Athletes understand that proper rest, alongside training and competing, is vital in ensuring peak performance.
Lawyers, by and large, do not yet understand or implement this concept.
Rather, we drive ourselves and our teams very hard, and we are rarely intentional about downtime. Perhaps we fear the uncertainty of disconnection.
The perceived wisdom is that downtime is not productive.
But is this right? Have we bought into an unchallenged assumption that ever-increasing workloads equate to success? Or, is rest and recovery (perhaps, simply, doing nothing for a while) in fact vital to our proper functioning as whole people?
Bertrand Russell wrote in his 1932 essay, In Praise of Idleness, ‘there is far too much work done in the world [and] immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous’. Food for thought in the fast-paced legal environment where every second (or every consecutive block of 360 seconds) counts. Where being ‘far too busy’ is lauded.
Let’s think about this a little more logically. A day lasts 24 hours. The larger proportion of that 24 hours you spend working (or thinking about work, or being switched on, or plugged in – whatever term you use), means the smaller proportion of that 24 hours you spend on other activities, such as your family, your friends, your hobbies, your health. Add that up over say a 1,500 week (approx. 30 years) career in law, and it’s possible (and not uncommon) to find that you’re very wealthy, your family are strangers and your health is in tatters.
Don’t get me wrong. Work can be (and often is) fun, challenging and intellectually stimulating. If you’re as fortunate as I am, you get to work with some amazing colleagues and clients.
But work isn’t who I am, and perhaps it’s not who you are? I don’t know about you, but I don’t define myself as a ‘lawyer’. After all, one day I might not be – and then what? I’m a husband and a dad, an avid reader, a mediocre cyclist and a wannabe philosopher.
On a very serious note, as we exit the COVID lockdowns and seek to map out the new work topography, perhaps it’s a good time to challenge our assumptions and give ourselves a little jolt.
COVID has taken its toll, and things are likely to get worse for those who have been running on fumes for so long. LawCare’s recent Life in the Law Report (the largest study in the UK of mental health and wellbeing in the legal profession) found highly increased levels of burnout and stress. We have seen good people leaving the profession in droves (the so-called ‘Great Resignation’), trainees deciding law isn’t for them, and there are reported case of lawyers taking their own lives in some cases. This really isn’t good news, even if many firms have had bumper years.
We can push ourselves, but humans are not designed to push themselves all the time. Increased levels of cortisol produced under stress are important for fight and flight responses, but for most of the time, we don’t need to fight or flee. If we are constantly stressed, constantly checking devices, always plugged in, we’ll stop functioning properly at some point. I have seen this happen to some good colleagues time and time again during my career. Some wonderful people have burned out, and left the profession because they haven’t been able to regulate – or been supported in regulating – the balance between work and rest.
I confess to being a recovering workaholic. And I am not alone. We recently organised an event attended by many senior GCs, following which several of us agreed that we’d try from now on not to work during our holidays and days off. For many of us, this is a seismic shift in how we operate. When I tried this last summer (taking two completely work-free weeks for the first time in 20 years), it felt incredibly liberating – after the palpable anxiety of the first few days. It’s a trick I learned from a former colleague, ten years my junior but light years ahead on that front. Thanks Liam.
In my humble opinion, balance works. The ancient Greeks were on to something with their aphorisms – ‘Nothing to excess’ being inscribed on the Temple of Apollo.
Another Delphic maxim from the Greeks – ‘Know yourself’. Applying this, do we ‘power through’ (awful phrase) each day, or do we take a little time to figure out who we are and what we want out of life, what suits us?
Maybe, maybe not. The point, though, is there is always a choice – the ‘dizziness of freedom’ as Kierkegaard might have called it.
Perhaps we can start to change things for the better by taking regular restful breaks. Perhaps even switch our work devices off in the evenings, and leave them at home when we go away. The world will not stop turning.
If you find yourself in trouble for doing this, or it’s not acceptable to switch off from time to time, then maybe you’re working for a business that grates on your values. In which case, please don’t feel you have to quit the law as a whole, if you really like doing legal work. There are plenty of other options; ultimately it will come down to finding good people to work with, ideally who share your values. Life’s too short to be stuck somewhere that doesn’t work for you.
Who knows – like athletes, we might find that rest, recovery and downtime increase our performance and engagement. Along with the quality of our lives, our health and our relationships.
Sam Jardine is a partner at Fieldfisher and a LawCare Champion.
Anyone working in the law can get free, confidential, emotional support from LawCare on 0800 279 6888, email support@lawcare.org.uk or via www.lawcare.org.uk. They also offer free peer support to those working in the law via a network of around 90 peer supporters, all of whom work in or have worked in the law.
