In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Sarah Reiff-Hekking discuss:
- Understanding and implementing time management.
- Building the dream job to live your dream life.
- Changing behaviors to change your life.
- Creating the time and environment to focus and do the tasks that only you can do.
Key Takeaways:
- The implementation of time management will look different for everyone because we are all wired differently, be careful what you copy.
- Find what works for you to save you time. The one for you is what will be remarkable for you and your life.
- Use your goals as a prioritizing method – it will make a huge difference for your whole day.
- There are more things that you can control than you think.
- Habits don’t come out of thin air, they come out of practice.
“When, exactly, is the appointment you are making with yourself to do business development? What is going to cause it to be immovable?” — Sarah Reiff-Hekking
Episode References:
Steve Seckler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenseckler/
Atomic Habits: https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits
The Happiness Lab Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-happiness-lab-with-dr-laurie-santos/id1474245040
Connect with Sarah Reiff-Hekking:
Website: https://www.truefocuscoaching.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/truefocuscoaching/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrueFocusCoach
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TrueFocusCoachingFan
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahreiffhekking/
Apply for a Strategic Session with Sarah: https://www.truefocuscoaching.com/apply/
Check out Sarah’s Free Resources: https://www.truefocuscoaching.com/resources/
Thank you to our Sponsors!
Legalese Marketing: https://legaleasemarketing.com/
Moneypenny: https://www.moneypenny.com/us/
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Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: The Ambitious Attorney: Your Guide to Doubling or Even Tripling Your Book of Business and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Show notes by Podcastologist Chelsea Taylor-Sturkie
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
lawyer, people, coaching, business, clients, steve, sarah, management, habits, listening, practice, life, environment, remarkable, helping, deal, planning, legalese, goals, true
SPEAKERS
Sarah Reiff-Hekking, Narrator, Steve Fretzin, MoneyPenny, Jordan Ostroff, Practice Panther
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [00:00]
When exactly is the appointment you are making with yourself to do business development? Yeah, and what is going to cause it to be in movable?
Narrator [00:14]
You’re listening to be that lawyer, life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author and lawyer coach, Steve Fretzin, will take a deeper dive helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here’s your host, Steve Fretzin.
Steve Fretzin [00:37]
Hey, everybody, welcome to be that lawyer. I am Steve Fretzin, your host as the announcer mentioned and I hope you’re having a wonderful day. Listen, it’s all about helping you do what? Yeah, be that lawyer. You said it in your head, didn’t you because you’ve been listening to the show and you’ve been picking up tips and tricks for the last few years. I hope if you haven’t, go back and listen to some of the previous episodes, I can guarantee you, you’re gonna love some of the guests I’ve had on and the kind of takeaways that are going to help you to grow your business and be that lawyer someone who’s competent organized in a skilled Rainmaker, and guess what, everybody today is no different. I have just the most amazing, fun energetic person waiting in the wings. How you doing, Sarah?
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [01:15]
I’m doing great. How about you, Steve?
Steve Fretzin [01:17]
Good. Are you going to live up to that fun, energetic thing I just set you up for I am happy to do that. Oh, I no pressure just saying we I think already our conversations have been fun, energetic and very interesting. And you already kind of like right when we started the conversation you already getting on me about something that I wasn’t doing very well in the time management side. So you’re just you’re just you don’t turn off? Do you just you’re just always going to be efficient and help people with efficiency.
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [01:43]
I do my best I do my best. With that said with colleagues and friends. I always ask permission first.
Steve Fretzin [01:49]
Okay, okay. With me, you don’t have to with me, you just lay into it. If there’s something you see that I’m not doing, you tell me right away. Sarah, we’re gonna get into you in a second. But I want to of course, thank our wonderful sponsors, we’ve got money, Penny, helping you deal with the issue of answering your phone in a professional way, getting away from those phone trees. We’ve got legalese, helping you on the marketing side to automate your marketing and they just take it off your hands. And of course, practice Panther with the practice management solution to help you automate the way that you’re running your law firm. All right, now we’ve got a quote of the show. And Sarah, thank you so much it is if you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading. So true. So true. So why that quote, that’s a wonderful quote.
