Tag: Priorities

The Bar Exam: Perspective and Self-Care

- Alexis 1 Comment

A stack of law books

Across the United States, recent law school graduates have begun studying for the bar exam, a two-day (sometimes three-day) test offered during the last week of July and also in February).  Each state gives its own version of the exam, which usually includes a day of tricky multiple choice questions and a day consisting of some combination of essay questions, short answer questions, and a closed-universe performance test.  Intensive test-prep courses usually begin in late May, and many test-takers study full-time and then some.

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Resisting Polarization and Encouraging Compassion

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Double rainbow and seagulls over Niagara Falls, with onlookers

We humans like to place people into buckets: good and bad, left and right, us and them. This seems to be an age-old tendency, and it isn’t all that surprising that the rise of social media and the proliferation of news and opinion platforms have allowed our divisions to become more entrenched and more apparent. We can choose to read and listen to only those sources that affirm what we already feel and believe, and we can respond to those who disagree while protected by a screen that keeps us from seeing and experiencing their humanity, their emotional reactions.  Our quickly typed words can be amplified through shares and retweets, carried far beyond the small circles that might once have heard them.

Many, many people have written about the heightened state of polarization in which we live these days, lamenting how destructive it is and postulating about what led to this environment.  It is distressing and disheartening.  But it doesn’t have to be this way.

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To Accomplish What You Want, Write Down More Than Just Your Goals

- Alexis 1 Comment

A dirt road disappears into a tree line under a blue sky

Tracking time is one of the most universally disliked aspects of private law practice.  I don’t think I’ve ever met an attorney who liked having to log every client-related task in six- or fifteen- minute increments.  Tracking and recording your time is a pain.  But it does have its benefits, aside from being able to bill your clients for the work you’ve performed.

When I first left private practice and no longer had to keep daily time sheets, I noticed that I became less productive.  I chatted with coworkers more and took longer lunches.  I spent more time on projects.  These things are not all bad, but I realized at some point that I wasn’t checking items off my to-do list as often as I’d like, and I felt like I was losing momentum.

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Consume Less, Produce More: On Priorities, Focus, and Using My Brain Intentionally

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A square painting of a landscape with a body of water in the foreground and mountains in the background.
Boone Lake in Winter, 2015. Private Collection.

At the beginning of 2016, in addition to making a couple of specific resolutions, I set an intention for the year: Consume Less, Produce More. I wasn’t talking about shopping habits or solid waste, but creative output. I had come to realize that I was spending 30-45 minutes checking Facebook every morning, indiscriminately reading content that others had posted and shared. I was watching Hulu and Netflix while cooking and doing chores, and reading articles online before bed. My focus was being pulled and directed by people other than me. My attention span was shorter than I would have liked, and my once robust flow of ideas seemed to have slowed to a trickle. I reminisced about how much mental energy I’d had ten years before. I decided it was time to take back control of my brain and my time.

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