How not to work all weekend

Having fun is a key component of human happiness and productivity.   If your playtime has dwindled since you became a barrister this is how to claw it back.

Accepting the inevitable

Since you’re a barrister I know you spend at least part of your weekend working. I’m not going to try to dissuade you. 

Instead, I’m going to give you a method to ensure you carve out some time for fun.

Create three anchor points

Currently I have two jobs. My day job in a magic circle law firm and Jurilogical – so it’s not unusual for me to need/want/just work all weekend. 

When I told this to my so-got-it-together colleague, Nikki, she rolled her eyes and sent me a link to Laura Vanderkam’s ebook on How to plan a great weekend.

This is the gist. You have 60 hours in a weekend and seven slots to ‘do stuff’. These are Friday evening, Saturday/Sunday morning-afternoon-evening.

These are the anchor points for having fun. Choose three fun things to do at the weekend and schedule them in. Schedule your work around those anchor points.

This is Happiness by Design.

Forgotten fun

If you’ve been working so hard that you’ve forgotten how to have fun, try this.

1. Take a block of post-its
2. Write out 100 things that sound like fun
3. Stick them all on a wall

The first ten will probably be major (do a bungee jump, elope to Vegas, retrain as a brain surgeon). The last 30 will be minor (send a birthday card, watch a TED talk, WD40 that squeaky door).  

One week ahead, pick three things off the wall you’d like to do and schedule them into a weekend slot.

Everything else can fit in around your pre-planned fun, including a slot for focused work on Sunday afternoon.

An unscientific experiment

Last month I carried out an unscientific experiment to validate my assumption that most barristers work all weekend.

If you subscribe to The Jurilogical Edition, you’ll know I send it on the first Monday of the month.

Last month, I sent it on Sunday afternoon and tracked the open rates. 

Ping-ping-ping-ping-ping went my phone, seconds after I pushed send, letting me know that I had momentarily distracted you from whatever you were doing, which – I assume – was working.

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By Heidi Smith
Creator of Jurilogical.com