Monthly Archives: August 2021

The Neuroscience of Sleep and Why We Need It, AILA Video Roundtable on September 1 at 2 pm ET/ 1 pm CT

Posted on August 27, 2021 | Comments Off on The Neuroscience of Sleep and Why We Need It, AILA Video Roundtable on September 1 at 2 pm ET/ 1 pm CT

Sleep impairment impacts focus, decision-making, effective client communication, and making progress on cases. Sleep deprivation starves the lawyer mind of the fundamental ingredients it needs to strategically and logically analyze cases and write persuasively about them. Sleep deprivation will even predict lawyer misconduct.

AILA members may join the September 1, 2 pm ET/1 pm CT video roundtable to discuss the neuroscience of sleep with Joan Bibelhausen, Executive Director of Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers and Robin M. Wolpert, Attorney, Sapientia Law Group, brought to you by the AILA Lawyer Well-Being Committee. I am scheduled to co-host the discussion as a member of the AILA Lawyer Well-Being Committee.

AILA University Video Roundtables are free learning opportunities for AILA members provided via a weekly schedule of live video programming for members to come together from across the country and world to discuss hot topics and network with colleagues in the field. Video Roundtables are part of AILA University programming and each session is hosted by faculty selected for their expertise.

Discussion Topics:

  • Learn How Sleep Deprivation Increases Anxiety, Interrupts Working Memory, and Impairs Executive Thinking
  • Hear The Latest Neuroscience Behind Sleep, and Its Impact On Mental Health, Substance Use, Ethical Behavior, and Performance
  • Get Guidance on How to Achieve Healthier Sleep

Discussion Leaders:

  • Dyan Williams, AILA Lawyer Well-Being Committee, Minneapolis, MN
  • Joan Bibelhausen, Executive Director, Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, St. Paul, MN
  • Robin M. Wolpert, Sapientia Law Group, Minneapolis, MN

If you’re an AILA member, click HERE to register for this live event and receive a free recording.

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Dyan Williams is a solo lawyer who practices U.S. immigration law and legal ethics at Dyan Williams Law PLLC. She is also a productivity coach who helps working parents, lawyers, small business owners and other busy people turn their ideas into action, reduce overwhelm, and focus on what truly matters. She is the author of The Incrementalist: A Simple Productivity System to Create Big Results in Small Steps.

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Make Time Your Ally (not a thing to manage)

Posted on August 25, 2021 | Comments Off on Make Time Your Ally (not a thing to manage)

Do you struggle with time management?

Are you big on planning how you spend your hours?

Do you dread being idle and love being busy?

Industrialization created a clock time mentality. Time is now standardized, visible in the ticking minutes, and outside our existence. Time is a resource to make money, and a thing to be traded, maximized and optimized. So, you end up with busyness, overwhelm, and pressure. And you feel guilty when there’s margin.

This is where time management falls short. It doesn’t really answer the existential question of what really matters.

In episode 33 of The Incrementalist, you will learn: 

1) How idleness aversion and the desire to be productive can interfere with the present moment and the practice of being

2) You do not really control or manage time. The more you try to do this, the more time controls or manages you. Time just is. 

3) The best you can do is make time your ally. When time is on your side, you can fully attend to, actively engage in and fully experience the task at hand. Befriend time so it becomes your ally.  

4) Why it helps to embrace your human limitations and close off other options and possible alternatives

5) Principle 1 of the Incrementalist approach is to choose your top priorities and watch out for middling priorities

6) Principle 2 of the Incrementalist approach is to break down projects into manageable tasks or chunks

7) You become calmer, less stressed and more satisfied when you work within your limits and ground your expectations and goals in reality

8) How the efficiency trap or busyness trap makes you work harder and drive yourself harder, but never gives you enough time

Resources cited:

Music by:

To listen to episode 33,  Make Time Your Ally (not a thing to manage), click here. If you prefer to read the transcript, go here. Subscribe to The Incrementalist at Apple Podcasts or other apps.

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Dyan Williams is a solo lawyer who practices U.S. immigration law and legal ethics at Dyan Williams Law PLLC. She is also a productivity coach who helps working parents, lawyers, small business owners and other busy people turn their ideas into action, reduce overwhelm, and focus on what truly matters. She is the author of The Incrementalist: A Simple Productivity System to Create Big Results in Small Steps.