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [02:36]
You know, Steve, here’s the thing I see with my clients all the time, and I’m starting to see it too, is that people say they want X ray, they want to be that lawyer. But when you look at what they’re doing, they’re going to be why they’re not going to be that lawyer, because the things that they’re spending their time doing aren’t going to get them to where they want to go. Yeah, so one of the things I like to assess with my clients regularly is, where do you really want to go? What does that look like? And let’s use that to then match up your moments with where you want to go. And that’s called time management.
Steve Fretzin [03:12]
Let me ask you this question that I want to jump into your background. If I had 100 lawyers in a room, okay, it all different solo, big, firm doesn’t matter, all different practice areas? How many of that 100 would you say are efficient in how they use their time and how they manage their time?
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [03:30]
You know, that’s a really good question. But I would say most of the lawyers I work with have a huge amount of improvement that they can make. And it’s not because they’re not smart people. It is not because they don’t know some of the things that they ought to do. But it’s because we are all born with different strengths and weaknesses, and how we noticed the time is passing, how we notice the skills that we use to sequence of things that we need to do. And then on top of that, we either learn things that help us in specific situations where we don’t. So how we manage our time and our tasks today has to do with the brain were born with and then also what we’ve practiced over the last 20 3040 years, right? So really smart people end up in habits that really waste a lot of their time and energy, not because they’re not smart, but because the habit train is really, really hard to change. It’s really, really hard to make a difference there.
Steve Fretzin [04:28]
So quick, funny story. I think it’s funny, you may not other people might not but my grandfather got a call from the library. This is years ago when he was alive. And they he had a book that was late, he hadn’t returned the book. And, you know, he was all worried about it, but he returned the book. Yes, the name of the book, how to improve your memory. So here’s an you know, an older man who took out a book to improve his memory and of course, forgot to return it. So I feel like that might have some synergies to time management. That’s like that’s the thing. We have to learn first to then be able to do business development, marketing, organization management, billable hours, etc. Is that kind of on target?
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [05:09]
Yeah, and here’s the thing, you need to understand it, and then you need to implement it. Okay? The thing that happens with time management is we read about it all the time. And I don’t know, oh, magazine, or, you know, lawyer, weekly, whatever, you know, make up the name, Wall Street Journal. Right? I’m sure in their self improvement, there’s three tips to managing your time. More effectively, right. So we hear it all the time. And we go yep. Uh huh. Yeah. Uh huh. And then we go into our offices, and we do things the way that we’ve always done them. Yeah. So we don’t stop and say, What are my time wasters and time robbers,
Steve Fretzin [05:48]
right. So it’s gonna be an individual thing, not only figuring out what your deficits are, but it may be its individual about how everybody is going to do it a little differently, to act to actually implement it.
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [05:59]
Absolutely. And one of the things that I share with my clients all the time is that we’re all wired differently. So you have to be careful what you copy. Now, with that said, there’s usual suspects, like you need to have a to do list and a place that you keep track of things because your brain can either be a to do list, or you can do deep dive thinking you can’t do both at the same time. But what your to do list looks like Steve might look different than mine. But what I know is you need one place that everything ends up so that you can do prioritizing and planning and thinking from that list, not from whatever happens to occur to you at any given moment.
Steve Fretzin [06:38]
Yeah. And before we get further into the weeds, because I feel like we’re going into them, and we’re going to be hanging out deep in them for a few minutes after this. I want to just introduce you in a more proper way. Sara rife hacking is the founder of true focus coaching. And you and I met through a wonderful was the mutual friend that introduced us. I’m trying to remember, if Sackler Oh, Steve Sackler, he’s the worst. He’s the worst. No one likes the Second, Steve Sackler could be one of my favorite people, I absolutely love him. He’s a coach and a wonderful guy out in, in the Boston area. In fact, I just sent him a referral. And he just thanked me today. So, you know, listen, you know, mindset of abundance is I think, what they call it. Do me a favor, though. And just give a little background, because you have a very interesting background that might surprise some people as they hear kind of your journey. So maybe take us through the Reader’s Digest version on that.
