In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Sarah Tetlow discuss:
- Designing a legal career around fulfillment, not just ambition
- Managing time, attention, and workload with intentional systems
- Reframing legal work through project management thinking
- Reducing overwhelm by structuring email, tasks, and daily routines
Key Takeaways:
- Success without alignment leads to quiet dissatisfaction. Steve shares how chasing scale made him miserable, while simplifying his practice brought clarity and joy. Sarah echoes this by leaving a “fine” but unfulfilling role to build something more meaningful.
- Lawyers must think like project managers, not reactive order-takers. There will always be more work than fits in a day, so the goal is intentional prioritization. Taking a high-level view helps you focus on what truly matters now and plan ahead.
- Most emergencies are not real; they’re the result of poor systems and expectations. Defining true urgency, setting communication boundaries, and using your team to filter interruptions allows you to stay focused on high-value work.
- Strong systems create clarity and control, especially with email and tasks. Treat your inbox as triage, track commitments outside your calendar, and use a simple shutdown routine to prioritize tomorrow. Small habits like this reduce stress and improve consistency.
“Without a system, your inbox becomes a distraction instead of a tool.” — Sarah Tetlow
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About Sarah Tetlow: Sarah Tetlow is a productivity consultant, trainer, and speaker who helps attorneys and busy professionals improve efficiency, reduce stress, and increase focus and revenue. Drawing from her background in law firms, she provides personalized strategies through consulting, workshops, and training that help clients manage their time with a proactive, structured approach. She is also the creator of the ARTT Email Productivity system, which has helped hundreds of professionals take control of their inbox, reduce distractions, and build better communication habits that lead to stronger responsiveness and results.
Connect with Sarah Tetlow:
Website: https://www.firm-focus.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/firm-focus-llc/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Firm-Focus-2133715496717831/
Connect with Steve Fretzin:
LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin
Twitter: @stevefretzin
Instagram: @fretzinsteve
Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.
Website: Fretzin.com
Email: Steve@Fretzin.com
Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!
YouTube: Steve Fretzin
Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911
Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Steve Fretzin [00:00]
Everybody before you the show. Just want to share that something really big is happening. On April 15, we’re going to be launching a new deliverable that will help you be that lawyer, confident, organized and a skilled Rainmaker, something that’s going to be a game changer for you as an ambitious attorney looking to grow every single year. Just keep watching, keep listening, and you’ll check it out soon. Thanks and enjoy the show. You Steve,
Voiceover [00:24]
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, hey everybody.
Steve Fretzin [00:47]
Steve Fretzin, here and welcome to be that lawyer. I’m doing a second take right now because I totally messed up my intro a minute ago, but that’s okay. You know, making mistakes is a part of life, and it’s a part of how we get to be that lawyer, confident, organized in a skilled Rainmaker. I don’t think success happens without hardship and without mistakes. And so that’s what this show is all about. Let’s not make the same mistake over and over again. Let’s keep learning and improving and trying to, you know, have a journey where we become smarter every single day and week and month, and so twice a week, my goal is that we’re helping you do that. And so there’s some people that I love, and I love to bring back. And today, Sarah, you are on that list of who I love, and so I’m so happy to have you back. How are things by you?
Sarah Tetlow [01:27]
Things are great. I’m sitting here in, well, usually sunny California right now today, not so much, but that’s okay. These days happen.
Steve Fretzin [01:34]
Yeah? And congrats on the new book, amazing stuff. Thank you. Yeah. Well, listen, let’s start with your quote of the show. And I know we’re going to get into a lot of stuff about productivity, and then we’ll also want to make sure you share information about your book. The best way to predict the future is to create it. The good old Peter Drucker, so again, welcome to the show and tell us why you love that quote so much.
