Systems That Hold Everything (So Your Brain Doesn’t Have To)

Cecilia Poullain shares practical time management strategies for women lawyers aiming for partnership, emphasizing the importance of prioritization, systematization, and realistic goal-setting to prevent burnout.

You can download the free guide on How to Make Partner in a Law Firm on  www.ceciliapoullain.com/free-guide

Transcript

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My name is Cecilia Poulain. Welcome to the Pathway to Partnership Podcast, where we talk about what it really takes to succeed as a woman lawyer in a law firm. Yesterday I had lunch with a five-year PQE, and she told me that a good weekend was when she had two half days off. Most of the time she's working late into the night and all weekend. Those looking at partnership are wondering how they can do it all. And many are asking themselves whether they even want to. Welcome to the Pathway to Partnership Podcast, where we talk about what it takes to build a successful, fulfilling career as a woman lawyer. My name is Cecilia Poulain. I'm a former finance lawyer and I now help women lawyers make it to partnership on their own terms. In each episode I share tools, strategies and stories that help you build your confidence, master client development, and build a practice and life that you love. Okay, let's dive in. I have a friend who set up her practice as a sole practitioner, and before she went solo she deliberately kept her living costs low so that she could work the hours that suited her. She still earns a very decent living and has a wonderful life. I've also heard of a law firm in Paris that offers a very low billable hour target, and the quid pro quot is a lower salary compared to other firms. They understand that they are flooded with candidates. I've never been able to find the name of the firm, but if anyone knows it, please contact me. These stories are few and far between. The more common story is long hours in the office. Yesterday I had lunch with a five year PQE, and she told me that a good weekend was when she had two half days off. Most of the time she's working late into the night and all weekend. Those who are looking at partnership in major firms are wondering how they can do it all, especially if they find themselves on the partnership track at the same time as they're starting a family or having young children, or perhaps are caring for aging parents. Many soul practitioners have a to-do list as long as your arm. What law firms might do to attract and keep talent and provide a better work life balance, and how soul practitioners decide to structure their practices are topics for another episode. What I want to talk about today is what systems you can put in place to get better organized if you do have way much to do on your plate. I know exactly what it's like because that was me. I'm interested in a ton of different things. And as soon as I have ideas, I'm ready to jump in and implement, thinking that I can do it all. But the truth is, I can't. Or at least not all at once. I have had to learn to prioritize, to focus on building my business in my niche, and create time management systems that keep me on track. And my clients are exactly the same. They want to do it all, they want to write a book, be on boards, run associations, be there for their children, have a clean, tidy house, get to the gym, take on that extra client, post regularly on LinkedIn, attend conferences, take potential clients out to lunch. Just listing it all is exhausting. They believe that if they are more efficient, they will be able to fit it all in. And women lawyers absolutely love efficiency. But they hugely overestimate how much they can realistically do. So they keep on adding things to their to-do lists. And at best they get more and more frustrated that they can't get it all done and start dropping plates. And at worst they burn out. Everyone has a breaking point, even you, and it's just a question of when and whether you reach it. Now I want to be really clear about this. Burnout is not a small percentage risk for lawyers. It is massive. Here are some statistics. In France, almost 50% of lawyers say they have already been close to burnout. In the US in 2024, 42% of lawyers reported feeling burnt out. In Australia, 70% reported experiencing burnout in 2024. So this is a big, big deal for this profession. If you look at the people around you at work, we're talking about the person in the next office, and also the person two officers down, and then the person two officers down from them. We're talking about you. The other mistake I see people making is that they don't have proper systems in place. They write things on post-its and stick them up around their computer screen or on their desks. Every day they write a new to-do list on their notepad. They open all their emails as soon as they come in and treat them one by one without prioritizing them in any way. They rela react to the latest emergency. In this episode, I want to share three techniques that have worked for me and my clients in getting the way that we use our time under control. Here's the first exercise, and it's extremely simple. It's the four Ds. Do, delay, delegate, or drop. And the way it works is pretty obvious. You list everything you have to do, then decide whether you will do it, delay it, delegate it, or drop it. And that's the quickest way to get things off your to-do list all together and to focus on your top priorities. It also helps you recognize that you actually cannot do it all, which means that some things won't ever get done. So it's way better to recognize this up front than to maintain unrealistic expectations for yourself, or to create a reputation for yourself as someone who is unreliable. The four D's can be used in combination with the second exercise, which is known by the acronym ICE. I've added an extra E on the end and called it ICE. So IC stands for impact, cost, energy, and my addition is enjoyment. And here's how it works. Once you've run your to-do list through the four D's, you then list everything that's left in the first column of a spreadsheet. In the second column, you estimate the impact of each item on the list in relation to your overall goal. If it's not going to have much impact, you put a one. If it's going to have a massive impact, you put a ten. So that's the I in the impact column. In the next column, the C column, you rate the financial cost of the item. So it's how much will it actually cost you to do that? And then the next column, you decide how much energy it's going to require. And in the last column, how much you expect to enjoy it. And as you work through the list, you'll probably need to go backwards and forwards and adjust. And in a way, that's the whole point. Because really what you're doing is working out what's the most important compared to everything else. So say your current goal is to build your client base. The first item in the list might be write a book. And you decide to give it 10 for impact, four for cost, ten for energy, and three for enjoyment, because you don't really enjoy writing books very much. The second item on the list might be run a conference for 20 ideal clients. You decide to give that seven for impact, six for cost, five for energy, and ten for enjoyment because you really love that sort of thing. So you can see that even if the impact of the conference over time is lower and the cost is higher, it's going to take way less energy, be a whole lot more fun, and still have a reasonable impact. So that's telling you that you might want to either delay writing the book or drop it altogether. And as you go down the list, you'll probably find additional things that you can delay, delegate, or drop. So they're the first two exercises and Icy. Once you've done with those exercises, you should have a good idea of your top priorities. And here's the third exercise. And for me, it's been an absolute game changer. So every Friday afternoon I have 90 minutes blocked out in my calendar for planning my week. And I do all sorts of things in that planning session. I look at where I am on my big projects. I make sure everything is on track for my kids. I think about planning holidays and weekends, check my diary for the next few weeks in case there's anything I need to prepare, and so on and so on and so on. And once I've done all that, I then block out times in my calendar for the next week for everything that I need to do. So for example, this morning I had half an hour blocked out for booking some medical appointments and ordering a new desk chair. And that might sound slightly obsessive and a little bit like control freaky, but those things have been on my to-do list for ages and they weren't getting done. So there's a saying, if it's not in your diary, it's not in your life. And I'm finding that to be incredibly true. So I put those things in my diary, they've been in my life, and now I've finally got them off my to-do list. The problem with only working with a to-do list is that we're perpetually mixing up planning and execution. When we have a dedicated planning session, as I do on Friday afternoons, we're able to use that time to plan our week. And then when we get around to Monday morning, we can then simply execute the plan without spending a lot of time making decisions. We know what we need to do when. Okay, let's recap. We've talked about how to establish your priorities using the 4Ds and IC. We've talked about managing your time using a time management tool, which is your calendar. We've talked about blocking a planning session in your calendar so that you separate out planning time, make sure that everything is captured, and feel more relaxed about the week coming up. Okay, that's it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that today's episode will help you feel more in control of your time and more importantly, more in control of your life. If you know another lawyer who is doing way too much, please share this episode with her. And let's together help more women make it to partnership and thrive when they get there. If you'd like to stay in touch, head over to www.ceciliapoulin.com. You'll find a free guide with some ideas about what it requires to become a partner. Thanks again. See you next episode.