Episode 110: The Secret to Working Less

You’re listening to The Less Stressed Lawyer podcast, Episode 110. Today, we’re talking all about the secret to working less. You ready? Let’s go.

Welcome to The Less Stressed Lawyer, the only podcast that teaches you how to manage your mind so you can live a life with less stress and far more fulfilment. If you’re a lawyer who’s over the overwhelm and tired of trying to hustle your way to happiness, you’re in the right place. Now, here’s your host, lawyer turned life coach Olivia Vizachero.

Well, hello there. How are you? I hope you’re doing really well. I’m so excited to talk about today’s topic, it came out of a recent coaching session with one of my clients. And as we were having this conversation about this topic, I realized that I have seen so many of my clients struggle with this desire to work less. 

So, I wanted to record a podcast episode specifically on what I consider to be the secret to working less because it’s something that I see time and time again, people want to change about their lives.

And that’s what I’m here for. I’m here to help you change your life, to create a life you’re obsessed with, to live a life with less stress and far more fulfillment. That’s what I’m here for, and this is a big way that people want to achieve that goal. So, let’s dive in. 

So many people have developed the belief that they need to be available around the clock in order to deliver good client service. Now, if this is you, you just know that you’re in the right place and this episode is for you, or you believe something like that, the only way to stay on top of your work is to work until the work gets done.

Now, if that’s how you think about work, you’re always going to be working way more than you want to be. You’re always going to be working nights and weekends around the clock in order to keep up with the demand, because the demand is always going to be there. And to “keep your clients happy,” even though you working fringe hours, as I like to call them, is not what makes clients happy.

I also see so many people that I work with have the desire to work less, but they don’t have the know-how, they really need a strategy to implement in order to actually make working less their reality. So, I’m going to teach you how to do that and give you that strategy in this episode. 

First things first, you always want to check in with your mindset. What do you think about working less? Are your thoughts negative? If you’re not working less and you’re working more than you want to be, then you need to check in with the thoughts that are creating that result. 

Like I said earlier, do you think that you need to work around the clock, or work until the work gets done? If you do, if you think working less isn’t possible for you or that something bad will happen, we’re going to have to start to shift those thoughts and create some safety and security around even just the concept of working less. 

I don’t need you to fully believe that it’s safe and secure. I’d really love for you to just step into possibility that that is attainable, that that might be true. And from there we can start to take different actions. 

But before we get into the action and the strategy, you first need to figure out how much you’re actually working. So many people don’t have a clear understanding of the hours that they’re actually dedicating to work. So, I want you to pay attention to two different numbers. 

Number one, how much you’re working overall, and then how much of that time you’re actually doing work. Because when I used to practice law, I would tell myself that I was working really long days. But if I looked at what I was actually doing during those days, I wasn’t as productive as I thought I was being. I wasn’t actually “working” as much as I felt like I was working.

Now, you might still be working a lot. So, you want to get clear on what the numbers are, and then you can get clear on how much you want to work. We need to know the data between those two figures; the amount that you’re working and the amount that you want to work so we can come up with a game plan for how to whittle that down. 

Now if there’s a big gap between those two numbers, you’re working, let’s say 80 hours a week right now or 70 hours a week, and you’d really love to be working 50 or 40… I am not suggesting that any of these numbers are the right numbers. If you want to work 20 hours a week, that is totally fine. You get to pick what’s right for you. I’m just using typical numbers that I see with my clients.

But if there’s a big gap between those two numbers, how much you’re currently working and how much you want to work, what I want you to do is to not get overly ambitious or go crazy with making too big of a jump too fast. It’s going to send your nervous system into overdrive. It’s going to be way too uncomfortable.

So, I’d much rather have you make incremental changes over time, and work your way down to that lower figure rather than trying to do it all at once, like all in one week. That’s just a recipe for disaster. You’ll set yourself up to fail. It’s going to be too big of a jump and it’ll just be too uncomfortable. 

We’re going to take this slow and steady and make incremental progress. All right? So, what that might look like in practice would be if you are working seven days a week right now; maybe 12-hour days during the week, or 14-hour days during the week, or even 10-hour days during the week, and then you’re also putting in time on the weekends. Maybe it’s less, but like six hours and six hours or something like that.

