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LCLMAdmin

This author has written 205 articles

Exercise (a little) Control Amid the Chaos

We all have times in our lives when things feel chaotic; when it feels like everything that is important in our lives is outside of our control and we cannot improve our plight. The typical reaction to this situation is to exert more effort directed at changing things that are outside of our control, followed by an increase in our stress. Obviously, this is an ineffective strategy, yet it is one that we almost instinctively attempt. So instead of running on that hamster wheel, what else can you do?

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Sense of Mission: One Example

Among the numerous factors that seem to contribute to the greatly amplified rate of depression among lawyers is the fact that the sense of mission, of using a law degree to make a positive contribution to the world, which motivation many people to go to law school, can evaporate in the context of real-world ways to make a living and repay those humongous student loans.  Some studies suggest that those lawyers whose work lives focus on doing good for society (typically lower paid jobs) are actually in better moods.

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Thought alcohol was good for you? Not so fast.

It’s annoying, isn’t it, how the news (and not only in the popular press) about how to stay healthy keeps changing?  Some years ago, we began to hear reports that consuming alcohol (sometimes it was red wine, sometimes alcohol in general) was associated with living longer, or at least with less or later death from coronary disease and other things.  That was a little disconcerting to many nondrinkers (those in recovery and also some of the many Americans who abstain for other reasons), and some even wondered whether it was their medical duty to manage a drink or two a day.  (No studies ever suggested that heavy drinking was good for you.)

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Practice Mindfulness Amid the Chaos

One of the ways that stress steals your contentment in life is by how quickly we can start to waste most of our free time thinking and worrying about the future. When you are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, it can be hard to shut off the thoughts about what you need to do tomorrow, how you are going to manage a potential crisis at work, how will your superior at the firm react to you requesting time off, or how you need to pull in more clients to keep the practice afloat. These thoughts often do not have concrete solutions. There are no simple answers that will satisfy the concern that you feel. Yet we almost instinctively respond to stress by wasting more time worrying about the sources of that stress.

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Don’t Go It Alone (You Never Have)

In our world of individual achievements and the importance of a stellar reputation, it is easy to fall into the trap of believing that you need to do things on your own. Be independent. Handle it yourself. Take care of business on your own. Make it happen. And the pep talk continues. The truth of the matter is that none of us have learned to do anything in a vacuum. We all have needed and benefited from the support of others. Whether it was learning to talk and walk when we were wee ones or learning to make a compelling oral argument, we did it with the help of many people in our lives.

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What if your “Power Hour” is during off-work hours?

One of the helpful strategies to improve your productivity and reduce procrastination is to effectively use your “power hour”. The power hour is the time of day (which could actually be multiple hours) that you feel the most energy, the most focus, and can be the most productive. The idea of using your power hour is to identify when it is and plan to work on the most difficult tasks of the day during that time. This works out the best when your power hour is at the beginning of your day so that you can ride the wave of productivity the rest of your workday. But what is one to do when their power hour is at the end of their workday? Or even worse, what if it is during off-work hours?

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Time Management – Where to Start?

There are countless ways of improving your time management and increasing your efficiency. Simply do a Google search for “time management” and you will have pages of resources, web pages, blog posts, and books from which to choose. For example, here is a good place to start. So is this just another blog post on time management to add to the list? Well, technically yes. But instead of giving you specific techniques, this blog post is about how to actually start doing some of those helpful suggestions.

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The Skill of Making Imperfect Decisions

We all want to succeed. We want to make the best decisions, complete our work successfully, and feel competent in the things we are asked to do. However, when our desire for success becomes a pursuit of perfection, analysis paralysis can be the by-product of the fear of failure. When we want perfection so badly or when we fear failing too much, making the wrong decision can seem like the worst thing ever. This can influence us to avoid an uncomfortable decision, feeling frozen or weighed down; your brain unable to act.

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Thinking beyond the Zero-sum Game

In game theory, a zero-sum game is the situation in which one person’s gain is equal and opposite to their opponent’s loss. For one to win or advance, the other must lose or retreat. There are situations in life where the zero-sum game is undeniable. These typically have to do with dividing up commodities (money, time, property, etc.). However, most problems in life have less to do with commodities and more to do with what those commodities represent. Hence thinking beyond the zero-sum game can be one of the most power tools to resolving conflicts.

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