Unlocking Success: Building routines to help manage your day
As the summer holidays end, it’s time to embrace a new routine and reset. Remember the excitement of preparing for a new school year, gathering fresh supplies, and getting your uniform ready? It’s a chance to feel rejuvenated, organized, and prepared for the upcoming academic year. As parents, juggling school runs, after-school activities, and daily work tasks can be challenging. However, establishing routines can help alleviate stress, create consistency, and improve time management. This ultimately leads to a better work-life balance, allowing you to enjoy quality time doing what you want in the evenings without being glued to your laptop or constantly playing catch-up.
Working in the legal sector can be immensely gratifying, but it also presents its fair share of challenges. Balancing caseloads, client meetings, research, and various other responsibilities daily can be quite demanding. That is why it is crucial to establish an effective routine that allows you to manage your workday efficiently and maintain a healthy work-life balance. To help you achieve this, we have compiled some invaluable tips to inspire you in creating new routines that will effectively manage your day:
- Start your morning right
Start your day off right with a consistent morning routine. Whether it’s energizing exercise, an hour of work before others wake up, savoring a peaceful 5 minutes with your morning coffee, enjoying a hearty breakfast with your loved ones, or taking a refreshing walk, establishing a routine sets the stage for a positive and productive day ahead.
- Make and prioritise a To-Do List:
Create a daily to-list of task plan. Prioritise your tasks based on urgency and importance. You can use tools such as calendars or task management apps to keep track, plus it always feels great when you get tick your tasks off! Some people even find it useful to create these to-do lists the day before.
- Time blocks
Divide your workday into time blocks that are dedicated to specific tasks. For example, reserve mornings for research and document preparation and afternoons for client meetings. This structured approach ensures you allocate sufficient time to each aspect of your role and helps to reduce stress and feeling overwhelmed Have you ever looked at your to-do list and thought ‘where do I even start’… try adding time blocks and work through the tasks in each time block individually.
- Set time for emails and phone calls
We’re all guilty at some point of instantly abandoning a task for an email or phone call, While this can’t be helped sometimes, it is good practice to have dedicated time for checking and responding to emails and phone calls. This avoids constantly switching between tasks which can disrupt your focus and make you feel overwhelmed. You can use automatic replies to let people know when you will be managing your mailbox too.
- Take Regular Breaks
Incorporate short breaks into your routine to recharge and maintain concentration. Brief walks, a cup a tea, a quick stretch, sit in the garden for 5 minutes, ensuring mental breaks to prevents burnout.
- Stick to deadlines
Adhere to deadlines and build them into your routine. Ensuring you are on track to meet deadlines with a good routine means you can stay on track and complete tasks on time, reducing last-minute rushes and stress.
- Review and Reflect
At the end of each day or week, give yourself time to review your accomplishments and adjust your routine as needed. Reflect on what has worked well and what could be improved. It’s rewarding to think of 3 things you have accomplished that day, even if it is just a thought at the end of each day, build a routine that allows you to celebrate your small wins every day.
- Define Boundaries
Set clear boundaries between your work and personal life. Try to avoid overworking, and if you must, set time for this in a calm environment. Ensure you make time for family, hobbies and relaxation.
Establishing consistent routines can empower you to effectively manage your workday. Prioritizing elements such as time management, stress reduction, and work-life balance within these routines allows us to navigate the challenges of our profession while also prioritizing our well-being. It’s important to remember that routines should be adaptable to your unique needs and responsibilities and may require adjustments from time to time. By fine-tuning your routine along the way, you can create a well-engineered system that becomes your strongest ally in achieving professional success, personal satisfaction, and quality time with your loved ones.
Top routine tips from our team
“A routine I use is that if I get stuck on a challenge, I often like to go for a walk and some fresh air to help think of a new approach to solving the given problem.” – Colin Roddick, Senior Software Engineer
“When setting a to do list each morning I think it should form part of everyone’s routine to update timesheets correctly to avoid incorrect data entry.” – Lisa Topham, Cashroom Manager
“My one is ‘Eat the Frog’! It means don’t procrastinate over doing the ‘horrible’ jobs. If you get it done first thing you can enjoy the rest of the day without knowing you have to eat a frog later in the day.” – Cleo Mayhall, Head of Client Services
“I spend 10 minutes at the beginning of every week planning my ‘must dos’ then on a Thursday I review the list to see how I’m getting on and make any changes that I need if priorities have changed. I also block time out in my calendar if I need to focus on something for an hour so that people can see I am not available.” – Rachel Faris, Projects and Compliance Manager
“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail: give yourself 15 minutes in the morning to review your daily tasks and create an action plan in order to achieve your daily goals.” – Richard Evitts, Senior Operations Manager
“To get organised for the day/week, I write down a list of tasks I would like to have completed. I then put a number next to each task to highlight priority. Number 1 being the highest and so on. Then I put calendar appointments into my diary as a plan to stick to and cross off tasks as I go. It is very satisfying to see the tasks being crossed off as the week goes on. If there is a larger piece of work to complete, I would just break that down into smaller tasks and this massively helps show progress and still feels like you are winning.” – Andrew Lowe, Training & Development Manager
To find out about Cashroom and our legal accounting services, get in touch:
P: 01695 550950
About Cashroom
Cashroom provides expert outsourced accounting services for Law Firms including Legal Cashiering, Management Accounts and Payroll services. Our mission is to free lawyers from the complexities of legal accounting by supporting the industry with accurate management information and allowing lawyers to do what they do best – practice law.
The team’s expertise is evident and gives us confidence our funds are in safe hands. Their innovative portal prompts best practice, compliance and provides a clear audit trail as well as enhancing security for our firm and clients. Working with Cashroom assures the continuous running of an essential department for our firm and means we no longer need to worry about holiday cover/sick cover etc as Cashroom has us covered.