What I would want you to do, that incremental change would look like, “Hey, I’m not going to work Sundays. I’m going to take Saturdays off. I’m only going to work two hours on Saturday and Sunday instead of six hours each of those days. For my weekdays, I’m going to cut it from 14 hours to 12 or from 12 hours to 10, or from 10 hours to eight or nine.”

So, we’re just going to make little incremental changes in the beginning to create that safety and security that it is okay to work less. All right? That’s just a tip though. 

Now I want to walk you through the strategy that I teach my clients. Because I watch my clients go about this the wrong way, and I want to make sure that you don’t make this one mistake that’s going to keep you stuck in the exact same pattern that you’ve been in; working way more than you want to be working. 

So, first and foremost, like I said, you need to decide how much you want to work, and you want to get really clear on the number of hours and the start and stop times. I know that sounds like a lot of structure. If you are listening to this and you’re like, “Olivia, I don’t like structure,” I really want to promise you that you are going to love the freedom and the free time that you get on the other side of this. So, please just give this a try. All right?

You’re going to decide how much you want to work, total number of hours for the week, and then you’re going to decide how that breaks up over the days. And then, what times you’re going to be working so you have what I like to call “bookends” for the start and stop time of your day.

Because you really need to be clear on when your day starts so you can get to work. And then also, when your day ends so you’re not indulging in confusion. Messing around with ‘I don’t know’ thinking at the end of the day.

“Have I worked enough?” Whether or not you track your time, “Could I keep going? Should I keep going? When am I actually supposed to end? When’s the official end of my day?” None of those excuses or escape routes. We’re going to decide the times so you have complete clarity on when your day ends. 

Then you’re going to limit yourself to that amount. So, you’re going to start your work day on time. And even if you don’t, we’re not going to run long. I’m going to explain in a second why that’s so imperative.

So, you’re going to start your day, and then you’re going to end it at the time that you decide to end it. And you’re going to be really bad at this at first, okay? I just want you to get really ready for that. Prepare yourself. Like I’ve said on this podcast before, it’s going to be really clunky. 

If you’re used to working weekends or working late nights, like I said, what I call “fringe hours”, this is going to be super uncomfortable for you to stop at the time that you agreed with yourself that you would stop working. It is going to bring up immense discomfort.

All of the excuses to continue working are going to come up, so you need to practice embracing that discomfort. You’re going to be tempted to change the plan when it feels uncomfortable, when it feels hard. But you’ve got to resist that urge. You want to keep working on honoring that original decision. 

It doesn’t matter how many days this takes you to get this dialed in, I don’t want you to quit on it. I want you to keep working on honoring that cutoff time that you originally decided upon. I want you to keep working on allowing the discomfort that comes with doing that, too. All right?

And here’s why this works. If you decide how much you want to work and then you honor that, even when it’s uncomfortable, you’re going to get better at making good use of your time during the day and then giving yourself permission to take the evenings and weekends off.

Now, this isn’t going to happen overnight. This is going to happen over a considerable period of time. 

Here’s the mistake that most people make, especially my perfectionists. If you’re a perfectionist, this is for you. They go about working less in the reverse order because it feels so much more “practical”. 

So, instead of deciding how much they want to work, and then constraining to that amount and allowing the discomfort and honoring that original decision and stopping work at the time that they decided to work instead, they tell themselves that they’ll start working less once they’ve perfected their efficiency and their productivity during the work day or the work week. 

If you don’t want to be working weekends and you currently are working weekends, they tell themselves that they have to get that dialed in first before they’re allowed to work less, before they’re allowed to stop using those fringe hours, those nights and weekends for work. 

Now, under this logic, they tell themselves that then, once that’s taken care of, once that’s settled, once they’ve mastered the art of being super efficient and productive during the day, then they’ll give themselves permission to work less and stop working nights and weekends once they’re on top of everything.

But I have seen this time and time again, and that is not how this plays out. Because they don’t get better at being more efficient or more productive during their day. Because they have no incentive to. Because they keep earmarking those fringe hours for work “just in case.” 

And then they tell themselves that their day didn’t go as well as they planned it, and so they “need” to work those fringe hours to make up for it. Here’s the thing with that. When you know that you have this holding pen for work, you will always use it.

