted? Moved to a to-do list? Filed in a folder? Responded to? If you are moving it to a to-do list but haven’t responded to the person, you can respond saying that you’ll get to it! By getting your inbox back to a normal baseline, you can then focus on addressing items as they come in based on urgency (see below).
Have a plan so it doesn’t happen again - Cleaning is great, but you want to make sure you have a system to stay organized. For me, this meant setting up Google Drive folders for important documents that should be scanned, but without the need for physical copies - now, I can scan from my phone in seconds and shred it. If I have a physical document that I no longer need, it gets thrown out immediately. If I plan to read it, but not now, maybe sometime in the future... I scan it, and put it on my to-do list with a link. No need for it to clutter my physical space. Same for email - now, any tasks in my inbox are only for the next 24 hours. Everything else is on a dedicated to-do list. (I’ve also noticed it’s easier to handle things as they come in, without even being on a to-do list, because my inbox is cleaner.)
After the summer season, this may be stacks of resumes or performance reviews... all of which are stored in your online system and pulled up with a couple clicks.
For email, you may notice during your “purge” (or every day) that there are many things that don’t require an email. Be mindful about what should an email versus a Teams message versus a phone call/Zoom. Once you figure that out, communicate with your team accordingly - and don’t be afraid to speak up if an email thread is going off the rails and getting too complicated - pick up the phone or ask to have a short meeting.
Organizing your time - Time is the most precious resource we have, and organizing it along with your physical and digital workspace is critical. Do you find that you consistently have certain things you want to work on but your day gets away from you? August is the perfect month to meet with your teams and figure out how you worked well together and how you didn’t during the busy season. Here are some common tips to get started:
If your job requires “deep work,” such as writing up proposals/plans for a committee or team, writing marketing content, reviewing vendor proposals, writing content, strategic planning, creative thinking - it is critical to block off dedicated time intentionally and consistently. Throwing it on the calendar is not enough if you are reachable. In a role of a BigLaw legal professional, you don’t have the luxury of disappearing for an entire day. But, there may be pockets of time that work well. A starting point can be 8-10am or 9-11am three times per week - your Outlook and Teams are shut, and you are unavailable. Cell phone is put away (with ringer on in case of emergencies). Phone calls are ignored unless you have no choice - and even then you can ask if you can call them back. (If you are an early riser, 5-7am is absolutely magical, and will make your late afternoons/evenings less hectic.) You can even put on an internal firm auto-reply that you are focusing on important work until 11am and to call if it’s extremely urgent. Although it’s tempting to just start answering emails when you get to your desk, this often leads down the rabbit hole that you can’t get out of. And those emails will just keep coming. Once you start doing this, it may become a routine for you, and few colleagues will even notice.
Even if you think answering an email or phone call is harmless, the “context switching” from one task to the other makes us significantly less productive and doesn’t allow our brain to reach its full performance potential.
- If you have members of your team that are tasked with projects that require “deep work” - employer them do that! Block off time for them to complete it, where they are not allowed to answer emails. If what they are doing is important and needs to be done, the end result will be a lot better.
- If your team has recurring meetings - look at each one and think critically as a team if this was useful time. It might be very useful time, saving hundreds of emails with a single conversation! It might be very useful, but only for some. Or, it might be not so useful, forcing people to come to the meeting with “something” even if it’s not necessary. Or, it might be useful as a 15-minute meeting, not 30 minutes. Perhaps it can be replaced with a shared tracker for updates, and then you can have a meeting only on key updates that require a discussion. Clean your recurring meetings like you clean your office: nothing is sacred, and only kept if it is useful.
- I have a sticky note on my desk that says “One thing at a time.” It reminds me that when I’m working on something, even if it’s short, I should do it, finish it, and then get to the next thing. There is no need to check email in the middle. Have dedicated email checking and responding times - such as every 60 minutes (keeping in mind that less frequently than that is often not workable if your responsiveness is a key part of your job). Although 60 minutes sounds long, most won’t even notice - and if something urgent is going on, you can suspend the rules temporarily.
The literature on organizing our stuff and our time is endless and the right approach is very unique for each specific situation. But, hopefully these tips are helpful for you as I implement them for my own professional life.
