Proposed Time Sheet Approach For Surviving as a New Lawyer.
This approach is presented as follows: "time what why"
6:00 a.m. to 7:15 a.m.
Arise. Engage in stretching exercises for 15 minutes. Engage in aerobic exercise (walking, running, etc.) for 15 to 20 minutes. Engage in the ritual of your choice for 15 to 20 minutes followed by 15 to 20 minutes of journalizing. Eat breakfast at a fixed time.
A practice that has been shown to help in combating depression is regular, fixed times for getting up in the morning and regular aerobic exercise. The least expensive remedies for stress are fixed sleep periods, aerobic exercise and stretching.
Overall mental health and job search successes are tightly linked to honest observance of religious ritual (statistically the honesty and sincerity is the controlling factor for the benefit) and journalizing (not time/date/note entries but reflective and expressive writing about one's life).
It is important to maintain mental health and to reduce stress and depression. It is also important to succeed.
8:30 a.m.
Leave home and go to a professionally related activity with people. Participate in a free legal services clinic for the poor or AIDS victims or minorities or immigrants or the families of criminals or death row appeals or ... just so long as it is a professional activity and you are leaving by 8:30 a.m. (or earlier) and starting by 9:00 a.m.
This keeps you on an organized schedule. It provides you with useful experience that can be added to your resume, provides you with some training. It keeps you from becoming isolated and from wasting or losing time (which often happens if you habitually go to the library to read papers and look for job openings or some similar endeavor).
Noon
Eat a regular meal. Try to join a "brown bag" group that includes attorneys.
Eating with, and listening to (which is why you are eating with others) attorneys in similar situations to yourself is an excellent way to gain insight and to reconsider ideas you have. It also helps you build appropriate professional contacts and is the beginning of a network.
If you have a secondary skill (e.g. accounting, insurance, stock brokering, etc.) it is good to also find a group in that area (or those areas) to have lunch with from time to time.
Some attorneys have as many as three lunch groups. (E.g. Mon Wed Fri with attorneys, Tues with insurance adjusters, Thurs with chiropractors). More is stretching it and most people should start with one.
1:00 on in the afternoon
Go to your personal work space (it may be an antique computer next to your bed, it may be an unfinished office that you share with three other attorneys and an answering machine and a tiny handful of clients) and work on three defined projects. Keep track of your time and the work you have to do.
These can be any project that either serves a client (legal or otherwise) or helps you find additional clients.
It is important to keep working and to keep your office going. If you do something professional every morning, it will carry you through the afternoons. When you do not have clients' work to do, work on obtaining clients.
As your client load and projects increase, you can start taking designated mornings off from your "volunteer" professional activity and start spending them at work. Often a good routine to follow is when work justifies it take Tuesdays for work. Then Tues and Fri. Then Tues, Thurs, Fri. Then MTThF. Eventually you should have the entire week for your profession.
5:30 on in the evening
Cut off work and go to another space at 5:30 p.m. sharp. Get to sleep at a fixed time every night (and get enough sleep).
You need to avoid getting into the habit or routine of staying at work until you are forced to go home.
Weekends
Take at least one day off and relax completely, either with church services or otherwise in a calming way (museums, libraries, etc.). Get a fixed time to return to sleep
One of the weekend mornings (Saturday is the best choice) read and review material on rainmaking and obtaining clients and outline two or three projects to work on for the coming week (chose small scale, simple specific and fixed projects over larger or general ones).
Try to spend significant time with friends at least one day during the week ends.
Other
You should plan your evenings as a time to rest and restore yourself. Support groups of people with similar cultural values as yourself are important as are support groups of attorneys or young professionals in similar circumstances.
You should also have at least one service/social group you belong to that stretches you outside of your profession and your culture (generally these will meet once a month).
You should have a hobby to use to distract yourself and to succeed at. Set specified times to spend on your hobby. If you take up karate (for example) it will allow you to attend workouts with other people, set specific goals (e.g. learn a kata, pass a belt test) and obtain them.
The same is true for model airplanes (buy balsa wood, prepare a cut outline, finish a wing, fly the plane), and many other hobbies.
Try not to join a hobby that is expensive (some modeling hobbies can be very expensive, some very cheap), grossly outside your social milieu (e.g. an attorney joining a Babysitter's Club Book Club).
Avoid hobbies seen by most people as too strange (e.g. Dungeons and Dragons clubs) or too antisocial (e.g. some computer games encourage a complete retreat from social interaction, some political and militia organizations are antisocial in nature). Avoid manipulative groups (e.g. multilevel sales groups).
Your hobby will lead you to social contacts and will improve your resume.
All of these things will give structure to your life. All of these things will give you definite goals you can set and things you can achieve. All of these things will improve and increase the range of social skills and contacts you have. You need to read something like People Magazine once a month to keep in contact with "normal" culture (you can find it at a public library). You should read a major or a local newspaper at least once a week (to stay in contact with current social concerns).
And you should be reaching out to help others as well as to be helped (reaching out builds social contacts and it builds emotional strength).
Finally, re-evaluate your legal plans once a month to see how to make improvements on your choices. Once every three months, re-evaluate your choices themselves. Twice a year, reconsider your legal career direction and once a year reconsider your overall career plans and goals, making necessary course corrections.
Final notes
The entire purpose of this time sheet organizer is to provide a structure to help you o all the necessary and important things that are necessary to:
(a) keep your life balanced during a terribly stressful and difficult time.
(b) keep you moving forward with the steps that lead to creating a law practice.
(c) keep your skills improving and your abilities current.
(d) prevent despair.
Wish you the best.
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