When there’s a question mark as to whether or not you’ll use nights and weekends, you will always work them. And you will either fail to make good use of your time during the day or the week… Like I said, you’re trying to not work weekends instead of at night… or you will plan to do too much in a day and overcommit yourself. Which will drive you to justify working nights and weekends. And the cycle will continue.

So, you have to eliminate the question of, “Will I work tonight? Will I work this weekend?” You have to take that off the table by deciding that you won’t first, before you figure out or get that productivity and efficiency dialed in. All right? That’s going to come second.

This part comes first, taking the fringe hours off the table. Like I said, it’s going to be uncomfortable. That is not a problem.

That is the way forward. That’s the path to success here. So, you have to decide how much you’re going to work, honor it very uncomfortably.

And then what’s going to happen is that you’re going to truly learn what you have time to do in the hours that you’ve decided to work. That forced constraint will force you to make better use of your time, because you’re going to stop viewing those fringe hours as extra time that’s available to you just in case you need it. 

Listen, I know this sounds counterintuitive, but it is the most effective strategy I have found for working less. You’ve got to make those decisions ahead of time, practice constraint, and then get clear on what you can actually fit into your day. 

If you keep using that holding pen, if you keep using those fringe hours, you’re never really going to have a grasp on what can be accomplished in your workday. So, you’re going to always overcommit yourself. You’re going to make promises that you then tell yourself nights and weekends are required in order for you to meet those commitments. 

When you make these decisions ahead of time and you practice constraint, you take all of the other options of when you’re going to work off the table. So, when you don’t give yourself another option, other than the time that you’ve already decided to work, you make better use of your time during the day. You have a better understanding of what you can accomplish and you make better use of that time. 

Your buffering is going to go way down, because you’re not going to have that earmarked time, that safety net, if you will, just sitting there available for you. 

Now, you’re also going to have to adjust your mindset as to what enough work is, all right? Because a lot of people are really attached to pretty high numbers… And I know “high” is a thought here. But pretty high double digit oftentimes, double-digit numbers like 10 hours or more. And they think that anything less than that is inadequate. 

I assure you it’s not. That’s just a thought that it’s inadequate. And it’s an optional thought that you can give up right now if you’d prefer to work less than you are currently working. All right? I highly recommend that you do give that thought up. 

But check in with yourself. What do you think is enough work? If you keep telling yourself that eight hours isn’t enough or nine hours isn’t enough or six hours isn’t enough or seven hours isn’t enough, whatever you’d prefer to work, you’re going to keep working more because you’re going to avoid creating an experience for yourself where you feel inadequate.

Now, I remember when I used to think that 12 hours was just barely enough. I used to wear my overworking as a badge of honor when I practiced law. But I would squander… and this is why I brought this up earlier… I would squander so much of that time because I would be telling myself I would plan to be working long hours.

And then I would tell myself that I could just work on it later because I didn’t mind putting in a long day. I always reminded myself, “Well, I have tonight. Well, I have this weekend.” And it actually decreased my productivity. Because I’d hold a question mark over that time block in the evenings and on the weekends, and I would just postpone things for that period of time.

Now, what I watch people do here is they overfill that time block. That reserve, the holdover, the area. I think of it in terms of math, like where the remainder goes. But what they do… Let’s say, realistically you’ve got two extra hours that you could use in your evenings, after you take care of your kids and you make dinner, and between then and when you go to bed, you’ve got two hours or so.

But all day long, you just keep telling yourself, “I can work on that tonight. I can work on that tonight. I can work on that tonight.” You’ll end up earmarking that time in the evening with eight hours’ worth of work. 

I used to be so guilty of doing this, and my numbers were way higher than eight. I would plan like 40 hours’ worth of work for the evenings and way more work over the weekend.

And you could see this show up with my specific actions that I would take. I would be leaving the office at night, and I would pack up a Red Rope or fill up my briefcase with things that I wanted to work on once I got home. It was an insane amount of stuff to do. I remember when I used to have to read trial transcripts or deposition transcripts, I would fill my briefcase with them. 

So, let’s say I was working on a motion for summary judgement and I needed to get through six deposition transcripts. I would put them all in my briefcase and I would plan to read them all at night, because all day long I would tell myself, “I can do that tonight. I can read that one tonight. I can do that tonight. I can do that tonight.”