Sarah Tetlow [01:56]
Yeah, in my book, The perfectly productive day, I put a quote at the beginning of each segment. Each segment is what I look at as the six pillars of the day, morning routine, commute, work day, evening routine, bedtime, sleep. And that quote is, I believe the work day. I know it’s in the book, but I believe it’s the work day, because I do believe that, you know, we might have failures along the way and everything. But ultimately, we own our future. We can design and create whatever kind of future we want for ourselves. And so I just think that’s a really powerful quote to remind
Steve Fretzin [02:31]
us of that, yeah, you know, and it’s funny I was to that point we were talking before we hit record that I had, we’re talking about my big mistake, and not yours, and how I had, like, four or five companies, three offices and some massive overhead before I paid myself, and how terribly unhappy I was with the ambition that I was trying to force upon myself to make $100 million and have, you know, coaching businesses all over the world and all of this, ultimately I was miserable and unhappy, and I cut it all back, and I’ll cut it all out, and I’ve never been happier. And so, you know, sometimes we have to look at at what really what brings us joy and what brings us happiness. And by the way, also can help us provide for our families, because you can be super happy in them living in a box on the street, which I don’t, I don’t recommend for most lawyers, some lawyers, maybe most lawyers, not so much. Yeah. Well, everybody. Sarah Tetlow is the CEO of firm focus, an old friend of mine, and I think this is your second time on the show. I think maybe third, second, maybe third, maybe third. I’m not keeping track, but a three timer, okay, yeah, yeah, but let’s go back and for the folks who don’t know you already, let’s share a little bit about what you do and how you help the legal community.
Sarah Tetlow [03:45]
Yeah. Excellent. Thanks. Steve So at firm focus, and I still very much love the name of my business, because both words have a double meaning, firm focus, we help lawyers and legal professionals with time management challenges, productivity organization, attention management and email management. And I created firm focus after spending 15 years working in law firms and really finding that my passion of those variables, time management and everything underneath it aligned with a need in the industry, a lot of lawyers struggled with the daily proactiveness, mitigating distractions and interruptions, designing that intentional day. So that is what we do at firm focus through coaching, speaking and training and some consultation work specifically in the inbox or introducing project management tools.
Steve Fretzin [04:39]
Yeah, and when you came up as a teenager, you said, I’m gonna get into legal and work with them on productivity. That was your that’s your origin story.
Sarah Tetlow [04:47]
I mean, the origin story was legal side, yes, I always wanted to be a law open site was like second grade. Now, productivity, not really, but if you ask the childhood version of me, or if you looked back at her. She was incredibly organized, always playing school and mentoring and coaching. So I guess it was a natural fit to get here today.
Steve Fretzin [05:08]
And my childhood was spent avoiding Larry the lawyer and all of his questions about, you know, where I what I was doing, and where I was, and what I park on the lawn and things like that, which we won’t get into at this time, but you got here today too. Now I have a lot of questions for my son that he won’t answer, although I will tell you there is a transition happening with teenagers, and for some it happens at 1719, 21, whatever it might be. But I think 19 is the magic number for my kid, Andrew, I’ll tell you he’s he’s just very open to dad and very open. It’s just, it’s a, you know, I just, you just have to be patient. I know it’s hard for the folks out there that have teenagers holding Macker. You just got to be patient, unfortunately. But that’s not our topic today, is it? Sarah, let me ask you this, there are lawyers that are getting crushed on time. I mean, every day is a heart attack. Every day is is weight on the shoulders, pressing them down? How do they start to identify where their time vacuums are, or the things that maybe they shouldn’t be doing, but they kind of find themselves doing on a regular basis? Yeah, I
Sarah Tetlow [06:14]
think it starts sometimes with what I’m going to quote Cal Newport, and slow productivity for a moment, stepping back for a moment, I think taking that 30,000 viewpoint of everything you need to do and incorporating that into, ideally a daily practice, but certainly a weekly practice, because I think the perception has to change a little bit where it’s actually a good thing to have a lot to do, because the alternative universe. Imagine if, even as a lawyer, if you walked into your office each day or opened up your laptop and said, Okay, what’s waiting for me today, who has given me work, who has triaged work to me today and then just handled that work and then said, Okay, I have finished my work for the day. I can close up shop, and then hopefully tomorrow, there will be more work waiting for me. That would be scary in and of itself, and that would be, I equate it to like no offense to baristas. I value them. I enjoy them. I love when they write a little nice message on my cups, but they show up each day and the orders are waiting for them, and then they leave when they’re off the clock, or they finish that particular order for that time of their shift. Lawyers have to be project managers. You have a lot that you need to balance. And so sometimes, by stepping back and prioritizing, effectively, trusting yourself on what you’ve prioritized, and being okay with all right, I at a good stopping point for the day. I got done the top three things, the top five things, the top two things I needed to get done today, and I have a plan in place of how I’m going to tackle and approach the rest of the things I need to do tomorrow, next week, next month, even in six months from now, because that’s often the how much volume of work we have can sometimes extend to months on end. Yeah, I was
Steve Fretzin [08:01]
talking to my group of I’ve teach at class every Tuesday morning. I think at this point, most people know that they listen to the show. But yeah, I got 1618, lawyers in a room. And, you know, I don’t, I’m not focused on time management like you are, and I’m not, you know, the king of productivity or anything like that, but I do have to spend some time on it, obviously, you know, I’d be crazy not to, because it’s so important. But one of the one of the lawyers, had a question about just so many ideas, like, so many different ways to grow business, so many marketing, business development, you know, thought leadership expands. And I, he asked me, and I said, you know, my because I’m this that way too. I’m like, you know, a steam train running, you know, as fast as I can ahead, but I’ve learned that I’ve got to slow down. And so I I take from the EOS handbook, and I say, all right, you’ve got your rocks and you’ve got your like, ideas list. And so there’s the priorities of the rocks, and then there’s the ideas list. You know, the rocks is, you know, five things the idea list could be 20 or 30, right? Yeah, but I don’t even think or look at the ideas list until I clear out the rocks and then know that the next quarter I can bring in is that a system you use, or do you have another system that you teach lawyers that helps them with that particular issue?
