flow

After a particularly insightful morning yoga class and a sense of zen ("new agey-ness" alert, Aunt Shelley), I arrived at the office to a number of good sized fires that required dousing.  My plan for the day had been to go "heads down" on a project plan that desperately needed my attention.  I had learned a lot about my time management, and I was gung-ho about committing the appropriate time to important, non-urgent tasks, like my project plan - which was a pretty ginormous task.

Anyone who knew me in law school knew my love for flow charts.  I love flow charts.  They're like choose your own adventure books, and they made law school make sense for me.  I found that almost everything could be reduced to an "if this, then that" statement.  And I love colored pens.  It was a win-win.  Ever since I took the bar exam, though, I haven't been asked to process anything or make logical sense of concepts or process.  I was asked to find typos.  And I was chastised for beginning sentences with conjunctions.  But no one really needed me figure out how anything should be done.  

Recently, with just a little bit of help from Tim, I realized that my flow charting was quite a handy skill to have and made me pretty dangerous in the project management world.  So that morning, with $30 worth of pens from Office Depot, I was ready to dive head first into project planning. 

Our clients and my team, however, had a different plan for me that day, and it was close to 4 o'clock when I finally had a minute to catch my breath.  Tim and I sat down to discuss the project plan that I had yet to execute on. 

"Do you know what flow is?"  He asked.  Tim always started one of our sessions with 5 minutes of wisdom.  I can honestly say, I've learned more from a handful of Tim's 5-minute wisdom windows than I have learned from any mentor I've had to date.  Anyway, I responded that I understood the concept of flow as it relates to the body (think vinyasa).  He let me explain what I meant and then promptly told me that wasn't what he had meant.  Yet, he did it in a way that didn't make me feel stupid or ashamed (an impressive skill that seasoned attorneys generally do not possess).  He went on to tell me that what he meant by "flow" was a place where you go to "get in the zone." 

Oh!  Well then, where I flow is in the mornings, at my house, sitting on the right side of the couch in the kitchen (yes, I have a couch in the kitchen.  It works, trust me), with a cup of coffee.  "Good," Tim said, "then go there.  Get it done.  Do what you have to do to get into flow."

Wait... you mean I don't have to force myself to work in an environment that's working against me?  You trust me to actually do my work even if I'm not in the office?  You don't even want to see a 6-minute breakdown of my flow-spent morning?  This is incredible.

I'm not in Kansas anymore.

the mind bend

Months ago, I agreed to be one of multiple authors in a serial fiction story.  I had totally forgotten about this commitment until my editor emailed to ask if I was still interesting in participating.  You see, since quitting law, I've been a little MIA in more areas than just this blog.  But "getting back into it" with a non-law piece that would still give me some great exposure?  Sure!  Sounds fun.  So I agreed and promptly forgot about it again until two days before it was due.  Shoot.  I ended up really liking the result, and I enjoyed the process of writing on a story line that wouldn't otherwise have been my first choice more than I thought I would.  But I did it at the last minute.  And, therefore, I was even more proud of myself for the end result because I delivered under pressure.

They say that aspiring writers should over commit themselves to unreasonable deadlines ("they" of course being writers that actually made it) and become masters at churning out respectable work product in an ungodly short amount of time.  That's how you get "good."  Lawyers are masters at this concept, and my two years of practicing law prepared me very well for this.  It's the fire drill philosophy - nothing gets done until it's on fire. 

I am learning a lot in my new non-legal career.  Like, A LOT a lot.  About business.  About treating your employees well.  And about time management.  I will first note the irony in my blog topic, given that my blogging will result in a fire drill tomorrow morning (so maybe I haven't learned everything I'm about to claim I have).  Anyway, there are a whole bunch of theories and schools of thought about managing people and projects, and I've only begun to scratch the surface.  It's fascinating... way more fascinating than reading the same contact for the 218th time and finding a misplaced comma.

There's a quadrant for time management that breaks activities and tasks up into 4 categories based on urgency and importance.  Some of you might be familiar with this concept, created by Stephen Covey in The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.  See the chart. 

Tim recently asked me to divide up, by percentage, how much time each day should be spent in each quadrant.  I think I went with the common answer and said something like Urgent/Important = 75%, Urgent/Not Important = 15%, and the other two?  Eh, 5% (Does that add up to 100%?).  Whatever, you get the point.  I gave the fire drill response: I do the shit that absolutely positively MUST get done by the end of the day, so get out of my way and let me get it done. Oh, and by the way, I put out a lot of fires, so I'm totally important and an incredibly valuable addition to the company, thank you very much.

Wrong answer.  Well, not "wrong" because I was honest... but it's not the answer we should be striving for.  The majority of our time should be spent in the important and not urgent quadrant.  As we re-train ourselves to spend time planning and relationship building, the number of "fire drills" that end up in the Important/Urgent quadrant significantly decreases.  And when there are fire drills, we handle them much more competently because we're not simply reacting.

Law doesn't teach you this.  Lawyers are trained to react, to only react and to react well.  My head hurts just trying to fathom the concept that one day (hopefully in the near future), I could wake up and check my iPhone without the feeling of dread that I've forgotten about something hugely important that is going to consume my entire day with panic-stricken damage control.

So with that, back to my project plan.  I'll let y'all know when you can check out piece three of five in the serial fiction story.  I know you're waiting with bated breath, and I appreciate that about you.

new legal doctrine: shake whatcha mama gave ya

Like so many other topics I blog about... this one speaks for itself (res ipsa loquitur) and requires very little commentary, which is a good thing, because I have so much to get done today, I can barely see straight.

This woman, after practicing law for ten years, has now resorted to dancing topless to pay the bills.  The Topless Lawyer - It sounds like a bad porn and evokes images similar to Britney Spears' debut.  "The job is less hostile than any law office she's worked in, she said."  As a female (former) attorney, I feel like I should say more about this topic.  I feel like I should be more affected by this.  But I'm not.  I honestly can't even say I blame her.  More than anything, I feel a strange sense of pride for the renegade lawyer for her choice.  And that's what it was... A choice.  She chose to dance almost-naked at a strip club rather than seek another terrible legal job in a terrible market.  She's making more money by shaking it for complete strangers.  She appreciates and respects her coworkers more now than in her previous profession.  Heck, even her clients are more tolerable, despite that they "grab her, bite her, [and] kiss her..."  Wow.

I would include an image with this post... but I would hate to run afoul of the law.

the itch

I'm sad about my lack of writing lately.  And I'm disappointed in myself for letting my blog fall by the wayside in the last month. There's something about fall that makes me want to write.  Maybe it's sweater weather or pumpkin spice lattes or the preparation of hunkering down in front of a fireplace with endless cups of tea, but whatever it is... it itches. 

I have a couple articles coming up for the Docket that will force me to sit down and really write, with a deadline, which will be good for me.  But I still want to write a book.  I have pieces of chapters floating around in my head (and my laptop), but I'm lacking direction.  And time.  I'm really lacking time.  It was fall last year when I made the decision that I wasn't meant to be a lawyer for the rest of my life and I needed to write a book - sooner rather than later.  A year later, I don't have a book... but I'm not a lawyer anymore, so I'm hopeful I'm moving in the right direction. 

Fall inspires me...  In a spring cleaning kind of way.  Maybe it's the whole going back to school sentiment.  Or maybe it's college football.  Regardless, I have a renewed sense that at the end of the day, I'm a writer.  I guess I just don't know what that means yet... which is more than I knew last year at this time.