All of us experience overwhelm at one point or another; some of us more regularly than others. Are you running your practice or is it running you?
What’s the cause of your overwhelm? Is your practice growing? Do you have an exceptionally large case to handle in addition to your regular matters? Has someone else’s cases been delegated to you as a result of a departure? Do you consistently have numerous cases or legal matters on your plate?
While all these situations can cause overwhelm, they may not be the cause of your overwhelm; at least in whole. Consider your own unique situation for a moment. Is it similar to one of the above or is there something else? How organized are you? How efficiently and effectively do you work? Are your office processes streamlined? What about work-flow processes or your own systems for plowing through emails and the piles on your desk? Do you procrastinate, check the news headlines regularly, or drift over to YouTube?
How can you work differently to improve your efficiency and the efficiency of your office systems and work-flow processes? Identify your pain points. The areas you identify as weaknesses; the areas you’d like to see improvements. Then determine what would make the related actions or series of steps become more fluid, and implement new processes accordingly. To help with the process, discuss and brainstorm each of these steps with your managing partner, colleagues, and/or support staff.
Take control back. Make your practice work for you.