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [07:31]
Absolutely. So I started my career way back when, as a clinical psychologist, so I went to graduate school to actually learn the mind body connection and be that person that like, mapped out all of this stuff that happened in your brain and how it affected your body. And, as I, you know, had my first dream job, where I was working at an academic medical center, doing NIH funded research and clinical practice, and preventive and behavioral medicine. You know, I had a great time for a while. And along the way, I met my husband, we had the kid. And one day, I find myself leaving my clinic office running like a bad at UCHealth to the north 40 to get into my car and driving like a crazy woman down the highway to go pick up my kid. And I was late. And I said to the daycare provider, like how much do I owe you? Because she had a policy, you know, dollars per minute, like many places like that do. And she looked me in the eye. And she said, Sarah, you know, it’s not about the money. I need you to be here on time. And I really got it and I was no longer walking my own talk. And that’s really the pivotal moment for me where I needed to stop and reassess. So the dream job was not creating the dream life. And that’s the moment where I started to ask myself, first of all, what do I need to change about what I’m doing and how I’m doing it? And then then, ultimately, is what led to me creating true focus coaching?
Steve Fretzin [09:01]
So is that just to just interrupt you rudely? So would you say that’s the be that lawyer tipping point for you? It is absolutely okay, which is, which is a new segment on the show. So we have to announce it now.
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [09:14]
Got it. There you go. I’m out of sequence. Oops,
Steve Fretzin [09:17]
no, no, no, you’re not out of sequence. I just want to make sure people understand that when when someone has a moment that’s so extraordinary and so impactful in their life and makes a major change. We need to really recognize that that’s possible for people that maybe haven’t had it yet.
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [09:36]
Absolutely, absolutely. And what I can tell you that moment doesn’t always feel like an aha moment. It often feels like a holy crap. What am I going to do moment? Yeah. And I was in that moment, knowing that I needed to shift pretty drastically how I was doing things, and I needed to think creatively about how that was going to happen. So that’s when I started to do research and I talked to my colleagues and one of my good friends said there Something called coaching. And I was like, What the heck is that? And so being who I am, I went and explored it and got trained as a coach on top of being a clinical psychologist, so I could really understand what is this service that we call coaching? And what am I doing there? And how is it different than diagnosing and treating mental health issues?
Steve Fretzin [10:18]
With lawyers? It’s not that different? Well, I would say, half of them are mental. It’s what I’m trying to think that happens
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [10:27]
is in coaching, we talk about Good to Great and a lot of clinical practice. It’s not so good to Okay. Yeah, me, I’m in that place where you can be in the okay place. And I can say, Let’s go to great, and help you really get clear about what that is, and use clinical practice, as a grounding point, right? Use what we know, based on empirical literature about what helps you actually change your behavior, because at the crux of it, I’m a behavior change geek, right? Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [10:57]
that’s, that’s really tough to do. But really critical. Most people don’t realize that that’s what it what it’s all about. If you can’t change the behaviors, then you can’t really affect your attitude, your belief and the other kind of things that direct your life.
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [11:12]
Exactly, exactly. And here’s the thing, behavior, change takes effort. And one of the things I do when I work more closely with people is I’m really clear about, here’s some of the changes you need to make. Now let’s customize it. So it works for your brain, your body, your life, your business, because that is what is going to work for you. And so when I talk about we’re all wired differently, be careful what you copy. You know, you just shared before we were on recording that you have a remarkable pad, right? Yeah. As one of your ways to keep track of things that is amazing. Now, I know that would drive me insane. But I if I was working with you, as a coach, I’d be like, cool, how are you going to use that system and work the heck out of it so that it’s being a workhorse for you? And you don’t have to then worry about where are my notes going? Where’s my to do list? How are you going to find things easily? Quickly there?