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Posted in competence, diligence, lawyer well-being, The Productive Lawyer - Productivity + Lawyer Wellbeing Blog

Patience is a Superpower

Posted on August 17, 2021 | Comments Off on Patience is a Superpower

Are you constantly trying to do things faster?     

Do you get frustrated when things take longer than you expected?  

How do you feel when time runs out?  

We often get stressed and anxious when the thing we want done is not done. We want what we want now. We don’t like waiting. Patience is sometimes seen as an anti-skill that wastes time, or a sign of indecisiveness or lack of power and autonomy. But in today’s fast paced world where overwhelm is common and immediate gratification is expected, patience is a superpower.

In episode 32 of The Incrementalist, you will learn:

1) The more you exercise patience as a skill, the better you can focus, step up to challenges that require long-term commitment, and  most important, slow down as needed. 

2) Patience is an essential virtue for navigating uncertainty and embracing the unfinished. With the superpower of patience, we know when to keep going, when to pause, and when to quit. 

3) There’s no point in managing time enough to get everything done. 

  • You will not clear the decks no matter how diligent and deliberate you are.
  • You have real limits that are not easily overcome with automation, delegation, prioritization and optimization.

Music by:

To listen to episode 32,  Patience is a Superpower, click here. Subscribe to The Incrementalist at Apple Podcasts or other apps.

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Dyan Williams is a solo lawyer who practices U.S. immigration law and legal ethics at Dyan Williams Law PLLC. She is also a productivity coach who helps working parents, lawyers, small business owners and other busy people turn their ideas into action, reduce overwhelm, and focus on what truly matters. She is the author of The Incrementalist: A Simple Productivity System to Create Big Results in Small Steps.

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Posted in competence, diligence, lawyer well-being, The Productive Lawyer - Productivity + Lawyer Wellbeing Blog

Make Willpower Irrelevant

Posted on August 12, 2021 | Comments Off on Make Willpower Irrelevant

When you’re building a new habit, do you rely on willpower?

Is willpower the main driver to sustain change?

What can you do when it fails you?

If you want to get to the next level, you need willpower to make creative breakthroughs and steady progress. Don’t you? After all, willpower helps you to beat distractions and delay gratification to make wise choices. But willpower is limited. It gets depleted the more you use it and as the day goes on.

While you could do certain things to boost and improve willpower, you could also shape your environment so you don’t need it. Your situation and circumstances either encourage or discourage positive change.

In episode 31 of The Incrementalist show, you will learn:

1. The stages of change

  • precontemplation (you deny you have a problem)
  • contemplation (you acknowledge there’s a problem and weigh the pros and cons of change)
  • preparation (you commit to the change)
  • action (you behave and act in new ways to effect change, which is shaped by internal factors like willpower and external factors like rewards and consequences)
  • maintenance (you keep the good habits and drop the bad habits)
  • relapse (you slip back into old behavior)

2. Why willpower is not enough to overcome obstacles

3. The problem with decision fatigue and how to reduce it 

  • Make a full, 100% commitment to make the change
  • Get clear and specific on what you really want
  • Define positive goals to approach instead of negative goals to avoid
  • Have implementations intentions and an if-then strategy
  • Choose the big three things you will do to support your priorities
  • Perform a weekly review and planning session 

4. The benefits of imagining the future and future you when making decisions

  • Your future self is how you want to be and show up 90 days, 1 year, and 3 years from now
  • Practice strategic ignorance by blocking things that are not serving your highest goals or desired life
  • Practice strategic remembering by adding reminders of your future self in your current environment
  • Keep visual cues of your wins and progress

5. The importance of making your commitments public and having support networks and accountability partners

6. The Pygmalion Effect, which means you rise or fall to the demands of expectations and situations

  • Your personal history and past affect you, but does not define you, your present, or your future
  • Your emotions are a key source of information in designing your environment

7.  How Forcing Functions put you on the hook for things that matter and help you create desired outcomes

  • Parkinson’s law, i.e. work expands to fill the time allotted for it
  • The 80% approach, i.e. going for 80% gets results while striving for 100% is still thinking about it

8. Peak experiences allow you to stretch and grow beyond your limits

  • The integration of pure work and pure play is necessary for creative insights
  • Mental breakthroughs occur when you engage in deliberate rest, daydreaming and mind wandering, and quiet reflection

9. You usually need willpower to change your environment. But it’s really the environment that allows you to sustain the change.

