Episode 4 (season 3) - edited with intro and outro - fixed
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[00:00:05] Speaker 3: Have you ever had a day when nothing went wrong, but it gets to 4:00 PM and you're making decisions like you are a totally different person? You snap. You say yes way too quickly, or no.
[00:00:22] Speaker 3: You procrastinate. You check your inbox, compulsively.
[00:00:29] Speaker 3: Or if you're at home, when you're trying to make dinner, you forget what you even walked into the kitchen for.
[00:00:37] Speaker 3: You're thinking, "Why do I have no discipline?" Or, "What is wrong with me?" Or, "Who did I just turn into?"
[00:00:46] Speaker 4: Today we want to offer a refrain. It might not be discipline. It might be decision fatigue and overload.
[00:00:56] Speaker 4: And the invitation isn't to try harder, it's to design better.
[00:01:02] Speaker 3: In this series, we've been talking about why lawyers can't switch off. We then had an episode about hyper vi- vigilance. And in our last episode, we talked about mindfulness. Today we're building all of that with a topic that sits underneath so many burnout loops, decision fatigue and cognitive overload.
[00:01:26] Kathleen: You are listening to The Thriving Lawyer With Kathleen Brenner and Carla Ferraz. I'm Kathleen, a highly experienced lawyer and an International Coaching Federation accredited coach.
[00:01:38] Carla: And I am Carla. Like Kathleen, I am an ICF certified coach and I have worked with top leaders and professionals, many of them lawyers, at some of the world's biggest organizations.
[00:01:51] Carla: My focus is on using evidence based approaches to help my clients thrive at work and in the rest of their lives. Together,
[00:02:00] Kathleen: we bring you the Thriving Lawyer podcast, a podcast filled with ideas and inspiration, as well as practical tips to help you thrive. As a lawyer and in the rest of your
[00:02:12] Kathleen: life. Let's get into it.
[00:02:15] Speaker 4: The big theme here today is when your brain is overloaded, your best intentions often collapse. So the goal is not to be better. The goal is to build structures, that make thriving more likely.
[00:02:33] Speaker 3: So Carla, when I hear you say that, what I think about is what the reality is like in the legal profession.
[00:02:45] Speaker 3: And we've talked about this in different ways before, but thinking about here in this context, you know, in law, no matter what your role is, you're probably making an incredibly high number of decisions in any one day.
[00:03:04] Speaker 3: And you're probably not even aware of the amount of decisions that you're making, whether consciously or unconsciously or it's just as, you know, micro decisions that form part of your day.
[00:03:16] Speaker 3: You know, I, I think about the reality of legal life and I think about what is urgent, what's not, like those decisions.
[00:03:25] Speaker 3: What is a risk? We're constantly trying to assess what our clients tell us in order to be able to make decisions about the level of risk and to communicate them. We've probably got a heap of emails in our inbox and client matters going on with competing deadlines.
[00:03:48] Speaker 3: So we're trying to figure out in any one moment, like, what is it that we need to prioritize? We're trying to figure out, and making decisions around how we respond to any particular emails or calls or anything else. Even when we're writing emails or advice or talking to a colleague or a client, we've got to make decisions about the tone that we use when we're communicating.
[00:04:15] Speaker 3: If we lead teams, we're thinking about what we can delegate, what we can't. All of us will be thinking about, well, what can we say yes to and no to? You might be on the bot- the end of getting, being delegated tasks that might, might or might not be realistic. You've got to decide what to focus on, which means a decision about what to ignore.
[00:04:41] Speaker 3: You've got to think about what to chase after in terms of the needs. And all of those decisions don't even take account for what is the reality of our daily professional lives, where we are getting interrupted by emails, by Teams messages or Slack messages, depending on what program you use. We're being dragged into meetings, perhaps at the last moment.
[00:05:12] Speaker 3: We might have multiple back-to-back meetings. We might have clients coming to us with really difficult matters and needing to escalate certain matters, perhaps to your to the C-suite and the executive or the senior executive in whatever agency that you're in. You've got expectations of your legal leaders, whether that's the partner or your manager.
[00:05:37] Speaker 3: There's general internal politics, uh, and just technological overwhelm overall. So when you think about all of that, it seems not only is it no surprise that your capacity drops, but it's kind of incredible to think about how it could be otherwise. Like, to take the pessimistic view, like, it just all seems so much.
[00:06:02] Speaker 3: What comes to you, Carla, when I outline all of that?
[00:06:08] Speaker 4: Yeah, that we it just sort of explains why we developed some of those loops, right? Because you don't necessarily collapse under all of that. You just become less patient, less strategic, more reactive, and then you develop those autopilot- loops that we've been talking about.