Steve Fretzin [12:08]
Yeah. And again, it’s It’s remarkable to everybody if you want to feel like you’re writing on paper, but you don’t ever want to use paper again. I’m totally paper free and have been for Rando maybe the last six months. And again, yeah, it’s not the total be all end all of time management for me. But it’s been a huge, because I used to have the sticky note. I was like the sticky note guy. So like lists of sticky notes. And like I had so Alright, so I need to talk to Sarah. So now I’d start rifling through 1015, sticky notes to find the notes from our conversation we had a week ago. And like, that’s how I was kind of dealing with stuff on paper and folders files. The David Allen label maker deal, right? I mean, I was all on that. No more. I don’t have any files anymore. I don’t have any paper. So anyway, that’s just me. So
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [12:52]
but see if I want to go back to that, because that is a point of where people lose time and energy. Right, trying to find things. Yeah, for sure. So whether it’s an electronic storage format, like you have or it’s it’s hardcopy, I’m agnostic, either one is fine, we need to find the one that works for your brain. And that actually makes it easiest for you to find things and locate them. So you’re not wasting time. Right, you’re not ruffling through all the stickies because you can easily find what you need. Yeah, and there’s many different ways to solve that problem. But the one for you is the remarkable, and that’s all that matter is you’re using that.
Steve Fretzin [13:28]
And so the other thing that I do, and we’re not off track, but I’m just sharing like I take so I take my my remarkable two, I have notes from something from a meeting I had. And I know I have to take action on a couple things on that on that page. This allows me to email me that page of notes. And now it’s in my inbox as an unopened item. And my whole deal with time management for me is I clear out that inbox at the end of every day, I never have something that isn’t then set up in my calendar as a task or something that I need to do. That way I know I can leave my office and leave my day behind me, because I know that if nothing’s opened in my inbox, and my tasks are cleared on my calendar, but that’s another thing about like, you know, I would just have paper with to do’s and things all over versus having them all in one central place.
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [14:15]
Yeah, so that’s a great example of an electronic solution that works for you. Yeah. And then because we’re all wired differently, I can hear somebody saying, well, that’s great, but I need hard copy. Or I’m, I’m a visual person. And so if I don’t see it outside, like if it’s not sitting on my desk, then it doesn’t exist. Right? Right. So there are systems to help that person be as organized as you and no, at the end of the day, things are handled so you can go home and relax or do whatever you choose to do and not be worrying about oh my gosh, I forgot about that. Or how am I gonna remember to do this or where’s that gonna go?
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Jordan Ostroff [16:01]
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Steve Fretzin [16:22]
And so I’ve already brought up like, you know, David Allen with the Getting Things Done, and you know, some of the things that he teaches, and then there’s remarkable too, and now there’s all these automations, and everything’s like happening around us. So what are the various approaches to time management? And then let’s follow that up with like, What are you teaching that’s different or unique to you?
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [16:44]
Yeah, yeah. So there’s really I can tell you four problems that I see most often for people. One is control over time, right? Like, I just don’t even notice time is passing and 90 minutes later, it was only supposed to be a half an hour, and it’s 90 minutes later, right? So there’s that then there’s mechanics and planning, which is, you know, what does your calendar look like? Who’s putting stuff in there? When are you actually planning your day? When are you actually re planning your day? When are you planning your week? When are you thinking about your long term goals? Right? So there’s those pieces. And then there’s this piece about goal setting and priorities. Right. And that is something that again, feels ubiquitous, like I don’t think I’ve been on any business podcast anywhere, listen to one that hasn’t talked about goal setting and priorities being important. But the question becomes, how are you putting your goals together? Are they really targeting where you want to go? Where where you think you should go? Right, really big difference. And it’s also really important to make sure that you’re using those goals as a prioritizing method. Because that is something that most people forget about? And is really what’s going to make a huge difference in your whole day, when you’re able to say, is this thing that came across my desk on my goal list? Is it related to long term meaningful goals? If not, I probably should say no to it.
Steve Fretzin [18:12]
Yeah, and I’ve got clients on fire every day, with billable hours, with new big clients coming in with lack of staffing. And I’m asking them to do business development. And they look at me like I have a third eye in the middle of my forehead. And a lot of it isn’t that they, they do actually have the time they don’t think they have the time they do. But there’s usually some gap or something that’s going on where they haven’t really isolated, where that time is all going. And I think that’s the biggest problem is that many of them are doing tasks that are far beneath their paygrade without realizing it, and how much time that takes. And then it’s just No, they can’t attend this meeting, or they can’t, you know, do business development. And it just frustrates me to the core. And so I try to help them with it. But I don’t think I’m maybe hitting the mark with everyone because I’m not I’m not the same level of game as you have.