Sarah Tetlow [09:09]
Yeah, more or less it’s, I think we have different terminology or ways that we look at it, but it’s the same idea. I think the only shift that I make is if we’re talking about your analogy of the rocks and the ideas list, which I think is great, and I’ll stick with that. The only shift I make is so that we have that comfort of having control still of the idea list, I recommend that we’re still looking at it on some regular basis. Let’s say once a month we’re looking at it, adding to it, taking from it, and from taking from it. Might mean great. I am ready to work on this idea now. But taking from it might also mean that was a silly idea I had when I was stressed out a month ago. I don’t think I’m going to ever do that. Let’s go ahead and get it off this list so. But yes, the same idea applies, where we can do everything all at once, and I call it a trusted system. Is. Essentially where this idea list would be parked, a someday maybe list, an idea list, but somewhere to put these great ideas that we have in the middle of the night or the middle of the work day, or driving somewhere we can park them and then review it on some regular basis.
Steve Fretzin [10:16]
Yeah. And what I, what I love about what you do is there are, there are obviously books out there, and there’s, you know, people that can share an example or a story of what they do to be productive with their time, but you’re in the weeds doing this every day. What are two or three things that you see lawyers, you know, sort of failing on as it relates to productivity, just things that they they should not this is not what they should be
Sarah Tetlow [10:40]
doing emergencies. And your listeners are going to have to define that for themselves, because I cannot define an emergency for you. But I think too often what is not actually an emergency gets treated as such because either we have not yet trained that team member or client, and I could go deeper into those words, but for the sake of our time here, I’ll just say I’m using the word trained our clients, because I do believe we obviously, I believe in client relationships and business development and nurturing our clients. And of course, Steve, that’s very important for what you teach on too. So I am not negating any of that. Yeah, but sometimes what might appear as an emergency is not actually an emergency. It’s just that this client is so used to your behavior of immediately responding to their needs and prioritizing them that it becomes a pattern. The Other Side of emergencies is, I think, often lacking systems of tracking your projects, tasks, to do’s and ideas. What I’ve often seen lawyers do is stop what they’re doing to then work on this, quote, emergency, because they don’t trust themselves. That a, they’re going to remember to do it later. I may not see that email later, and I probably should just take care of it now. It’s just going to take an hour or B, they don’t trust themselves that what they were just working on is truly the priority over whatever came in as this emergency. So one thing would be, as I just explained in all those words, emergencies, and really taking a look at I would recommend approaching it as in my practice and in my world, who or what are the emergencies? For an example, I have a family law attorney. We’ve explored this deeply and ex party. Notice that is an example of a true emergency, where you may need to restructure your day to deal with the next party that came in, but you, each person individually, needs to come up with their list of what are the true emergencies? Or who are the true emergencies, my kid, my spouse, my mom, my dad, this one client, but everyone else I need to re communicate and retrain that my response time is going to be x and then have good systems in place for remembering. So that was one, long one, I think you asked three.
