First year attorney here. I’m really struggling with work guilt. My OCD-ness and Type A personality is making it really hard for me to stop working at a decent time and go home. I find myself spending long hours in the office during the week and coming in the weekend. Have any of you experienced this? What did you do to combat it? I of course want to stay ahead of my cases as best I can but I’m finding myself consistently exhausted and getting more & more “burnt out” vibes.

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Adopt the mentality that you “work to live” and not “live to work.” And stop doing these long work hours because you’re developing an expectation at your firm that you’re always available and willing to take on more. Yes it’s great to appear helpful and hard-working but you need to set boundaries and stick to it so you can have a life (and rest) outside of work.

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Task lists. What are the next steps that need to be done, focus on them, and cross them off the list.

Depending on your situation if you have a specific caseload, write 3-5 tasks for each case go through them (Alphabetically) and complete all of them in the month.

My first job I had 120+ cases of my own and I did this. It moved all cases along smoothly, was productive, and cut down my stress from not feeling like I did enough

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I am so with you having exact same struggle 😣 waking up even on Monday mornings absolutely exhausted. It’s easy to know it’s unsustainable but to be resistant to new work and partner requests is so difficult!

Yup. Everyday, weekends, last minute situations and getting yelled at it was toxic. I realized all that stress, I was not really learning, constant ridicule, it was getting depressing. I started looking and interviewing. I left that crazy lol. At least I can laugh about it now.

You need to keep the big picture in mind. This is ain’t the 40 yard dash, it’s an ultramarathon that lasts not years but a series of grueling decades. Remember you have an internal physical and mental battery that needs to be recharged and sometimes reset or it will die. Burnout is a big reason why half the profession leaves their law firms after that 10 year mark. They hit zero barrier and need to leave for their own sanity. The ones who last and thrive typically are not the perfectionists or those who grind out 2500 hours a year. They are the ones who do good work efficiently, consistently hit their billable target, play their cards right, protect their rep and, by far most importantly - bring in business. You need to be well rounded and competent, consistent, dependable and likeable. Unfortunately some of the type A traits that make us thorough and effective litigators can also be huge drawbacks. I try to balance it all as best I can. After 10 years it’s still a struggle.

There will always be more work. Always more cases. Always more string cites you could have included. Always more questions you could have asked or more objections you could have raised. Try not to get bogged down in the minutiae. Just keep chugging and set your boundaries.

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