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Scott Benton: Hey everyone, Scott Benton here. How are you? I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast, where we help you easily transition from a law school student into your professional career as an attorney and where we make the practice of law fun. And today we’re gonna take a look at avoiding burnout as an attorney.
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Scott Benton: Today, in order to help assist your overall use of the success cycle, which is what we talk about on this podcast to help you learn and perfect the actual practice of law. It’s a subject that’s not taught in law school. We’re going to take a look at avoiding burnout as an attorney.
As I’m sure you’ve probably figured out by now, the legal profession can be notoriously demanding with long hours, high stakes cases, and intense pressures.
And these challenges can potentially take a toll on both your physical and psychological health. So you really want to find an effective way of managing stress. It’s about maintaining balance, taking necessary breaks to recharge, and balancing your work with your personal life to ensure that you not only continue to thrive in your career, but also that you’re able to maintain a healthy and fulfilling life outside of work.
This above all is going to [00:02:00] make you highly effective while you’re working with clients and delivering legal services on your cases.
Maintaining balance is not just about avoiding exhaustion. It’s about ensuring that you remain productive, engaged, and effective in your role. So if you get to a point of burnout, you want to know that that can lead to decreased performance, poor decision making, and it’s even going to have an impact on your health.
So you really want to make sure that you get in front of it at the very beginning of your legal career.
If you prioritize your well being, you’re simply going to be far more equipped to handle the rigorous demands of the legal practice when you’re working, which in turn is going to help you in your pursuit of reaching long term career success.
So now that we know how important it is to avoid burnout, Let’s consider a few strategies you can use to make sure you’re managing yourself and your schedule in the most optimized way possible. First, you want to manage stress effectively, and there are many solutions out there for you to pick from.
Find the one that works best for you. The [00:03:00] first thing to do is recognize what triggers your stress, whether it’s tight deadlines, or working with clients who are demanding, or Maybe it’s when you feel bombarded from a high workload. Whatever those triggers are, you can find and take proactive steps to manage, or at the very least mitigate, those activities that stress you out the most. So you might look at some stress reduction techniques to use that could include mindfulness or prayer or meditation or even deep breathing that you take a moment to go to a few times a day. In fact, if you haven’t used the Mindfulness app on the Apple Watch, give it a try and just see for yourself how effective it can be for stress reduction throughout the day. You also want to take regular breaks and just step away from your desk in order to improve your focus and productivity.
And it’s also important to take time away from work altogether in the form of personal time off and vacation days. Getting away for a week or two every year is going to become one of the most important keys for resting, recharging the batteries, clearing out the clutter in your mind, and coming back fully refreshed and ready [00:04:00] to go.
But you want to remember to remain consistent. Time off and vacations help create longevity in your career, so you don’t want to ignore them. Taking vacation days and using personal time off, well that means taking time away from the office, is actually going to make you much more productive when you’re in the office, because you’ll have more energy, and you’re also going to look forward to your next upcoming vacation, which gives you something to look forward to.
So that also means you’re going to want to set work life boundaries between your work and your personal life, and that might include only checking emails during a certain time of the day that you schedule on your calendar. Now, some attorneys come into the office in the morning and the first thing they do is they take care of the most important tasks for the day because they know they’re generally the most focused and productive first thing in the morning.
So they’re taking advantage of that self knowledge.
You also want to limit overworking, and you want to avoid taking on too many cases or working excessive hours.
Don’t forget to [00:05:00] prioritize your physical health by going to the gym or getting regular exercise, which is going to have plenty of significant benefits alone. And you want to focus on healthy eating. Work towards eating a balanced diet of whole, nutrient dense foods, and you always want to remember to stay well hydrated.
It.
So balancing work with your personal life is essential for sustaining long term productivity and momentum. By taking care of your well being and attending to the needs of your body, mind, and soul, you’re more likely to remain focused, motivated, and effective in your role as an attorney. Avoiding burnout allows you to bring your best self to your work and to continue delivering high quality legal services.
So, however you go about reducing stress and avoiding burnout, you really want to make sure that you’re prioritizing your time when you’re away from the office. This is exactly how you can ensure that you remain productive and engaged while preserving your own well being. I’m Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast.
[00:06:00] Thanks so much for checking out our channel and listening to this episode. If you like this podcast and you’d like to get more information about us, you can always go to our website at classroom2courtroom. com. That’s classroom, the number two, courtroom. com, where you can send us a message to keep in touch or you can even inquire about our seasonal associate programs we have available for law school students.
You can come and work with us. And as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe to stay on top of all of our newest episodes. And until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place, one client at a time.
