#258: Productive Shortcuts vs. Wishful Thinking

Hello, my friend.

Hope you are doing well. Today I want to talk to you about taking shortcuts.

This episode is for you if you’re all about productivity and finding more peace in your law practice.

I looked up the word shortcut, and here’s the definition:

“An accelerated way of doing or achieving something.”

Shortcuts are an optimization that should result in using less time and energy resources than another way of doing something. Shortcuts should make our lives easier.

The problem I see is that the brain gets confused.

The brain likes easy, but it confuses what feels easy to it to what’s actually saving time and energy resources.

When I first moved to the neighborhood I’m in, I didn’t know all the industrial backroads I could take to get to the main streets. I was being driven around by a friend who knew the area well, and he drove through this little industrial area behind the nearby college and my mind was blown. Now I use this shortcut all the time because it saves me time, gas, and aggravation of going through a different part of town when I don’t have to.

That’s a true productive shortcut because I’m saving time and energy resources.

Contrast that with another scenario where you’re trying to find a shortcut, but you create more of a drain on resources. And in turn it drains your well-being.

I’ve been driving and saw traffic up ahead, and my brain tells me, “You should turn here and try to go around for a shortcut. It’ll be easier.” Then I find myself stuck in traffic anyway and there are one way streets that don’t let me get to the street I wanted to go to. The “shortcut” I thought I was taking turns out to take longer than what it would have taken me to wait in the traffic to get to the other side of it.

This was not a productive shortcut. It was wishful thinking.

Not knowing the difference between productive shortcuts and wishful thinking costs you time and energetic resources.

When you’re frustrated or irritated, you probably notice that it feels draining. Your body gets drained of its fuel. You lose your well-being.

Then as you see your time slipping away, you become more frustrated and overwhelmed, which is the opposite of what you need to fuel you.

What you really need is to re-focus to regain productivity and to regain a sense of peace and well-being in your practice.

It’s not always easy to differentiate between a productive shortcut and wishful thinking.

So in this episode,

• I’ll share how you can tell the difference between a productive shortcut and wishful thinking
• 3 examples of wishful thinking, so you’ll learn how to see if wishful thinking is running your law practice (you probably are, so you’ll want to hear these)
• You’re also going to learn tips to regain your focus to fuel the results you want to see

Here’s how you’ll know your brain’s solution is wishful thinking and NOT a productive shortcut

1. You spend lots of time thinking about taking action and much less actually taking action
2. You do things that take your time and energy away from your main goal
3. You’re spending energy in frustration, aggravation and resentment
4. You find yourself procrastinating
5. You feel unfocused or overwhelmed

I’m talking about these in relation to your law practice, but I’m betting they’re showing up in other areas of your life too. Because the way we make decisions determines that results we get. Our brain gets used to filtering decisions in one particular way, and then we funnel all our decisions through that same filter.

In order to get different results, we need to change how we make decisions.

What I work on with my clients is getting their goals clear and then learning how they filter all their decisions.

I. For example, one of the filters — or beliefs — my clients might come to me with is, “I should be working harder.”

So every decision they make goes through that filter.

Their brain thinks that the shortcut is to work harder because if they worked harder then there wouldn’t be so much work. If they worked harder they wouldn’t feel overwhelmed.

As a result, they try to squeeze more work hours in the week or they jam pack their calendar without any breaks or skip the gym to work more.

But this is wishful thinking.

This used to be my go-to shortcut, so get it.

The problem is, the work kept coming, and I didn’t feel any less overwhelmed.

When I removed that wishful thinking filter, I got better results, and so do my clients.

What they needed wasn’t to work harder but to confront the true problem they were avoiding: the discomfort of doing something new.

This new filter they were trying on was to make space for themselves to recharge.

That meant putting themselves on the calendar first and saying no to new tasks, so they could focus on their goal.

It meant saying no to “busy work,” and putting the most important tasks on their calendar that will move them closer to their goal.

This is uncomfortable for people who have been taught that they get approval for working harder or caring for other people more than themselves.

If you don’t realize this is wishful thinking, you will burn out.

To regain your focus, you must put you on your calendar. And not in a small way. I teach my clients to put themselves on their calendar first and to create boundaries, so that they follow through on the time they create for themselves.

Without this crucial time to reset, you will not have the energy or focused time you need to be productive.

II. Another example of wishful thinking is that, “Jumping into my work week will be faster” or “It’ll be faster if I just do it.”

Their brain really believes that they don’t need to do the foundational work.