Steve Fretzin [13:01]
Well, let me, let me add on to that for a moment. Then we have two other two. So of course, it always comes to mind. This the movie marriage story, which is just horrific, but Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and another late great Ray Liotta plays the high powered attorney, family lawyer and Adam Driver. And he says, If you have any stupid, if you have any great questions. There won’t be many. You’re going to want to talk to me. I’m 1000 an hour. If you have a bunch of stupid questions, that’s mostly what you’re going to have. You’re going to want to call him. He’s 500 an hour, right? Pointing it as an associate who’s like, seem like, seemingly like, 50 years old. Anyway, that’s nothing anyone would ever do. But that, if we could take that and say, what does it mean? And what did Sarah just share? It’s how do we set expectations in a lovely, wonderful way so that people really understand your availability and how to best work with you? And again, is there someone that is on your team that can take the this is a big one, by the way, for everybody listening. Is there someone on your team, your assistant, your paralegal, your associate who can take 80, 90% of those calls, even after you set expectations, you’re still going to get them coming in, and they’re not emergencies, but you’re not the one taking that call, right? You handle the high level strategic stuff, but that could take, you know, two hours, put two hours back on your plate a day, or five a week, or whatever the number is. So just setting appropriate expectations and having the team mentality, it doesn’t always have to come to you.
Sarah Tetlow [14:28]
Yeah, well, very well said. Thank you. And I have a question for you, Steve, do you have a library of movie quotes just in your head?
Steve Fretzin [14:35]
I have a few that are directly related to what I can use within the confines of the lawyers space. Got it, yeah, but the I don’t even get in, I don’t even scratch the service of movie quotes with some of my friends. I mean, they, they could go through, you know, stripes, or they could go Caddy Shack, or, you just name a movie, and they’ve got it all down. And I’m not quite there. I love it. But listen, we’re one of three into what you’re sharing. So I. Mean to distract away from it, but continue, please.
Sarah Tetlow [15:02]
Yeah, excellent. Second one, and I think a lot of them are somewhat woven together, but number two that comes to mind is email and email communication. So I teach a system behavioral change in the inbox to treat the inbox more as a triage system, an inbox, and then I connect it to the technology with behavioral change to organize, prioritize and triage emails to reduce overwhelm in the inbox. But what often happens absent having any sort of system with your inbox is it can be that distraction. It can be that thing that pulls you away from what you’re working on, then you start working on the stuff that came in over email, or it just feels so overwhelming to go to that inbox, see all these messages, and feel like it’s just a long to do list. So the takeaway here would be, if that is a challenge to you, as you’re listening today, I would recommend there are a lot of things you can do. I’m happy to have a discovery call with you on my art email system. You could also just apply some rules or filters. You could work with your as Steve already said, your assistant or paralegal, ideally, your assistant to manage your inbox for you. But the important takeaway here is, if you’re feeling overwhelmed around email. Email is someone communicating something to you. It has grown massively since even 20 years ago when we saw how to fax letters. Now we just email everybody, every party, every person, and so really, it’s doing a service to yourself to create some sort of rules and systems around your inbox.
Steve Fretzin [16:40]
Hey everybody. Steve fretzen, here and@lawyer.com They don’t just market law firms. They help them grow. From connecting millions of consumers to trusted lawyers to smarter intake and industry leading events, they’re building stronger connections across legal visibility, intake, events, growth. That’s lawyer.com Check them out today. You proven SEO and digital marketing strategies that drive actual clients to your firm. Rankings.io. Prides itself on proof, not promises. Mentality. The best firms hire rankings.io. When they want rankings, traffic and cases other law firm marketing agencies can’t deliver, get more rankings, get cases and schedule a free consultation@rankings.io today. Hey everybody, it’s Steve Fretzin as the you know, I’m the host of the be that lawyer podcast, and if you’re serious about growing your law practice, let’s talk. I’ve coached hundreds of attorneys to build bigger books of business without selling, chasing or wasting time. This isn’t a sales pitch. It’s a real 30 minute strategy session to explore what’s possible for you in your practice. Just head over to fretzin.com and grab a time that works for you. And let’s make this your breakout year. And is there one that you would I mean, you mentioned triage, but is there a simpler system or a simple system that you recommend? I mean, the Getting Things Done helped me a little bit. They wanted me to do the folders and everything I didn’t find that was a didn’t find that was a fit for me. I do more of I get to a zero inbox each day, which, which makes a lot of my lawyer clients very jealous, but I try to emulate what I want them to do, which is, you know, how do you how do you feel good about anything when you’re, you know, 2000 emails unanswered deep in your inbox. Like that’s that. I don’t know that I could sleep at night with that. Yeah, but, but I get to a zero inbox because I handle everything every day. I delete a lot of things. I don’t take newsletters. And then I use my calendar when there’s a task, right? So there’s or I leave it open and then put it as a task. What Is there any other hacks for emails that might be helpful to lawyers? Yeah, so
