Lawyers sell their time. The awful realization that six minute increments of time (0.1 on a lawyers time sheet) are constantly passing us by while we wait in line at the grocery store, on the on ramp to the Lions Gate Bridge, or at Starbucks for a seeming eternity – while we are neither having fun nor being productive, is one of the nasty realizations of post law firm human existence. I have noticed other lawyers experience this, literally twitching like crazy, while they wait 15 minutes for the clerk at Breadgarden to warm-up their xyz lunch item.
Lawyers often end up with a love/hate relationship with time as it is the commodity of value, yet is ebbing away all day as we attempt the manage the various interruptions and delays of modern life with the demands of being a service provider with a busy practice. I remember when a senior female lawyer at a large downtown law firm told me that she had to learn how to enjoy just spending time hanging out with her child and not feel guilty that she wasn’t billing/doing something productive/crossing something off a list. This was also the same woman who advised that the only way to get through Christmas while simultaneously practicing law was to treat it “like a closing.”
The question at hand is: how to get off this conveyor belt of hell, a treadmill of endless to-dos, and get back to the joy of being, acheiving, giving, loving, having fun even?
Maybe we need to re-think the way we look at work – not as something painful to be managed so it’s done as efficiently and quickly as possible but something to look forward to, an inherent part of the joy of living.
I loved this article.