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [19:02]
Yeah, so one way to start to solve that problem, Steve, which is huge for most people is when exactly is the appointment you are making with yourself to do business development? Yeah, and what is going to cause it to be in movable? And then I can hear everybody on the line who’s listening go, but that clients gonna call but the associate is going to walk in, but there’s going to be some fire drill. Okay. Yes, there’s going to be a fire drill. But just like when we’re planning for unplanned expenses and your year long budget, we know that you can track your budget and get a sense about, oh, I tend to spend $3,000 a month that is not planned for, but it’s pretty robust. It’s pretty consistent. Same thing happens in your day in your week. That tends to be X number of hours that are spent on fire drills or high highly intense clients or We’re dealing with staff, and it comes to you taking ownership of how much time that is shutting it down when it doesn’t need to happen. And also giving yourself what I called wildcard time during the day, right? Yeah. So plan the most meaningful and important stuff where you’re gonna give yourself some wildcard time so that when the fire drill happens, it’s not a crisis, right? You have time for it.
Steve Fretzin [20:24]
One thing I was taught, I had a group, one of my roundtable groups met this morning. And, you know, I mentioned like, hey, if I set up a meeting with you, and I just blow for lunch, and I just blow you off, and just don’t show up, you’re going to be pretty pissed at me, I’m probably going to feel bad about it, and no one’s going to be happy, or we’re really all both going to kind of feel bad all around. Yet, why don’t what we don’t realize is that when we when we blow off ourselves, when we commit to doing something, and then blow it off, because of something that comes up, then at that point, do we, you know, we’re not hurting anyone else necessarily. But what we don’t may not realize, and you can help me on the psychological side of this, that chipping away at our on our subconscious level at our attitude, our beliefs, and how we feel about ourselves and how we’re not really doing the thing we just promised ourselves we were going to do?
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [21:11]
Yeah, what ends up happening is you start to not trust yourself, because you’re practicing blowing yourself off. Right. So just like, if you always scheduled with that friend who’s likely to be 1520 minutes late, you now are planning that that friend is going to be 1520 minutes late. Or if you always scheduled that friend that blows you off one out of three times, one out of three times, you know, you know, they’re just not going to show up, or you start reminding them, right. Hey, we’re having lunch today, right? Because you don’t want to waste your own time. Right? So we’re ourselves, we have to be really careful of those reminders that we put in our calendars and in our lives that we ignore. Yeah, right. Yeah. And
Steve Fretzin [21:58]
so we gotta we put, but I think that the key thing that we have to hit on and hit on again, is the prioritization, because there are clients that our priority, and guess what, there’s business development efforts that are priority. And there’s a million other things that you’re juggling. And if we just, we just have to say I, in fact, I just published an article it’s going to be that’s in the Chicago de Lobo law bulletin, not about quite winning, but about quitting, quitting, quitting. Like, you need to quit a lot of stuff that you’re doing, that isn’t productive, that isn’t giving you any kind of real juice that isn’t really helping you in your life and your career, or it’s run its course. And I think there are too many people saying yes, and doing too much. And it’s, it’s hurting their ability to prioritize the things that are important.
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [22:42]
Exactly. And, you know, you asked me before about how my philosophy is a little bit different than others. You know, one is, we’re all wired differently. Be careful what you copy. The other one is, it’s all about pruning. Right? It’s all about pruning. So what do I mean, by pruning? I mean, get really freakin clear about your personal and professional goals, the whole life that you want to create. And then when things come across your desk, or pop in your head, or show up on your phone, or on your computer or walk in your room, you’re gonna say, where is this on the goal list? If it is not, you’re gonna say no to it.
Steve Fretzin [23:16]
You’re working backwards, you know, what’s the life you want to have as a lawyer, as a husband, as a wife, as a father, mother, whatever? It what kind of travel? Do you want it? What kind of, you know, whatever. And then what’s it going to take to do that, and then work backwards and just eliminate anything. And that might be that you got to leave your firm and go solo that might be that you need to change firms that might be that you have to get your business development acumen together or your time management together. But there are ways to accomplish things. But I think we’re just being we’re just reactive versus being proactive.
