This week in Young, Hungry & Committed, virtual office New York lawyer, Vivian Sobers, struggles to turn her brain off at the end of a busy day of solo law practice.
For better or worse, I’m getting a lot of alone time lately.
Well, sort of.
The Hamsters living inside my head keep me company.
I find that as a solo with a busy law practice, sometimes it’s hard to shut off my brain. Deadlines, arguments, strategies, theories, financials, budgets, and various commitments of every flavor are all jumbled inside my head – running around like a trio of hamsters on a wheel to nowhere.
The upside of The Hamsters is that they are always a source of great ideas. In fact, The Hamsters are responsible for many of the topics I write about in this blog series, and also some of my better legal arguments.
It’s just that The Hamsters almost always have bad timing.
Like a couple of kittens that sleep all day and tussle about all night, The Hamsters do their best work when I am trying to wind down.
Sometimes, after a long day of attending to the needs of my four “kids”: my adversaries, my clients, my staff and the less glamorous details of running my practice, my wish is for a moment of peace. But The Hamsters won’t have any of it.
Make no mistake; I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity to be the matriarch of this dysfunctional family, including our pets. It’s what I signed up for.
Professionally, I do what I love. Not everyone can say that, so I know how lucky I am.
But sometimes, a full night sleep without the whirring of that wheel-to-nowhere would be great.
I did a check-in with some of my colleagues at Law Firm Suites (one of the perks of sharing office space with other solos–the sanity check), and even a few business owners outside of the practice. My sense is that I’m in good company.
It seems that The Hamsters are in no danger of going extinct any time soon.
How about you? Do you have hamsters in your head?
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Vivian Sobers is a commercial litigator pursuing a solo law practice right out of law school. She is a client in Law Firm Suites’ Virtual Office Program. Vivian’s weekly blog series “Young, Hungry and Committed” documents the trials and tribulations of a young attorney navigating her way through the challenging world of self-employed legal practice.
on said:
Those little ‘devils’ are unstoppable, especially when trying to get some quiet time.
on said:
Yes Ms. Somers. As a solo litigation practitioner, albeit in another part of the hemisphere, I Cudnt agree more. I guess these ‘hamsters’ are sin qua non in any solo practice.
on said:
Vivian –
I think it’s primarily a professional problem. Before I retired, I too had the same problem. Even now, though, the situation continues, now about family issues, doctor appointments, etc. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any cure for it.
on said:
Busy people who take their responsibilities seriously often find it hard to switch off. I can certainly identify with your problem. (By the way, the hamsters aren’t where you can hear the wheel going round as you try to get to sleep are they?)
One way I learned to divert myself was not to lay there fighting the thoughts, but to get up and do something else. Read, watch a DVD, listen to music. Eventually you become sleepy and the thoughts have faded away. Back to bed – and get used to operating on limited sleep.
And fading away brings me to the second (and much better) method. I recently had a series of emails that were quite critical and upsetting. I decided not to answer them (no point in getting into ‘he said, she said’) so I deleted them and switched the computer off.
I knew they would come back to me in the night. And when they did, in my mind I deleted them again, switched off the computer and watched it power down. Then, concentrating on the blank screen, turned over and went back to sleep. It also helps if you have something positive and cheerful to switch your thoughts to – but you need to pick the thought early so that it’s ready when you need it.
Or you could oil the hamsters’ wheel!