One thing I think Tim Ferriss gets very right is the concept of “Elimination”. Here’s what he has to say about the subject in his best-selling book, The 4 Hour Workweek
Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions. The options are almost limitless for creating “busyness”: You could call a few hundred unqualified sales leads, reorganize your Outlook contacts, walk across the office to request documents you don’t really need, or fuss with your BlackBerry for a few hours when you should be prioritizing. … [T]here is a far better option, and it will do more than simple increase your results – it will multiply them. Believe it or not, it is not only possible to accomplish more by doing less, it is mandatory.
While I’m not sure what to make, in all honesty, of Ferriss’s book as a whole – I think there is some value there, certainly, but just as certainly I find much in it which reads inconsistently to me at a minimum – this concept of eliminating versus creating more resonates strongly with my experience. It can help you, too, especially when you’re struggling to create something amazing out of your solo law practice.
Greed Is Not Good
All due respect to Gordon Gekko, greed is not good. It’s not good for your psyche, your spiritual development, or your growth as a lawyer or a business person. But I’m not the only writer and coach (or – heck – person!) who thinks that greed is at the core of so much of society’s ills these days. We are force-fed a steady diet of craven commercialism that ever-expands as it feeds on itself; through every sense we possess, we are inundated with the exhortations of pop culture to get more, eat more, do more, have more, buy more, earn more, more, more, more.
All that stuff – the houses, the cars, the designer clothes, the financial assets – is not in and of itself evil or bad. After all, the oft-misquoted aphorism isn’t “Money is the root of all evil” – it’s “The love of money is the root of all evil.” In other words, the problem isn’t the stuff we crave. It’s what the craving and the stuff it yields distracts us from – keeps us from thinking about.
But there’s a solution.
Eliminate the Distractions
How often have you sought advice on procrastination? I’ll bet more than once – and I’ll bet the vast majority of my readers have experience with this phenomenon. I’ll go one further – those who are lawyers and who’ve dealt with procrastination tendencies more often than not wind up hating themselves to some degree. Self-loathing is almost a constant universal response in us “Type A’s” for some reason. And for that reason, the usual advice – “eliminate the distractions” – is meaningless. If we driven, obsessive folks could simply wave a magic wand and remove the distractions, we wouldn’t need advice on procrastination to begin with!
In short: the distractions are the manifestation – the symptom, not the problem.
What is the problem? More often than not, and as with most self-destructive tendencies, it lies within. Whether it’s fear of failure, or fear of success, that keeps us blocked and endlessly cleaning our kitchens or computer screens (instead of taking a risk and actually doing the work required to move us beyond present circumstances), we must face that fear – whatever its nature – before we can move forward.
But what I’ve found in dealing with my own procrastination is that the best results often flow from a dual-ended approach.
Whereas normally I’d advocate “deal with the problem and the symptom will resolve itself,” in the case of procrastination (and, in fact, any cluttered schedule, time management, or self-motivation issue) I suggest tackling it from the top and the bottom. Work on the fear, sure, but also take some active concurrent steps to remove the things that are serving as mere distractions. By eliminating the unnecessary – be they activities, projects, or people – we not only clean up our work space, esoterically speaking, but we also reinforce psychologically our commitment to dedicate our actions to creating the dreams we hold most dear.
Take Out the Trash
So, what does it mean for the solo lawyer? It means taking a walk-through of your practice, both physically and mentally.
Try focusing on your practice areas. Are you spreading yourself too thin? It’s very tempting to embrace a wide range of matters, taking anything that comes in the door, in the hopes of making payroll (or even just paying the light bills). Can you – should you, perhaps – kick a few clients to the door? Particularly the ones with unrealistic expectations who refuse to heed your advice and suggestions? How about your physical space? If you’re like me, you’ll find much to toss out there – old magazines (tip: scan the articles that might prove helpful then toss the issue); several copies (when one or two will do) of old documents; old books that have long outlived their usefulness (I find it very hard to toss law books, for some reason, even when they’re out of date); furniture that’s likewise past its prime?
Take a critical and thorough look at your office, your practice, your procedures – what’s going on there that you can get rid of? Is your workflow process tight? Is it as effective as it can be? Are you getting information more than once? Or in different formats where one might work just as well (albeit perhaps a different format)? Don’t limit your thinking by what you currently have available in terms of talent, skill, or resources – you can always make a decision to get a new application, or hire a different skill set (or outsource it), if the need arises. But first, you have to create the vision of the ideal, and that means figuring out first what that ideal looks like, and second, what you have to get rid of to get there.
In short, figure out what’s cluttering up your practice. Then toss it. Now you can begin to create that practice you hold as an ideal.
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