Sarah Tetlow [18:45]
my system is, it’s along the lines of inbox zero, but I’m going to shift a little bit with you, Steve. Here is, I call it inbox Zen, because not every day can I handle every email. And the listener might be agreeing with that in terms of I count an email that is not yet handled. Something that I call tracking in my art system that I teach is a r t, t, the first T is tracking, which is I am waiting on something from somebody else. So I need to keep track of this email, and just so that I’m making sure I’m not losing anyone. Some examples might be if I send the email to my assistant, and I say, Please calendar this meeting or this deadline, and then I want to keep track of it and make sure that they did that before I then feel comfortable deleting or filing that email away, or I email the client and I say, please sign this engagement letter. And then I want to keep track of it to make sure I got back a signed engagement letter. So those are examples where, and even sometimes other examples where I still have to do something I don’t have time today. So with my art system, we do use folders, but we use what we call action folders to organize by category. So as. An example, prospective clients might be like an o1 prospective clients, and then I move emails into there that I am Wait, waiting to hear back from them this week or whatever. So I kind of rushed to that example, but to match with what you’re suggesting, Steve, you mentioned blocking time on your calendar for it and or tasks. If someone’s listening and liking the idea of this, my recommendation is to go the task route, because the calendar route is good for blocking time to work on something. But I am actually not always great about going, Okay, I’m blocking an hour to do this and then holding it true to it. Sometimes even I fall victim to, well, something more important came up and I need to move that block. If you’re converting an email to a calendar block, there’s no audit to say I didn’t do this last Friday, other than you manually going back and pulling it forward. So then the whole system can unravel. Whereas, if you’re using something like tasks, then there is an auditing system, because outlook is going to turn that task red late if it doesn’t get marked as complete, and without going too deep into Outlook, because we could do a whole segment on that, Outlook actually has really excellent functionality to talk to each other. So you can take a task and then move it as a calendar block and not lose sight of it initially being coded as a task. So that’s a way to block time to work on something, but still have that ability to audit yourself if something comes up and you don’t actually do it when you block the time to do it.
Steve Fretzin [21:40]
Yeah, awesome. I love that. I’ll share two things I’m doing that are really been effective. Number one is for Outlook, for Gmail. There’s Boomerang, and I’ve talked about this before, but I close out an email because I’m emailing you, Sarah, to say, I want you on my show that email goes away, but if I don’t hear back from you, and you just drift into the ether, then I’m not getting you on my show. So I’m losing, you know, and you’re losing in that scenario. But if I put a boomerang on your email and say, If I don’t get back from Sarah in a week, it’s going to pop up to the top of my inboxes on open and if, again, I’m my goal is to end to be at a zero inbox each day. Nothing should be bold, and that’s how I’m keeping track, but that’ll be bold, and then I’ll remind, oh, Sarah, here another email to just remind you, I want to get you on the show. So that’s one thing that’s been really effective. And I don’t necessarily want to go in full AI conversation with you, but I’ve been testing out Jace AI for about a month. Do you know Jace? I do not. So J A, C, e.ai, and again, if you’re in a big firm or mid market firm, this is going to be challenging, but if you’re on your own or small firm, you might get away with this. And I’m using it for Gmail, so I’m in it, I’m in a system where it reads every email I’ve ever gotten, every email I’ve ever sent, and AI figures out like, how I’m going to respond. So you say you want to be on my podcast. I say I’m going to write now for two minutes and email back to you. But wouldn’t it be nice if you said I’d love to be on your show? And I look at my my email and it automatically says, so happy, Sarah. Here’s my scheduling link. I can’t wait to get you on. It’s been too long since our second episode back in this date. Like, like, even better than what I would write, because it can pull back that stuff and then I just hit send. So when we talk about getting out of our inbox or how we’re going to be efficient with our time, things are going to get easier. We just have to lean into some of these tools that are coming out. Obviously, make sure you’re being safe, and make sure it’s a closed system, and make sure you’re not, you know, using things that are going to, you know, give you a chance to just, you know, you know, giving out information that’s privileged, etc. So just public service announcement there for everybody. All right, now here’s a question. Can you remember the third thing you’re gonna talk about? There was lawyers, challenges and what you know.