[00:06:26] Speaker 4: So it's important to normalize as well, because this is the human reality, right?
[00:06:32] Speaker 4: 'Cause like just as hearing you describing all the different things and all the decisions, the cognitive load is very high. Right?
[00:06:40] Speaker 4: And then we sometimes we forget to, to understand that we also have our own capacity, and our capacity has limits.
[00:06:49] Speaker 3: We use in our legal work, like matter management systems, and it really helps. It's a great way to keep track of matters, to know where they're up to, to be able to report to clients, to guide. I use it as a decision-making tool, right? To guide where do I pay my attention to or not. But what I find is even that can be not enough, and that it's a struggle to remember everything I need to remember. Because all of that I just went through can kind of hit you. You know, it feels like you're being, like, hit at from all angles sometimes.
[00:07:23] Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and, and, and I mean, these cycles, like it's easy to, you know, as high achievers we are usually shaped by effort, push harder, holding more. You know, like we have to be the reliable one. We have to make sure that we are holding everything that needs to be held, right? But it comes to a point where the overwhelm, more reactivity, more checking, less clarity, more overwhelm, like it gets to a point where that our capacity feels at the maximum, right?
[00:07:58] Speaker 4: And this is like the cycle of burnout and overwork And then we, once we started being mindful and noticing and noticing some of the cycle, growth looks like something a bit different. It looks like creating different structures to be able to support us. How do we support our wellbeing so we can keep showing up?
[00:08:19] Speaker 4: And that might mean, you know, designing better boundaries. That might mean offloading decisions, delegating better, creating better agreements, choosing what we are carrying and what we are not carrying. But not because you are doing less. It's because you're relating to the complexity a little bit different.
[00:08:41] Speaker 3: So what comes to mind for me there is like, well, how do we even know when we've fallen into that trap?
[00:08:51] Speaker 3: And thinking about my own experiences, I know that when I fall into that trap, what happens is that I'm starting to find what is easiest to do in the moment.
[00:09:08] Speaker 3: I might use that moment to do my filing.
[00:09:12] Speaker 3: I might use that mo- moment to check, my email maybe a few times when I don't actually need to.
[00:09:21] Speaker 3: Respo- like, do little ta- And, like, sometime, you know, there is something to be said, right, for that kind of, you know, I think it's a good idea and I've deliberately in fact try and do it that when my energy is low, can I find a moment to do low energy tasks that I have to do that are part of my job.
[00:09:38] Speaker 3: Updating my matter management system, doing those things, right? But sometimes, like, I think, you know, it can get to the point where it's, that is not a conscious decision, right? You're just falling into these traps. You're not deliberately doing the the tasks that you have to do but that are not as cognitively difficult.
[00:09:58] Speaker 3: And perhaps you're not even being productive in doing those things because you just find yourself, when you've got pressing priorities, focusing on what's easier just because you don't have the cognitive energy, focus to be able to do the harder things. Or it's just easier to just do what the busy work because you know you can get through that, and you still feel...
[00:10:24] Speaker 3: Like, you get the reward of, oh, I'm being productive, right? Because you're still busy. Perhaps in a response, like, if you're engaging something, I don't know, maybe you'll, like, say yes straight away or perhaps it's a no.
[00:10:39] Speaker 3: Like, you, you have a response that's just sort of more automatic. You might become a bit snappy, irritable, slightly more terse in your tone, in your interactions.
[00:10:51] Speaker 3: And then when you get out the door, you're like, "Oh my goodness, I was so busy all day," yet you feel like you haven't achieved anything. And I'm sure everybody here can relate to that at times, right? And then that's when, you know, lawyers being so self-critical, we start thinking about, well, I should be able to do this.
[00:11:11] Speaker 3: I'm supposed to be the expert. Why aren't I better at this? But when we get to that point like the self-criticism is not at all helpful, right? Because what we actually needed was perhaps a different system.
[00:11:27] Speaker 4: Yeah, and this is a great place to bring the concept of the extended mind, which can be quite liberating for high performers So extended mind is this notion that thinking doesn't have to happen just in your head.
[00:11:44] Speaker 4: We can use tools to help us think, to hold, to be part of our cognition.
[00:11:51] Speaker 4: Like lists, calendars, workflows, like the software that you just said that you use for your legal matters.
[00:11:59] Speaker 4: Like, as you're updating it, that software is part of your mind now. You no longer need to hold- where that matter is now. There's, you can trust that system, that once you put the information there, it's holding for you until you need to retrieve that information again, especially if you're working multiple things at the same time.