And then you create an impossible situation for yourself. You set yourself up to fail because there’s no way you can get through that at night. You can see how this habit of just putting everything off into those fringe hours, having that time earmarked for the ‘just in case’ stuff, you end up giving yourself an out for getting that work done during the day. 

Because you can just always do it later. “I can do it tonight. I can do it early tomorrow morning. I can do it this weekend.” And then you’re always pushing stuff off, so you’re not making good use of your daytime work hours. 

When I finally started to really work on my time management skills, I started to pay attention to how I was spending my time during the day. And this is when I became glaringly aware of how I was spending my time. I audited my time. I have a podcast episode on time audits to teach you how to do that. But I audited my time, and I realized the thought that I was thinking was, “I can just do that later. I have time to get that done today.”

So, I’d keep pushing stuff off and then I would be buffering during the day. I wouldn’t actually be utilizing the time that I was “in the office” during the day. This is why I mentioned earlier I want you to check in with yourself. How much are you working? And then, how much are you working during the time you’re working? I know that sounds a little confusing, but I think you know what I mean.

I was at work for 12 hours; and this is back when everyone worked in the office five days a week. But I was at work for 12 hours, sometimes more, but I wasn’t actually working. Or I’d be at the office for eight hours, and I wasn’t working eight hours during that time, because I kept telling myself, “Oh, I’ll get five or six hours’ worth of stuff done tonight.”

In my head, I’m still thinking that I’m going to put in a 14-hour billable day, but my billable hours didn’t add up to that because I wasn’t making good use of my daytime working hours. 

So when this came to my attention, I realized that regardless of how long I was “at work”, I was really only working or billing like eight hours a day. Now, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with billing eight hours a day. Sometimes it was less than that for me, though, for sure, because I was buffering so much. 

But what I could have done instead of “working”… but not actually doing the billable work during that time… instead of “working” 14 hours a day, 16 hours a day at times and only billing eight hours or so, I could have just worked eight or nine hours and billed that time… by actually working during that time… instead of working really long hours but not actually making use of them. Either way, I ended up billing the same amount. 

So, I could have been so much more strategic about how I approached my work; worked the same amount, billed the same amount. And then I would have gotten my fringe time back instead of always devoting that time to work. And I was always frustrated and disincentivized to work at night because I felt like I had been working all day when really I hadn’t been. I was just at work all day not making great use of that time. 

If this is you, that’s why I want you to check in with yourself. How much time are you spending at work, or at your desk or in front of your computer, technically working but not actually working? You want to be clear on what the difference between those two numbers is.

And then you can make this intentional decision, “I’m going to commit to working these hours,” start time and stop time, “and I’m going to hold myself to that so I can stop using this remainder time, this fringe time, to be the saving grace for all of the work that I didn’t get through in the day.”

And when you hold yourself to that, that is what is going to enforce your heightened productivity and efficiency during your work day. All right? 

So, if you want to work less, I want you to trust me on this and give this a try. You might feel guilty at first, or incomplete and unfinished, because there’s still work to be done. Spoiler alert, there will always be more work to be done. 

And all of this will feel super uncomfortable, but I promise you it will not kill you. You need to create a body of evidence that the world will not come crashing down if you give up on that fringe hour work. And the only way to create that body of evidence is to limit yourself, honor those limits, and see what happens. 

I promise you; you will be surprised at what you find. It’s way less of a deal than you assume it will be. The world actually keeps spinning. What’s going to happen is that you’re going to enjoy working less when you honor those limits. And that’s going to help reinforce your original decision to constrain your working hours, because you’re going to like having that free time back. And that’s going to reinforce your productivity during your work day or your work week. 

Again, if you want to stop working weekends instead of just at night, I cannot wait for you to see how this seemingly backward approach makes all the difference. I know it feels like you’re going about this in the wrong way, but I promise you, if you truly want to work less, this is the right way to go about it. All right? So, go give it a try. 

All right, my friends, that’s what I have for you this week. I hope you have a beautiful week and I’ll talk to you in the next episode. 

Thanks for listening to The Less Stressed Lawyer podcast. If you want more info about Olivia Vizachero or the show’s notes and resources from today’s episode, visit www.TheLessStressedLawyer.com.