Happy Thanksgiving from Ireland!
It’s Thanksgiving week – are you stressing about how you’re going to get all the legal work done around your family obligations and Thanksgiving meal prep? Trying to fit a full week of work into the short week so you don’t let anyone (but yourself) down? Wishing you could squeeze in a bit of vacation before the holiday season kicks into high gear?
I have definitely been there – I feel ya, friends!
But it doesn’t have to be that way!
Proof: I’m writing this from family vacation in Ireland, where we will be for longer than a week. I am our trip planner, car travel navigator, and am fully engaged in family shenanigans. There’s no brain space or time in the plan for lawyering (nor do I want there to be!).
I’m not working at all this week, other than writing this note and checking my emails. If something pops up that requires my attention, I can find a pocket of time to address it, but that isn’t at the center of my vacation plan the way it once was.
It’s glorious, and necessary for me to show up as my best self when I’m working.
Gwen Griggs and I built our firm ADVOS legal pllc with the understanding that vacation is part of how we sustain ourselves and our firm. We didn’t get it right the first try (or even the first few), but we did eventually figure it out, and we keep learning and improving everytime someone is O.F.F. (Off For Fun). I’m telling you – it’s worth the attention!
The ability to be O.F.F. and away with my people, fully engaged in a grand adventure, several times a year, is a HUGE part of how I define my PROmance (the practice I love, that loves me back). So building the business model, team, client relationships, systems and tools to support that was critical.
If meaningful time away from your work (without guilt and stress) is part of the picture of your PROmance, please check out ADVOS Pro ‘s O.F.F. and Away Planner and feel free to customize it to your needs. It’s available for free to members of the ADVOSphere (which is our free community for lawyers who want to build their PROmance – join us if you’re not already a member!).
And if you’re feeling a bit frustrated that your firm isn’t delivering on your dreams, check out our PROmance Scorecard. It’s a great way to get clear on where you’re off track, and what to do about it.
This Thanksgiving, among a whole bunch of other things, I’m grateful for a firm that delivers on what’s important to me, especially the part where I get to enjoy the spoils in the company of the people I love most in this world.
I wish that for you, too, from the bottom of my heart.
To your PROmance!
Whit (with love from quirky, gorgeous, story-filled Kinsale in County Cork)