CBA Record May-June 2022

you as it relates to work, odds are you won’t find much of an escape on Instagram either. We get conditioned to react with stress to items that routinely cause us stress. • Use the ‘Do Not Disturb’ features on your phone. You can program these features to allow for calls or messages from specific contacts so that you can be available for emergencies but silent to the more mundane communications. Your notifications will be there waiting for you. • Lastly, follow up with the people you missed when you return. Return ing to the office doesn’t have to be a horrible experience, and it’s less likely to be if you follow through on the communication promises you made and don’t leave anyone feeling unheard or angry. Vacation isn’t just a luxury. Health experts say that you need at least a full week of vacation each year to deal with accumu lated stress related to the workplace. There are real physical and mental health benefits to this stress relief, making it an essential tradition for lawyers. Insist on taking time for yourself with the same level of seri ousness that you extend to your clients. After all, you’ll be a better lawyer for it.

LPMT BITS & BYTES BY ANNE HAAG This Summer, Don’t Forget to Unplug

S ummer time is just around the corner, and hopefully, you have a vacation or time off from work planned. One of the great benefits of the rise of remote work in the past two and a half years is the ability to work from any where. However, this great advantage has its downsides if you aren’t mindful about establishing boundaries. Being able to work from the beach sounds like a dream until you are stuck working from the beach while you’re supposed to be on vacation. Working from a remote location that’s a change from your usual scenery can still be refreshing, but don’t forget to sched ule time to get away from work. In the most recent version of Bloomberg Law’s Workload and Hours survey, 78% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “I don’t feel like I can disconnect from work because mobile devices mean I’m always available.” This response extends beyond the occasional urgent issue that inevitably pops up. Mobile devices have made us more por table, but they can also serve as a tether. This summer, challenge yourself to unplug when you’re on vacation. Maybe you unplug for the entire vacation (urgent pop-ups notwithstanding), or perhaps you schedule a few hours for work in the mornings and leave open for your self the afternoon. Setting expectations before leaving the office is essential, and you need to communicate those bound aries to your coworkers and clients. Pro vide advance notice to active clients and

opposing counsel. Outline your limits in an out-of-office message or tempo rary voicemail message and give people a sense of when you will get back to them and what to do if their matter is urgent. Here are a few other tips to help you stick to the rules you create for yourself: • Plan ahead to get through as many of your “must-do” items as possible before your vacation. Try to ensure no looming deadlines fall during or immediately after your vacation. • When you communicate your vaca tion boundaries to your team and clients, ensure they know what to do when things come up while you’re gone (particularly your team). If you’re confident that your staff can handle things in your absence, you’ll have a greater ability to unwind. Also, make sure they know what to do in an emergency. • If your work phone forwards to your cell phone, talk to your IT department to see if you can set parameters and keep it from for warding, say, after 1 pm. • Schedule vacation and personal time on your calendar like you would a meeting. Then, block it off and protect it. • Create an emergency line (maybe by using a Google Voice number, for example) so that people can reach you for genuinely urgent matters. • Limit all screen time while on vaca tion. If your phone is wearing on

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Anne Haag is the CBA’s Law Practice Management Advisor, a certified crisis intervention counselor, and avolunteerwithResilience as a trauma informed ER advocate for sexual assault survivors.

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