[00:12:20] Speaker 4: So it, it's using systems to capture tasks into a reliable, to hold it for you reliably, and, and you can trust it. So it's helping you be organized.
[00:12:30] Speaker 3: It's interesting you say that, right, because the matter management system that we use, I've seen in, like many different organizations.
[00:12:39] Speaker 3: It's used very commonly in all sorts of government agencies. And so it's, I've always used it quite heavily. But it's interesting that at some previous workplaces, I've seen lawyers who really resisted it. Um, and they think, "Oh, I'm too busy. I don't have time. But it was actually the really thorough use of that tool that made life so much easier-
[00:13:02] Speaker 3: Because it did that. I mean, I, I just would not function without using that system properly. Because I, I've got too many different things going on, I can't possibly remember it all. Mm. I just can't. I just can't remember- and I would forget important things if I didn't have that.
[00:13:20] Speaker 4: Well, b- because it brings a very high cognitive load to hold all that information in your mind.
[00:13:25] Speaker 4: Right? So the b- the brain is, it's keeping all those loops open. And a lot of the times we and that happens, like it happens to me quite often with my to-do list when I don't sit to say, okay, to digest everything that has happened or all the changes that has happened in the schedule this week.
[00:13:43] Speaker 4: You know, there was like need that moment to, okay, okay, let me get organized. Let me, using the systems that I've created.
[00:13:50] Speaker 4: And look, and, and sometimes when we change scope or we get into, to a, a role that has a larger scope or, uh, there's life changes that happen as well, we have to look at our systems. Is this the best system?
[00:14:03] Speaker 4: That is this still serving me? You know, I, l- often we need to upgrade or changing things around. Yeah, so when we started thinking about like, uh, systems and how do I create structure to best help me deal with my reality, we create space in our brain to thrive. We create sp- a sp- a space for creativity.
[00:14:28] Speaker 4: Which is often responded within the moment.
[00:14:31] Speaker 3: Well, how do we make this practical then?
[00:14:35] Speaker 4: Yeah, so there's a few things I think that we can start playing around with. I find it very useful to decide in advance what will your day look like.
[00:14:50] Speaker 4: For the best of your abilities, right? Like, create a sort of like, well, my priorities today is this top three things that I have to do.
[00:14:59] Speaker 4: The science is what is the hardest thing, and if it's possible, do it when your brain is, has most energy. I mean, obviously, there are meetings and other things in our days, but how do we structure in, in, you know, knowing what you have to do, what is the best that you can do to approach that day that is within your control, of course.
[00:15:24] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[00:15:24] Speaker 4: I-
[00:15:25] Speaker 3: That is, like, that is actually one of the challenges, Carla, that I hear from lawyers. And I've experienced this firsthand. You come in with the best of intention.
[00:15:33] Speaker 3: Even if you think, oh, this is gonna be the most important thing, and then you start that, and then half an hour later you go check your email and then you've got 10 new emails, three urgent matters, or a senior executive wanting to know or wanting you to brief them on something.
[00:15:54] Speaker 3: That un- there, there is a level of unpredictability, right? Yeah. So I think what you said about this is to the best of your ability.
[00:16:00] Speaker 3: B- but what about
[00:16:07] Speaker 3: that initial... Like, like that feeling of bombardment. And I see with the... Like, it's, I think it's easier when you're in a junior level where you might have a less interaction with the executive. If you're in a in-house counsel role or if you're in, um, government, say, or some kind of traditional corporation.
[00:16:28] Speaker 3: But even if you're in a law firm, you might have more con- you get the work from your partner or the associate, and you're going about it doing that. It mi- you know, you'll still get the unpredictability, but probably not at the level that you do at the senior levels where it's coming from all angles, the clients, the seniors, the below you.
[00:16:47] Speaker 3: And that high level of unpredictability just makes it so difficult.
[00:16:52] Speaker 4: Yeah. And what I think in each one of those levels is there is that space to sort of stop and pause and say, "Okay, this is my reality right now. There seems to be lots of urgent things coming my way."
[00:17:05] Speaker 3: Mm.
[00:17:06] Speaker 4: How am I gonna deal with it?
[00:17:08] Speaker 3: Yeah. So it's just that s- it's that thoughtfulness, right?
[00:17:10] Speaker 4: Well, it's, it's pausing, right? Like, and being able to say, "Okay, how do I'm gonna create some priorities?" And sometimes, like, you might not know. It might re- there might be a conversation that you need to put in place. There might be some boundaries that you need to put in place.
[00:17:26] Speaker 4: I, I like to create rules for myself and experiment with them if they're possible. Or I'm gonna check emails, um, I don't know, three times a day if my kind of work allow- allows for that.
