One of the interesting things about coaching is that periodically, the topics on which I’m coaching someone will rise up and smack me in the face. Pride may go before a fall, but working with someone else on an issue they’re facing seems highly likely in some bizarre cosmic way to raise the same issue [...]
It occurred to me this week that there’s (at least) one activity that, perhaps counterintuitively, is a foundation of work/life balance and productivity: recreation.
While coaching a client this week and introducing Stephen Covey’s Urgent/Important quadrant system for prioritizing and completing tasks, I explained that true recreation — something that’s reenergizing, that “re-creates,” rather than passive activities [...]
Because of the stress of practice, burnout is a real issue for lawyers. Just about every lawyer has at least an occasional period in which it seems that work is pressing 18-20 hours a day, and most of us know intuitively that it’s important to recover following that kind of exertion.Â
But what about the kind [...]
Most of us start each day with a “to do” list, or at least a good idea of what must be accomplished. Time management experts often suggest starting by knocking off the easiest tasks, and overachievers often attack the toughest item first. However, each of these approaches misses the mark and may facilitate being busy [...]
Welcome back from the holiday weekend. I hope everyone enjoyed some relaxation over the long weekend!
I’ve observed over and over that lawyers tend not to be very good at managing in-office problems. It’s easy to try to wait out conflict when there’s a lot going on otherwise, because the work that must be done can’t [...]
I’ve been intending to post about a New York Times article I read a few months ago, and today’s the day. I have noticed recently that I’m receiving a lot of emails informing me that the sender is now limiting the number of times she checks email in the course of a day, and to [...]
One of the most important pieces of coaching rests in illuminating distinctions. I have several favorites that come up in the course of a great many coaching engagements: reaction vs. response, hearing vs. listening, assertion vs. assessment, interesting vs. purposeful, and so on. One distinction is particularly relevant to effective action: busy vs. productive. My [...]
Have you ever had the experience of sitting down to write something important, having a rough idea of what you wanted to say, and yet finding yourself so tired or so distracted that you have significantly reduced ability to get the writing done?Â
I’m not talking about ordinary writer’s block or waiting for a muse to [...]
I’ve been rereading First Things First, by Stephen Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca Merrill recently, as I’m creating my list of “must read” books for clients concerned with time management, work/life balance, and the like. This book was first published in 1994 and I read it then. Perhaps the best accolade I can give [...]
Cristina Favreau, The Savvy Entrepreneur, has tagged me to participate in The Ultimate Guide to Productivity, started by Ben Yoskovitz of Instigator Blog. The rules are as follows:
Write a post on your best productivity tips. Challenge yourself by picking your single best productivity tip (although this isn’t a requirement; you can give us more if [...]
July 24, 2007 
