Work/Life Balance - Not Just a New Year's Resolution
A lot of support staff may be returning to work in January with a new year's resolution to maintain a better work/life balance in one way or another, including by not checking emails or answering calls outside of work hours, by leaving work every day at 5.00pm or by going for a walk on their lunch break.
The truth is that having a proper work/life balance is vitally important for maintaining adequate mental and physical health, increasing productivity and avoiding burnout. This benefits not only yourself personally, but your workplace as well. It should not just be a new year's resolution (and therefore statistically forgotten by about the third week into the year) but something that you practice year-round.
Strategies for Maintaining Work/Life Balance Year-Round
Setting boundaries
The first step to maintaining a proper work/life balance is by setting boundaries. These boundaries are rules that you set in place to ensure that you can effectively manage your work and personal life.
Firstly, think about what is important to your wellbeing and happiness, and what areas of your life you may like to prioritise. This may include things like exercise and physical activity, spending time with your family including your partner and children, socialising with friends or spending time pursuing your hobbies. If you are finding that work is impacting your ability to focus on these key areas of your life, you should think about what rules you might be able set in place to ensure that you can attend to these things.
Some examples might include:
Spending your lunch break out of the office;
Leaving on time at 5.00pm;
Working from home;
Working adjusted hours (i.e. coming in earlier in the morning so that you can leave earlier in the afternoon);
Switching off by not checking emails or taking calls outside of business hours.
You don't need to have a specific reason to create boundaries - it is okay if you simply don't want to check emails or answer calls outside of hours, or if you just want to leave work on time to relax on the couch.
When creating your boundaries, it is important to think about what would realistically work in your role. As support staff, it may be difficult for us to work from home as much of our job is "on the ground". However, you may be able to negotiate some other flexible working arrangements that suit your supervisor and your team, whilst still allowing time for those things that are important to you.
Once you have considered your boundaries, make sure that you discuss these to your supervisor. If you are proposing to work flexibly then you will need to have these arrangements approved by your supervisor.
Whilst it may seem self-explanatory that you want to leave on time, step away from your desk at lunchtime or not answer emails and calls outside of working hours as this is your own personal time, you should still communicate these boundaries to your supervisor to avoid any misunderstandings or your solicitor stepping over your boundaries inadvertently.
Be prepared for your boundaries to get crossed. You may sometimes be asked to work after 5.00pm or work through lunch when something urgent arises. Emergencies happen, and it is okay to be flexible. The important thing is that your solicitor respects that you have sacrificed your time to them, rather than expecting it.
Solicitor management
In an ideal world, your manager will encourage you to maintain a proper work/life balance, ensuring that you leave work on time and have a lunch break each day. Unfortunately, this is not always the case and, in these circumstances, you will need to learn how to work with and manage your manager to ensure that you can do so.
For example, if working strict hours from 9-5 is important to you, try going into your solicitor's office an hour before the end of the day to check what else they need to be done for the rest of the day. This will, hopefully, reduce the risk of your solicitor coming up to you at 4.55 with a heap of work to be done before you leave.
Does your solicitor regularly call and message you outside of working hours? They will quickly get the idea if you do not answer them. If this becomes an issue, you should have a frank discussion with your manager, explaining that you do not wish to attend to work outside of your regular hours.
You should try to avoid allowing your solicitor to become too reliant on you. Your solicitor should be able to attend to simple admin tasks such as scanning and printing documents and sending letters in your absence, should this be required.
Practicing time management & prioritisation
To ensure that you have adequate time for your life outside of work, you should practice time management skills to ensure that you aren't spending unnecessary time at work. We recommend:
Avoiding procrastination at work;
Learning how to correctly prioritise work or, alternatively, ask your solicitor for specific deadlines on tasks that they assign to you - (and informing them when their specified deadlines are unreasonable!); and
Delegating work to admin assistants, if possible.
Reducing your workload
Your attempts to improve your work/life balance may be impacted if you have an unreasonably heavy workload that simply requires you to work additional hours no matter how much you set boundaries or practice time management.
If this is the case, you should speak to your supervisor about ways that you can reduce your workload. This may include:
Hiring additional staff;
Reducing the number of fee earners that you support; or
Delegating work to other support staff and admin assistants.
Add joy to your work day
Work/life balance isn't only about what you do outside of work. You can also add joy and fulfilment to your work day, which makes the day itself more enjoyable. This may include:
Working with great people, and making time during the day to have a chat with your colleagues; or
Joining your firm's social committee or other groups within your firm where you can meet others and work on something different than your usual day to day work.
The most important part of work/life balance is having a life outside of your structured work environment. Do not let your work consume you, no matter how much you enjoy your job. Law is a stressful field to work in, and it is important for us to switch off. We recommend finding things outside of work that you enjoy, taking advantage of holidays and annual leave, connecting with friends and family. All of these things will result in a happier you and therefore a happier workplace.