But it’s the foundational work that makes it easier. That’s why this is wishful thinking.

The lawyers who believe they should just jump into their workweek either don’t use a calendar or write a few vague notes down on their calendar like “get contracts done.”

I even had a client tell me she felt overwhelmed about her Monday. When I asked a couple questions, it turned out she wrote three large projects down on Monday to be done that — when we broke down how long they would actually take — needed to be spread out over 3-4 days.

When we fall for this wishful thinking, we feel overwhelmed, unfocused, and even frustrated. That leads us to stare at our desk, scroll social media, maybe grab something that seems easy but isn’t really on deadline and work on it because it feels like we’re doing something, and we feel unfocused. We waste a ton of time and energy.

When it comes to time management, I have a very clear system I walk my clients through that help them reduce overwhelm and feel focused, and 99% of the time they tell me they feel overwhelmed it’s because they haven’t written out their calendar they way we’ve talked about.

Not because there’s anything wrong with them. It’s just because their brain is in the habit of filtering decisions believing not calendaring is a shortcut.

We work on showing their brain over and over that their old habit of thinking isn’t helpful, and they learn to see the tricks their brain plays on them to get them to stay in the old habit.

They regain their focus when they have a plan that has specificity and they’re thoughtful about the true time they want to spend on projects daily.

Plan your week with specificity even when your brain tells you that you don’t have to. You can get the step-by-step process I teach my clients at dinacataldo.com/busylawyer – Keep in mind that’s just one part of the four-part system I teach my clients, but it’s a great place for you to see what a structure system that helps you regain your focus looks like.

III. Another example of wishful thinking is the thought, “I should figure it out on my own” or it might also show up as believing the thought, “I should push through it.”

This was a big for me. If you’ve been listening to this podcast, you may know that I used to hate to ask for help. And if I believed I could figure things out on my own, I would. If I had something that needed an extension, I wouldn’t ask for help or ask for an extension, I’d just push through.

It didn’t matter how hard I made it for myself. And couple this with the belief that “I should be working harder,” my brain doubly thought this was true. Thinking I should be working harder just supported these two beliefs that I should be figuring it out on my own and I should be pushing through the exhaustion.

Absolutely ridiculous reasoning, I know, but that’s the brain for you. It is not always logical.

If you can relate to this, listen up.

I see this kind of wishful thinking show up with my clients in a few ways:

1. When an emergency happens, and there are deadlines. But they tell themselves they shouldn’t ask for an extension and kill themselves to meet the deadlines.
2. They don’t delegate.
3. They don’t hire help. This includes hiring a coach. I’ve had lawyers tell me that they were going to try to figure things out on their own. If you know someone can help you save time and energy figuring out how to manage your time and mindset around your work to make it easier, there’s no reason not to. You may think it’s reasonable. Your brain may say it’s to save money, but really it’s because your mindset is stuck in believing that “doing it on your own” is a shortcut when really this is wishful thinking.

The problems that show up:

• Exhaustion
• Creating a backlog of cases
• Constantly feeling worry and overwhelm
• Not making time for yourself because you don’t think you have time to make time for yourself
• Not making time for yourself leads to stress-related health problems including weight-gain and high blood pressure
• Feeling unfocused
• Feeling guilty because you’re not spending more quality time with family

To clean all of this up and regain your focus and power over the situation, you must ask for what you need. It might be a continuance, it might be help. But asking for what you need will help you take back some of the energy you’re giving away by avoiding what you really need.

This will feel uncomfortable — at least it did for me — but when I started asking for help, my life became a lot easier.

I used to think that people would think less of me if I asked for help, but I have never seen that to be the case. Don’t let your brain prevent you from getting the help you need.

Let’s do a quick recap.

A productive shortcut is meant to save you time AND energy.

You’ll know your brain’s solution is wishful thinking and NOT a productive shortcut if:

1. You spend lots of time thinking about taking action and much less actually taking action
2. You do things that take your time and energy away from your main goal
3. You’re spending energy in frustration, aggravation and resentment
4. You find yourself procrastinating
5. You feel unfocused or overwhelmed

If you’re noticing any of these symptoms of wishful thinking, book a Strategy Session with me.

You don’t have to waste time and energy feeling stuck.

You can take control of your practice.

All you need to do is decide that you’re tired of trying to figure it out on your own and that you want to create more focus and work-life harmony for yourself.

You can book a Strategy Session with me at dinacataldo.com/strategysession

I hope you have a fabulous rest of your week, and I’ll talk to you soon.

Bye.