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [23:47]
Exactly, exactly. And here’s the thing, we live in a society that is constantly throwing information at us. It’s beeping, it’s buzzing, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s showing up in person. It’s ringing the bell. It’s all sorts of things. Yeah. So one of the things I also know is that your environment predicts about 80% of what you’re going to do. So if you want to be able to focus, you need to create that time to focus. And that means you need to say no to something, or you need to get really clear about what is your job in the office and what is not your job in the office and get really good about labeling. That is not my job. That is somebody else’s job. And who is that person that’s doing it?
Steve Fretzin [24:31]
Yeah, in fact, I just got done listening to a podcast called The happiness lab. Have you ever heard that? I have. Yeah. And they were talking about how environment is very, very much involved, like who you’re spending time with, but even where me where you live. And they were talking about Denmark and like, you know, just put yourself in the right environments to the degree that you can that might be a firm that has has a toxic culture. That might be a neighborhood where you’re just looking over your shoulder for crime all the time. I’m whatever the case might be, we need to find those those better environments.
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [25:05]
Well, and here’s the thing, lots of times we feel like we can’t control it. So the question always becomes, what can you control? Yeah. And there’s so many things that we can control that we feel like we can’t like, email, I have to respond right away, don’t have to respond right away, Steve, no, you don’t. And you can train people at the increment that you’re going to get back to them. And say, I’ll get back to you within 24 or 48 hours unless it’s urgent. And this is how you label it is urgent for me. So there’s, there’s lots of ways that we can take back little pieces. And you know, you’re mentioning that quiet quitting, and that there’s just lots of stuff we need to quit. But I think what happens is that we forget that we can impact our environment. And lots of times in the legal field, you’re working in an environment that you feel like you can’t impact. So that’s when you ask yourself, Where is the environment that I really do want to work in? And how do I start to make the shifts, much like, you know, when I left academic medicine, who leaves the research career, like you don’t, you don’t leave and then come back, I knew I was going into a completely different space. But now, my life is set up in a way that I love it. And I love what I do every day. And I know I can do all of the other things outside of work that I want to.
Steve Fretzin [26:23]
And I love that you’re bringing in the Ph D psychology element into the coaching atmosphere, because I think you’re able to just really read people and understand people at a level, probably most coaches aren’t able to, I mean, I know a lot of coaches and I’m, I’ve been a coach for 20 years, you know, we’re all self labeled. I mean, there are programs you can go through. But generally, we’re all self labeled coaches. But I just love that you have the you have the Scholastic in that background. On top of the coaching, I really find that fascinating about you, and how you’re able to leverage that to do your job even better.
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [26:59]
Yeah, I love it. As I said before, I’m a behavior change geek. So I’m, you know, I’m always studying, you know, what do we know about how to how to change? And how do we keep it going. And one of the things that’s really, really important is that, number one, you notice that you really want to purposefully make a change, yeah, your environment will pull you in different directions. But if you really want to stop doing something, or start doing something differently, then you need to do it purposefully. And you need to practice it, because habits don’t come out of thin air, they come because we practice.
