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Case study: Stress Reduction, Time/Energy Management I received an email from "Barbara" (not her real name, of course), who wrote, "It's 4:27 AM and I'm sitting in my bathroom, checking email here so I won't disturb my husband's sleep. I've been here since 3:30, when I woke up in a panic. I am exhausted and I am overwhelmed. I need help with managing my time." When we had our consultation, Barbara, a successful lawyer who had been in practice for about 20 years, described her days in a weary voice. On the go all day and well into the evening, Barbara would typically leave home by 6:00 in the morning and most days she wouldn’t get home until 9:00 at night. She was tired, overwhelmed, angry, and she was experiencing relationship problems. She reported that her husband told her one day, “Even when you’re home, on those rare occasions when you’re not working, it’s as if there’s just a shell there and the rest of you is somewhere else – and I don’t know where.” When I asked Barbara how she felt, she told me that she felt unfocused and disorganized. Moreover, she said, the support staff and the lawyers working with her also felt unfocused and disorganized, and frustrated with her constant activity because no one could get her full attention. She told me, “I love what I do. I’m good at it, my clients like me, and I like my clients, but I can’t live like this. I can’t keep doing what I’m doing. Something has to change or I’m going to burn out. Who am I kidding? I’m already burned out – I’m going to burn out all the way.” We worked together on energy management. Barbara began protecting her physical capacity by deciding that she would take early morning or evening meetings only three days a week, and that she would never schedule those days back-to-back. She decided that she would ordinarily work between 8:30 A.M. and 7 P.M., that she would take 30 minutes at noon for a walk, and that she would leave her work at the office unless she had a specific deadline to meet that required bringing work home. Barbara learned to focus on the task or the person at hand and not to be distracted by her long list of things yet to do. She was able to engage with the people she was working with and to experience positive emotions about her work and about her clients, which reduced her stress level dramatically. Most importantly, Barbara finally reconnected with why she was doing her work. She'd started her practice because she enjoyed the substantive work and felt that she was making a positive contribution, but somewhere along the way she started doing so much that she lost sight of her motivations. Instead of feeling only the grind of her practice, Barbara reconnected with the joy and sense of service. After we worked together, Barbara was able to get more done while she was at work and to enjoy her time away from the office. She had a more settled, focused staff and her clients felt she was fully present. Her husband felt she was fully present when she was at home, no longer worrying about work and spending quality time together instead. She received more referrals because she connected more deeply with clients and others who could send clients her way. She also lost about 20 pounds, which helped to increase her physical energy and her positive outlook. In our last conversation she told me, “This has been a very different approach to practice, and I was skeptical at first! Now I know that if I do the things that I’ve been doing, I can keep going and I can continue this practice. I enjoy it much more, I feel much better, and I am much better at it.” Barbara is a particularly good example of what I have seen numerous clients experience. |
