Taking time to reflect

For the many people following my posts, this is a follow up to last week’s suggestion to relax. Just as important as getting away from work is taking some time to reflect on it. This takes a bit of distance–hence the need to relax first. But once you’re rested and before you head back to  the grind, think about what you do–the whys, the hows, the wheres–and how you might do it better.

For law students, this can mean going over both the micro and macro of your student life. On finals prep, did you start early enough? How efficiently did you use your study time? Did you focus on the right things? Did you help others to understand? For paper classes, did you start early enough to give yourself enough lead time to research and draft? Did you research enough, or too much? And so on. Beyond those things, think about the past semester and what you enjoyed–which professors challenged you? What subjects interested you most? For any legal work you did, what was the most meaningful? And when you leave school, what do you want to do? Where? You won’t figure it all out in a sitting, and perhaps just one of these questions will be enough to chew on for a few days. That’s okay. However you use the time, just be sure take some of it to think about where you’ve been and where you’re going 

For lawyers, this can mean thinking about your processes–how you get cases, how you work with clients, how efficiently you’re using your time–as well as your own purposes–do you enjoy what you do? Who can you most help? What do you want out of your career? 

Without time to reflect, you’ll never be the kind of lawyer–or the kind of person–you could be. This is certainly a work in progress for me. In my recent move this year from government to private practice, I feel like I went from being a factory worker to being a farmer. I used to clock into work, produce the widgets assigned to me, and leave. And repeat, repeat, repeat. There was a lot of satisfaction in the work, but it was very predictable and very little within my control. Now that I have much more control, I have a lot less predictability, but the seasonality of workflow for a new firm gives me time to reflect while I’m waiting for the seeds to grow or live on the store while planning for the next case.

Reflection may lead you to short-term discomfort–you may realize, for example, that you don’t like what you do. But that’s valuable insight gained sooner rather than later. You’ll be happier in the long run by thinking about what you want rather than what others want of you. Because if you don’t think enough about it, you put others in control.

Everything in its season–hard work, relaxation, reflection–leads to satisfaction. If any of them are missing, that’s a problem. All work and no play, as they say. And if any get out of their proper place, it can throw everything else off (think relaxing during finals or reflecting during a big project).