It’s called Time Management and anyone can learn it with a little perseverance. You definitely need to take control of this now before it gets worse and you wind up burnt out. First, you need to look closely at just what your “jobs” are. You are at least a husband/wife/partner, attorney, marketer, financial planner, net worker and whatever other roles are important to you. As you work your time, you need to be aware of these roles and balance them out. By deciding each week what you will accomplish in each category, you will have an overview of that week’s time.
Now I would imagine that your “Attorney” role is bloated and swollen when you look at it beside all your other duties. So let’s cut that down. What work is Urgent and Important? What is Important but not Urgent? What is neither Important nor Urgent? Start with the last category and slash everything that can be dropped, delegated or delayed.
The secret to Time Management is in the planning. If you take the time to organize your time, you are far ahead. Plan also for emergencies. In other words, don’t have such a tight schedule that emergencies are on top of everything else. Be sure you plan each week ahead of time so that you can decrease your stress. If you know exactly what you need to accomplish on Monday, you can relax on Sunday. To start always add 30 minutes to every task and at the end of the week review how you did with your planning. Underestimating time is the most frequent error made by attorneys.
Last, I have a few hints for Family Law Attorneys. Always have a “partner”. This is someone who also does family law and would like to have a reciprocal relationship and cover for each other. This way you can actually go on vacation. Because your clients can be highly emotional, it is important to tell them about this person and that they might be filling in for you in an emergency. You can even show them a picture of the attorney, to make them more comfortable. This actually works for all attorneys but especially important for attorneys practicing in very emotional fields.
Also educate your clients about what exactly is an emergency and when it is important to call you after office hours (which, in reality, is almost never). You need to set some boundaries and not be swept away by people who are very needy. If this is difficult for you, you might want to get a little coaching to help.
I hope this helps and remember: You, Beyoncé and President Obama have the same amount of time in each day! It’s all in how you use that time!