[00:17:38] Speaker 4: If as a lawyer might be different. It's how do I work best, Within my current reality. And it's really difficult to say, like, "Well, you know, we should create a top three priority list and that's gonna work for everybody."
[00:17:52] Speaker 4: That's not what we always say. Like, we h- you have to experiment with your reality. And a lot of the times it requires lots of experiments, and come back, like, "I'm gonna try this way. Oh, what worked? What didn't work? How am I adapt?" And it's not easy. Like, I've been doing this for many years, and I'm I'm still experimenting.
[00:18:15] Speaker 4: I- every time the reality changes, which is often. Right? But what becomes ... I think what, what we build over, with the practice over time, is this ability to deal with uncertainty. Yeah. I can pause, and then now this is the priority. And then sometimes it's hard because you've promised something that you're going to do to someone, but now it's different, now has changed.
[00:18:42] Speaker 3: So what I'm hearing there is that the rules can be important, but there's a risk of being rigid. So we can't be rigid- Mm-hmm ... about the rules. We have to be flexible.
[00:18:52] Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely, right? Like, we have to be able to create that flexibility and look at the reality that is in front of us. Like, when we make the plans, we imagine one reality.
[00:19:06] Speaker 4: Like we usually imagine that we are full of energy, that we had a good night's sleep, that, you know, we're feeling great, and, you know, the meetings is gonna run right on time, every single one of them. And that's a lot, a lot of the times that's not the reality. Like, like playing around with the amount of things that you can deal in one day, and being realistic about that.
[00:19:30] Speaker 3: That's a big challenge for me, I have to say. I al- I always want so much.
[00:19:35] Speaker 4: Yeah, me too. But once we reflect, and that is the part where we've a lot of the times we're good at making plans, we're not good at adjusting the plans where needed. And that's a huge part there. We make plans with the best of the intentions.
[00:19:51] Speaker 4: The current reality is different. We don't have the ability to predict all that is happening. Mm-hmm. And so being able to come back, okay, well, how, how is it that my plan ... So the thing that I was suggesting, well, my, I would like my day to go like, like this. Halfway, is it going as I planned? Oh, actually, now, no.
[00:20:07] Speaker 4: Now it has changed. There is an urgent matter here that becomes a priority, so that means I'm not gonna be able to do A, B, and C. All right. With that, what do I need to do? Um, I'm maybe need to communicate f- with this team, or maybe I need to ask for help, or ... You know, and sometimes it might mean that, you know, I'm gonna have to work a little later today to be able to respond to that.
[00:20:34] Speaker 4: But being an exception to the rule, not being the default
[00:20:39] Speaker 3: Yeah, which is what we're talking about ultimately is the, that autopilot is the constant theme that's been running through the last few episodes that we've been talking about
[00:20:48] Speaker 4: Yeah. A- another practice as well that I, I find super helpful, and a lot of the lawyers that, um, I've worked with find it helpful as well it's to be able to close your work.
[00:20:59] Speaker 4: You know, I, I, I like to use the word ritual. Like, when I'm leaving my office, I would like to leave the office. And, you know, like so many of us work from home now today, it's really, like, home is just out that door behind me. So how do we create the signal to our brain once I close my laptop or, you know, once I turn off my computer, when I leave my office, I'm leaving work?
[00:21:25] Speaker 4: Obviously, if it's, that's possible for, for your reality as well. You know, I, I usually go for a walk around the block. That... A- and once you put enough practice into that, y- you know, your brain is disconnecting. Or, you know, I don't know what w- if it's, you know, the people d- live different reality. Some people, some...
[00:21:46] Speaker 4: I, I work with some clients that stop working to pick up the kids from school, for example, at 3:00, and then they will return and work another two hours to finish the day.
[00:21:56] Speaker 3: Yeah, w- what, what comes through with everything that you say is that we need to be adaptable, right? And it's gonna mean different things at different times, and it's not about perfection. I'm thinking about the rituals myself. For me, I shut the laptop, deliberate choice, like a snap shut. It's funny now because my cat knows the ritual, and she will, um, start meowing as soon as she hears that laptop shut because she knows that that's her signal to ask and receive her dinner.
[00:22:25] Speaker 3: So I just think it's funny that the cat has identified the routine. But for me, you know, I'm in a study here that's really my work and creative space. When I leave this room, it's a sense of, "Oh, I'm, I'm not at work."
[00:22:40] Speaker 3: And I've become quite good at that even in l- at lunch times, for example, of not having lunch in my study, making sure that I'm in, o- outside or in the rest of the house, for example.
[00:22:52] Speaker 3: Even for the little micro breaks, right? Even if it's, like, two minutes or five minutes or something, just to- Get that focus, but it obviously changes every day what that might look like.
