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We live in a culture that glorifies the hustle, and early in my legal career, I was fully bought in. So when a senior associate I deeply respected criticized constant weekend work as poor case management, it stopped me in my tracks. If the same behavior earns praise from some and criticism from others, there’s no universal rulebook to follow. We get to decide what winning looks like for ourselves, and I find that pretty freeing. Let’s discuss.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Join the 10-week Bright Method program here: https://kellynolan.com/the-bright-method-time-management-course-with-kelly-nolan
Links you might enjoy:
- ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program: If you’re ready for a full time management system that’s realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It’s helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time – and their peace of mind.
- 🌿 Free 3-Day Time Management Program: Get three short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.
- 📱Follow me on Instagram: Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women – like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.
Full Transcript:
Kelly Nolan: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Bright Method Podcast, where we’ll discuss practical time management strategies designed for the professional working woman. I’m Kelly Nolan, a former patent litigator who now works with women to set up the Bright Method in their lives. The Bright Method is a realistic time management system that helps you manage it all personally and professionally. Let’s get you falling asleep proud of what you got done today and calm about what’s on tap tomorrow. All right, let’s dig in.
Hey, hey, and welcome back. [00:01:00] All right, today we’re gonna dive right on in. So when I was first practicing law, very new first-year associate in Boston, I was working closely with a senior associate who I learned a ton from. I consider myself incredibly lucky to have had her as a mentor. And I don’t know, maybe six months in-ish, on a Monday morning, we were getting caught up and I shared that I’d worked over the weekend and I had chatted with this different senior associate at the office, which was common.
I’d see them there often on Saturdays and Sundays. And she kind of scoffed and she said something to the effect of, “If you’re working every weekend as a senior associate, you are doing something wrong. You are not managing your cases well.” Now, I am not saying I agree with her because I know that firms are very different and the expectations can be very different, and there are many firms, especially in New York and other places, that are so demanding that that’s going to happen no matter how well you run your cases. [00:02:00]
So there’s no judgment. But nonetheless, it was a huge light bulb moment for me in that moment because up until that point in my legal career, the hustle had been unanimously glorified. Every conversation with colleagues in elevators, you know, hallways, meeting rooms, all that revolved around how busy we all were, how that was great, how we would be stressed if and when, like, the workload slowed down, all that kind of stuff.
And I do get it ‘cause we were coming out… I mean, I started practicing in 2011. Um, you know, coming out of 2008, I get where people are coming from, but that was the culture I was in, was just, like, how great it was that we were all so busy and, you know, the person who was the busiest won. And so to hear someone who I really respected, I’d learned a lot, she really was on top of her game — she just… I mean, I can’t tell you how much I learned from her. To hear someone like that criticize the constant hustle, at least for more senior colleagues — I mean, it took me aback. [00:03:00]
It was in blinding stark contrast to what others had been saying to me since I started, and it highlighted this to me: you cannot win by everyone else’s rules. The senior associate who consistently worked weekends would likely impress most of the attorneys in our office, and that exact same behavior was the very reason others criticized him.
And I think we’ve felt that — maybe not in the work experience in the same way necessarily, but in other experiences — I think we’ve had that “I can’t please everyone” realization. I think moms have had that probably very often. Most moms have had that I can’t please everyone realization. You know, you spend too much time with your kids according to some, and not enough according to others.
Your kids are in too many activities according to some, but not enough according to others. You know, you might have let them stop an activity too early, or you should have listened to them earlier. It just goes on and on and on. [00:04:00] And while this “I can’t win by everyone’s rules” realization could be felt as depressing on its own, I find it really freeing.
You know, if I can’t win by every single other person’s rules because they’re not aligned — there’s no, like, consistent set of rules across society on most of these things. So if I can’t win by every single other person’s rules, then I might as well figure out what winning looks like to me and live according to that. And I think it’s so freeing as a, particularly as a woman, ‘cause I think that, you know, a lot of us grew up as the, you know, good girl, quote unquote, doing all the things, playing all the sports, taking all the APs, getting into good schools, like, looking good at the same time. [00:05:00]
Like, all these things, and it felt like this is how you do things right. There’s this set of rules that is right, and I must abide by them. And to realize, wait, there’s no one single set of rules I can win by, so maybe I get to decide what my rules are — I think it’s kind of cool. I mean, it’s frustrating in some ways when you can’t win by everybody else, but it’s way more freeing on the whole to decide your own rules.
And I think it’s interesting to start examining where you might be doing things just because you’re trying to please others. You know, if you feel the need to be the first in the office, or have your Slack or Teams availability as green all the time, or be the first to respond to every email, or to say yes to every assignment — if you’re doing any of those things only because you’re trying to please other people, consider that some people are also judging those very activities as well. [00:06:00]
They think it might, you know, show that you’re not exhibiting leadership or strategy, or prioritizing what’s most important, or managing your time well, or so on. And I say that not to shame or add weight to the idea that we should care what others think, but just to point out that if the whole point of doing those things is to please others — and believe me, I have been there, that’s why I feel comfortable speaking to this, ‘cause I’ve done it — know that it’s a losing, impossible battle.
And instead, given all that, you can decide what winning looks like to you and do that. You know, you can decide what your most important activities at work are and prioritize those actions and let go of other activities in whole or in part where they conflict. Doesn’t have to be all the time, but where they conflict, you let them go.
[00:07:00] If being constantly available on chat or email is undermining your ability to focus on, you know, drafting presentations, briefs, thinking about strategy — all of which you know is where your true value lies — let go of being always available. Again, it doesn’t have to be black or white. It doesn’t mean you’re never available.
But for a certain period of time, claim that lack of availability so you can prioritize the things that are most important.
If your workload is impossible and you’ve done everything to get buy-in on making your workload reasonable and all you hear is, “Do it all anyway,” understand that there’s no way you’re gonna win by their rules because just by them saying you should do an impossible amount of work doesn’t mean you can.
And so maybe you just decide what workload is reasonable, what winning looks like to you, what would feel good from an integrity and excellence standpoint for you to get the most important work done, and just let some other things go because you can’t. [00:08:00] You can’t do it all.
I know a lot of this is easier said than done, and I talk to clients a lot about what this actually means in detail and planning it out and all of that. But I just think it’s a really important thing for all of us to hear — when you can’t win by everyone else’s rules, you get to decide what winning looks like for you. It still requires understanding a lot of things about yourself, you know, your capacity, your workload, what you think is important, what your priorities are, making those decisions.
It’s not easy, but it’s empowering and freeing in a way that I find exciting, and I hope you do too. Because I think you’ll be a lot happier and likely better at a lot of parts of your job and life that are important to you.
So here’s to embracing the reality that we cannot please everyone and finding freedom in that. Thank you for being here, and I’ll catch you in the next one.
Links you might enjoy:
✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you’re ready for a full time management system that’s realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It’s helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.
🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.
📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.