Sarah Tetlow [24:01]
So the third one I’ll talk about is, and again, it somewhat goes with number one and number two, but I call it a shutdown routine before I wrap up any day, I I actually do have kind of a detailed shutdown routine, but I’m going to simplify it here, because it doesn’t need to be my way. It needs to be practical and and adoptable for your listener, before you end each day, leave on a sticky note for yourself. What are the top three things you have to get done tomorrow? There’s actually research that proves that like at night, if you’re up at night and you are faced with writing down what you accomplished for the day or what’s left undone if you do the latter. Study says that if you do the latter, if you write down what you didn’t finish, you actually can sleep better and be more productive the next day. But the reason I recommend it, in addition to that research, is the next day, when you arrive at your desk, you have this, I’ll actually have these little these little notepads and eight. To share it with anyone.
Steve Fretzin [25:01]
Was it say, Today’s what does it say? Today’s top three tasks? Yeah, firm focus. All right, so that’s it. We gotta Yep. Set ourselves up for success the next day.
Sarah Tetlow [25:10]
I love it, yes. And what that does is the next marine so remember my first answer and my second answer? Email being sucks you in. It’s a drain. It’s overwhelming. All of a sudden you look up an hour’s done by and you don’t feel like you’ve accomplished anything, even if you’ve handled 50 emails and the first one boundaries delegation. So by setting out, here are the three things I need to get done tomorrow, and I’m not talking about completely, draft a summary judgment brief, prepare for a two week trial and attend a deposition that, of course, would be ridiculous. It should be smaller bite size things, because the point of it is having that North Star. So in the next morning or the first opportunity you have to get some deep work done the next day, you get that first one done, we get the dopamine hit. We have that progress principle. We’ve already start to make momentum, and then we can stay on trap to get our next two things done that we outlined. And then we have that idealist or those rocks to go back to and say, Now what am I going to work on? But the feeling at the end of the day of being able to say, I I can trust myself to get done what I need to get done those emergencies I was able to control them or schedule them, the email has been managed, and then I’m going to repeat this for tomorrow. Here are the top three things I need to do tomorrow that simple practice can pay dividends. One last note on that, this is not a 4:55pm activity when you’re trying to get out the door at five. This is like a 3:30pm activity. You already know by that time what you’re going to work on for the rest of the day. So at that point, you’re not faced with decision fatigue. You’re not overly tired. Otherwise, the result is going to be at 455 you’re going to say, I don’t have time. I’ll just come in in the morning and do it. Yeah. And then you’re back to the old cycle of coming in in the morning, opening up email, reacting to the emergencies. So that is my third takeaway is three simple things.
Steve Fretzin [27:09]
I’m just going to share one final thing before we get to Sarah’s big mistake that you have a process as a lawyer for how you try a case, or how you’d run a deposition, or how you do e discovery, or whatever it is in your world, you have a process for it. You have a process for how you dry off when you get out of a shower. Right? Bottom up, no. Top down. Come on. Come on, everybody. Top down. But you know it’s the same process essentially every time. And you know it’s successful because you’re dry when you get out of the shower. Yet you don’t have a process for how you are productive with your day, productive with your time. And so I want to really emphasize the importance of what, importance of what Sarah is not only talking about, but why you need to get, you know, serious about being a student of the game of time management, productivity systems. And instead of just winging things and having again, did the you have the day, or did they have you? So with that all being laid out, Sarah, what’s your big mistake? Yeah, I Gosh.
Sarah Tetlow [28:09]
I feel like there’s so many and yet that’s
Steve Fretzin [28:12]
always the answer I get is, where do I choose? How do I choose? Well, I choose.