[00:23:06] Speaker 3: I think moving on though, what I would like to focus on is they're all very good design ideas for individual lawyers to take, but it's important to acknowledge that, you know, a lot of that decision fatigue can be the result of the systems and the cultures that we work and live within.
[00:23:29] Speaker 3: And we kind of touched on this before. You know, I gave you the example of, well, what... Okay, it's all very well for me to have the plan in the morning about my priorities, and then I get all these urgent matters.
[00:23:40] Speaker 3: You might be in an environment where everything is urgent and, and nobody agrees on what's important, and so everybody's burning that cognitive bandwidth all day.
[00:23:50] Speaker 3: Here the responsibility really is on the leaders.
[00:23:54] Speaker 3: Whether you're a partner, whether you're a GC, I think it's really important to think about what am I, what example am I making for my team? Have I clarified, like, what is important? What, what actually matters? What is able to wait? What does success look like?
[00:24:14] Speaker 3: What does urgent actually mean? What does it... When, when do I expect something to be escalated, or when do I escalate something further up? Because if there's no shared understanding, then that system is just not gonna work. It's gonna constantly be triggering these issues. Carla, what's your response to what I've just said?
[00:24:41] Speaker 4: Yeah. What was coming up for me was, like, almost it's thinking, like, it's a space for that self-reflection, space to notice those things. You know, do we have a shared understanding, or is it just an assumption? Or I think people are understanding the same way that I am. Sometimes it's about checking. You know?
[00:25:07] Speaker 4: Because the dynamics are created all the time. You know, a leader works with a team, and there is a dynamic that is happening there. Is that dynamic really serving both of you and your, and your team? And if the, and if the question is not the, there is... That, just that act of noticing opens up to a, a, an ability to create different possibilities.
[00:25:32] Speaker 4: What... H- how might I influence this system a little bit different? And look, and I'm not saying that sometimes it is we are at full capacity, that we need more resources, or the systems that we are using, it might not be serving us. But it's, it's at least stopping and, and looking- And see what can I experiment with
[00:25:57] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[00:25:57] Speaker 3: What is in your power?
[00:25:59] Speaker 4: In your power to
[00:26:00] Speaker 3: improve, right? It's, it's, it might be small, but it will be something.
[00:26:04] Speaker 4: . I would invite people to find one small way to experiment. It might be, you know, how do I wanna feel today? And then create a structure that allows maybe for that to happen.
[00:26:19] Speaker 4: You know, I would like to increase my ability to notice all these things that we are talking about. Maybe I'm gonna create a space in my, at lunch to ask how am I doing. Am I going the way that I had planned my day? A check in. It's a- an experiment. Try to do something for a week and see how it works.
[00:26:41] Speaker 4: Does, is it useful? You know, notice your focus, notice how you react, notice your ability to switch off. Just gathering data. Like, a lot of the things that we are talking about, it's about, like, understanding for yourself what is your reality, and is there aspects of it that you would like to improve or change.
[00:27:10] Speaker 3: So much there, Carla. So much. But on the other hand, it's so, so many ... What I mean when I say that is that there's so many possibilities.
[00:27:20] Speaker 4: Mm.
[00:27:20] Speaker 3: Right? But none of them have to be big. So that's, I think, a really good spot to finish on. Next episode we're going to go deeper into boundaries and stakeholder management.
[00:27:35] Speaker 3: We're going to consider how you can protect your attention without compromising your responsiveness. So thanks for being with us, and if you want the structured system behind this, that's exactly what we build inside The Thriving Lawyer. So thank you.
[00:27:53] Speaker 4: Thank you.
[00:27:56] Kathleen: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the thriving lawyer with Kathleen Brenner and Carla Ferraz, if you like it, please share it with your lawyer friends and colleagues, and tag us on Instagram at @thriving lawyer or on LinkedIn via the links in the show notes. And if you liked what you heard, please drop a review in apple podcasts.
[00:28:19] Kathleen: It really helps spread the word.
[00:28:22] Kathleen: If you'd like to work with us, check out our free resources and our signature course, the thriving lawyer which you will find at www.thrivinglawyer.com.au. You can also download our free guide, the lawyer's guide to thriving: a sustainable roadmap for success.
[00:28:42] Kathleen: It's filled with great tips and ideas so that you can begin to make real change. You'll find the link to that in our show notes.
[00:28:51] Kathleen: We hope this podcast has given you massive value. And that you can use it to begin to create your own thriving life. A life where you
[00:28:58] Kathleen: can
[00:28:59] Kathleen: thrive as a lawyer. And in the rest of your life.