Resources cited:

Music by:

To listen to episode 31,  Make Willpower Irrelevant, click here. If you prefer to read the transcript, go here. Subscribe to The Incrementalist at Apple Podcasts or other apps.

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Dyan Williams is a solo lawyer who practices U.S. immigration law and legal ethics at Dyan Williams Law PLLC. She is also a productivity coach who helps working parents, lawyers, small business owners and other busy people turn their ideas into action, reduce overwhelm, and focus on what truly matters. She is the author of The Incrementalist: A Simple Productivity System to Create Big Results in Small Steps.

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Dealing with Motivation Ruts and Burnout

Posted on August 6, 2021 | Comments Off on Dealing with Motivation Ruts and Burnout

How are you handling uncertainty in life?

Are you excited and optimistic, or drained and depleted?

Do you know why you do what you do?

What drives you to stick with hard things to get desired results?  

2020 was an especially challenging year. And this year continues to require some extra effort to start and finish things that matter.  Even if you’ve built a business for yourself (like I did), you can still have creative exhaustion and feel trapped by your work.

Maintaining discipline is more critical than having motivation. Preserve your energy and leave some fuel in the tank. Steady, daily progress through discipline allows you to cultivate long-term motivation. When you have autonomy, discretion, rewards that you value, social support, fair policies, and meaningful work, you feel more engaged and less burnt out.

In episode 30 of The Incrementalist podcast, you will learn:

1. Small, key things to do when you’re in a motivation rut and feeling depleted

2. Why maintaining discipline is more important than having motivation

3. The three key dimensions of the burnout-engagement continuum, as defined by Dr. Christina Maslach and Dr. Michael Lieter: 

  • exhaustion-energy
  •  cynicism-involvement 
  • inefficacy-efficacy

4. The six workplace factors that trigger burnout:

  • workplace overload
  • lack of control over your work
  • insufficient reward
  • lack of community
  • absence of fairness
  • conflicting values

5.  External factors and rewards don’t always match with internal drivers and intrinsic motivation

6. How a unique framework – the Motivation Code (MCODE) – helps you to understand what motivates you and why

7. The Motivation Code includes 27 motivational themes that are grouped into six motivational families: 

Visionary

  • Achieve Potential
  • Make an Impact
  • Experience the Ideal

Achiever

  • Meet the Challenge
  • Overcome
  • Bring to Completion
  • Advance

Team Player

  • Collaborate
  • Make the Grade
  • Serve
  • Influence Behavior

Learner

  • Comprehend and Express
  • Master
  • Demonstrate New Learning
  • Explore

Optimizer

  • Organize
  • Make it Right
  • Improve
  • Make it Work
  • Develop
  • Establish

Key Contributor

  • Evoke Recognition
  • Bring Control
  • Be Unique
  • Be Central
  • Gain Ownership
  • Excel

8. What motivates you does not always include work that you love, but involves work that allows you to accomplish what really matters to you. 

9. Use clean fuel to motivate your work and create possibilities, meaning and significance to feel alive and engaged, instead of depleted and drained. 

Resources cited:

  • Christina Maslach & Michael P. Leiter, The Truth About Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do About It
  • Todd Henry with Rodd Penner, Todd W. Hall and Joshua Miller, The Motivation Code: Discover the Hidden Forces that Drive Your Best Work
  • Dyan Williams, Attorney Burnout: The High Cost of Overwork

Music by:

To listen to episode 30,  Dealing with Motivation Ruts and Burnout, click here. Subscribe to The Incrementalist at Apple Podcasts or other apps.

# # #

Dyan Williams is a solo lawyer who practices U.S. immigration law and legal ethics at Dyan Williams Law PLLC. She is also a productivity coach who helps working parents, lawyers, small business owners and other busy people turn their ideas into action, reduce overwhelm, and focus on what truly matters. She is the author of The Incrementalist: A Simple Productivity System to Create Big Results in Small Steps.

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