Steve Fretzin [27:30]
Yeah, there’s a great, there’s a great book I never read, called atomic habits. But there’s a there’s a video on YouTube, and I don’t know who produced it, maybe it was the atomic habits, people but it’s like 35 minutes. And it’s a summary of the book. And I’m not I just someone that needs to take like this is my time management 35 minutes to understand concepts like atomic habits versus hours and hours of reading and note taking and all that. So it’s, that’s a hack right there just watching YouTube videos on stuff that’s interesting to you. But I think, you know, they were talking a lot about, you know, just the simple little hacks and but the one of them is consistency that you have to be consistent with something. And my son and I this has a lot of personal information are trying to lose weight together, not a lot of weight, but a little bit of weight. And we’ve been tracking our calories on an app called lose it. And it’s been fascinating to watch the way that we’re interacting now. Where are you? Where are you today? Where are you now? Did you keep under Did you oh, we need to go for a walk to burn some calories. So we can eat that dessert or whatever. It’s been really interesting, you know, the, to measure and manage what you’re doing, but as a way to build habits. And he’s, he’s a kid who was eating, you know, every night late at night. You know, it’s not real healthy. So
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [28:43]
yeah, so I love the weight loss analogy, because a couple of things, your environment really predicts what you’re going to eat. And if you’re going to move right into your house at the end of the day that you’re starving. And what’s on the counter is your favorite dessert, you’re gonna eat your favorite dessert, right? As opposed to if the favorite if your favorite healthy meal is there, you’re more likely to eat the healthy meal meal. So that’s a great example of how your environment really predicts and pulls you. And the same thing can happen on the time management side, we just get into habits of ways that we do things that take more time and energy. I remember way back when when I was in graduate school, I was a research assistant on a study and this is what we had to do. This is how I was trained to Duke to collect the data. I was trained to go visit the client in the hospital room and then get interview him or her and then later on, go back and get stuff from the medical chart, right which meant that I had a stack of uncollected data on my desk, half collected data. And one day I remember complaining to my supervisor about it and he was like, Sarah, when you’re up there talking to the patient, their medical record is right there. Yeah, you know, in their room or at the desk, and all the information you need is on the top of the chart because it was in the olden days with paper charts. It’s right there on the top, just write it down. And I looked at him and I was like, wow, like it was a completely fresh thought. Yeah. And he said to me, if you design the data collection, that’s how you would have designed it, because he knows I’m an efficient thinker, right? I would want to save people time. But because I was in the habit of doing it that other way, I didn’t even realize that’s like a half an hour plus days and days and hours of worry about when am I going to complete this other stuff that didn’t need to happen?
Steve Fretzin [30:35]
Right, right. Well, fascinating stuff. And just awesome. Let’s go to game changing books. It’s I believe you have E Myth, right, Mr. Michael Gerber. Yeah. Why do you like E Myth? Well, because
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [30:47]
what he does is help us take that 10,000 foot view on what it takes to actually create a business that is reproducible. And when you start to think about your own business that way, then you start to lean into systems that don’t necessarily rely on you. And you start to get really clear about what is your job to do and what is not your job to do. And that is the key to getting the right stuff done during your work day, and then being able to leave work and do the other things you want to do in your life. Yeah. And Bill more hours.
Steve Fretzin [31:20]
Yeah, Bill, more hours more free time, you know, and just enjoy a career. I think that’s the end of the day, what most lawyers would like is to have just a lovely career that they can enjoy and look back on. And, and nobody, nobody’s going to, you know, on their deathbed say, if I only build one more hour, you know, it’s just not not going to happen. So Sara, thank you so much for being on the show. If people want to get in touch with you and learn more about true focus coaching, what are the what are the digits, if you will?
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [31:48]
Yeah, so if you go to true focus coaching.com. There’s a resource page there. There’s lots of great information logs and free classes and those kinds of things. If you want to talk to me directly to see if and how I might be able to support you. You can go to true focus coaching forward slash I’m sorry, Truffaut is coaching.com, forward slash apply forward slash, okay. And you’ll see a webform there, you can give me some details and my team will reach out. We’ll get you in the calendar. Yeah,
Steve Fretzin [32:18]
very good. Very good. I love that. Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing your wisdom. I mean, this is a topic that just needs to get its teeth sunk into the legal industry, because it’s really we’re way behind on, on how we’re how we’re, you know, able to manage all the things that many hats in the many balls that are being juggled. So really, really good stuff. Just thanks so much.
Sarah Reiff-Hekking [32:39]
Thanks for having me.
Steve Fretzin [32:40]
Yeah, my pleasure. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. And hey, everybody. Thank you for spending time today with Sarah and I, hopefully you got a couple of good tips and takeaways. I certainly did. I’ve got my usual page and notes. So really appreciate you doing this. If you liked the show and you’re enjoying it, please tell people about it, share it, share the love, as well as giving us a nice five star review on your Apple phone or wherever you’re listening to this podcast. Thanks, everybody. Be that lawyer someone who’s confident, organized and a skilled Rainmaker and we’ll talk again real soon be well be safe. Take care.
Narrator [33:17]
Thanks for listening to be that lawyer. Life changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website fretzin.com. For additional information, and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes