There’s a deeper meaning here for you, which appropriately-enough following a Memorial Day Weekend, was perfectly captured in In honor of the recent Memorial Day Weekend I re-read Tom Brokaw’s 1998 book “The Greatest Generation”, which I highly recommend the audio version narrated by the author.

On it’s surface, this article may appear to be about how the most Successful Rainmakers budget their time to balance work and life. But there’s a deeper meaning here for you that we can all learn from the Veterans Brokaw interviewed for the book who reported the feeling of having “lost” the years they spent at war, and being motivated to find a way to “catch up” upon their return to civilian life. According to the book at least, one of the reason for all the extraordinary civilian accomplishments of so many of those Veterans upon their return was the time and pressure of sitting in foxholes planning and prioritizing the way they’d use their remaining time when they got back.

I’ll leave it to you to decide for yourself if you need to go out and sit in a hole in order to get your own priorities in order or if a few quite hours in an empty conference room with the phone unplugged and the computer turned-off will suffice. Either way, I give you. . .

A Busy Lawyer’s Guide To Budgeting Your Time

24x 7 = 168

There are 168 hours in a week. In the workbook that came with your copy of How To Market A Small Law Firm you should have found a simple worksheet I created to help you budget your time to be sure you get to spend enough of it with family & friends, instead of in the barn with the mule. With proper planning and just a little bit of discipline, you’ll find it takes far less time, than most people think to professionally operate a successful law firm.

Very often, lawyers are actually disadvantaged by our law school education which emphasizes adherence to precedents. Too often the lawyers with whom I share these exercises begin by budgeting the life they are already unsatisfied with, instead of the one they want to lead.

Instead I want you to begin by thinking about every single thing you do in a day from the mundane tasks like eating and going to the bathroom to the truly important activities such as spending quality time with family and exercise. Then list all the things you do for the business including time spent on administrative tasks like paying bills, training staff, marketing, putting out fires, and of course, delivering high-quality legal services. Don’t even bother to think about how much time each task takes. We’ll get to that later.

A “Typical” Time Budget

From the hundreds of lawyers with whom I’ve done this exercise, I have a pretty good idea how you’ll likely want to budget your time. Most lawyers with whom I’ve done this exercise over the years end up budgeting their time something like this:

First, we usually talk about the things they MUST do each day, like eating & sleeping. Almost all of the things that absolutely must get done in a day are biological in nature, but also include things like your commute to & from work.

So, before you can get to your workbook, while you’re driving and just listening, let’s just make some rough estimates.

Budget 8 hours a day for sleep, times 7 days is 56 hours a week for sleep.

Let’s figure most people spend about 2 hours a day on personal hygiene.

I’d like you to budget at least half an hour for breakfast, an hour for lunch and two for dinner every week-day and a little bit more for the weekends, so we’ll figure 20 hours on meals.

And for most lawyers, there’s about an hour-a-day of commuting to & from work five days a week, so that’s 5 more hours for the budget.

That still leaves you with 93 hours you can choose how to use each week. Now, let’s get to the things we want to do, but too often sacrifice to the mule.

I want you to budget at least 10 hours each week to spend with family & friends. If you don’t have any family or friends with whom you can spend the time, use it to find some friends

Budget 5 hours a week for exercise. If you don’t take care of your body, it’s not going to take care of you and you won’t be able to go out and find lots of great clients, or enjoy the fruits of your labors.

Budget a couple of hours a week on any hobbies you have, or just use the time for quite or spiritual time to recharge your batteries.

OK, by this time, you’re well rested, well fed and clean. And you’ve spent some quality time with family & friends and taking care of yourself. Guess what? You still have 76 productive hours left to feed the mule!

WEEKLY CALL TO ACTION

Schedule an appointment with your accountant to learn what the TRUE cost is for all the accounts receivable you’re carrying on your books right now. How many extra hours will you have to work in order to generate that much extra income this month? Be sure to include the time you’ll have to spend marketing to get the work and managing the firm so the work gets done, not just the billable hours.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?”
-Mary Manin Morrissey

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RJon Robins - acclaimed author, lawyer and law practice management consultant - has a challenge for you:

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It's time to start working smarter - not harder. It's time to make it rain. Make this year your year...

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