Sarah Tetlow [28:17]
My biggest mistake was probably and it’s not much different than what you were explaining earlier, Steve, but just a different story, a point in my career and in my life where I was going through the motions. I was in the Bay Area. I would take Bart into work. I worked for a great firm, but I just wasn’t fulfilled. That’s the word I would pick. My salary was fine. The day to day was fine. I enjoyed what I did okay, but I just there was a piece of me that just didn’t feel very whole. So for me, that failure forward, as you called it earlier, Steve was leaning into that feeling, knowing I wasn’t showing up as my true self, which is what ultimately led to me taking a chance creating firm focus, which was in 2018 and I haven’t looked back, and I love what I do. And most, not every day am I fulfilled. I have those. Everybody’s got. It’s not perfect, but most we are dealing with lawyers. Yeah, yeah. So similar story to yours, and I guess the takeaway for anyone listening is, if you’re feeling that, it doesn’t necessarily mean you dislike your your career or the firm you’re at, or the firm you’ve built, or the clients you have, but there’s something in there that is making you not feel fulfilled or like your true, 100% self. I do mention it a little bit in my book. As I kick off the workday section, I have a piece that says, First, let’s make sure you are in a position or a career or a firm that you love, because time management can sometimes look like time management challenge when in reality, it’s just hating what you’re doing in this moment. But. Find out what take the time to find out what that piece is, so that you too can fail forward and grow from whatever challenges
Steve Fretzin [30:07]
you have. What a great big mistake and what a great outcome to have that mindset and to know that you found what you were able to find based on leaning into something that most people would avoid. Yeah, 32nd commercial on your new book called The perfectly productive day. Can I grab it? Yeah, grab it. Show it. Let’s say, take it as a pre lower in testing, whatever you got to do here. Fantastic. Yeah, tell us what’s in there. The perfectly productive
Sarah Tetlow [30:31]
day I mentioned earlier, it’s got the six segments of the day. So I wrote this book after I listened to a lot of research and science around productivity and productivity while I coach, largely during the work day segment with my clients, but we’re looking at the person holistically, how they show up 24 hours a day. And there are things I do that I know set me up for my perfectly productive day. When it comes to work, I talked about the shutdown routine and leaving that little gift for the tomorrow me to know what to work on, but when I expand that to a full day for my life, what works for me is getting up at 430 I know it’s crazy. I’m not telling you to get up at 430 but this is just what I’m what works for my life going to a 5am gym class, which then means I have water, I’ve moved my body. I haven’t had coffee, I haven’t looked at my phone until at least 6am and I’ve already, in a way, meditated. I’ve had my own things. Yeah, I’ve worked through some things. And then once I get home, I read for a little bit before while I have coffee, and then I get ready and look at my phone and go off to work. Yeah, and I usually start work at 7am Pacific is what I just prefer. So that’s why I get up so early for the gym. In the book, I even explain it doesn’t need to be that formula. You could get up at 930 and still have a morning routine and start work at 11, if that’s what jives for you. Yeah. But the research, the science that goes into what do you know about yourself that permits you and encourages you to have that more productive day? But the book has bloopers because I’m a human being, and I believe I didn’t write a productivity book saying, here is the formula for doing things. I talk about the mornings that I didn’t get up and go to the gym, and how to reset during any of those parts of the day. So having a bad morning doesn’t mean I’m going to have an unproductive work day necessarily.
Steve Fretzin [32:27]
That’s great. That’s it. That’s what it’s all about. You know, sometimes it’s about how we slip and fall and get back up. Yeah, people want to get that book. It’s Amazon.
Sarah Tetlow [32:34]
It is on Amazon now the perfectly productive day.
Steve Fretzin [32:37]
All right, check it out, everybody. And of course, let’s thank our wonderful sponsors. We got rankings. Io, crushing it on the PI marketing side, Pim con, coming up in October with with the same outfit, lawyer.com, fantastic directory if you want to get in on that. And then, of course, if you’re a rainmaker and you’re feeling like you’re on an island siloed out and you want to be in a room full of top level players that you can talk shop with. Check out the Rainmaker round tables on my website. Fretzin.com or bethatlawyer.com and Sarah, we got your book, but people want to get in touch with you about firm focus.
Sarah Tetlow [33:13]
Digits, yeah, firm hyphen focus.com jump on over to the resource page or the Contact page, and there are a plethora of ways that you can get in touch with me, and, of course, always on LinkedIn,
Steve Fretzin [33:24]
connect with me there. All right. Well, thanks for coming back and hanging out and sharing some amazing wisdom. Thank you, Steve. Nice to see you, and thank you everybody for hanging out for the last 30 and change. I would not, I’m not keeping exact track here, but I would say you’re in the we’re in the seven to 10 takeaways, like out of 30 minutes, like to get seven to 10 things that you could do as a lawyer that’s going to help you improve productivity. I’m going to say that’s pretty good for any kind of podcast, so we’ll give ourselves a pats on the back. But ultimately, guys, it’s what you do with the information that is most important. So bear that in mind, and it will help you to be that lawyer, confident, organized and a skilled Rainmaker. Take care. Everybody. Be safe and well. Talk again soon.
Voiceover [34:12]
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.