Do you rise and grind? Do you hustle everyday? How is your side hustle? While you're hustling and side hustling, are you practicing mindfulness and wellness?
In the 1970s, hustling was about dancing and having fun. (see The Hustle by Van McCoy and The Soul City Orchestra) Yes, Pete Rose, a/k/a Charlie Hustle was the model of a strict work ethic in that era, but "The Hustle" has taken on a whole new meaning in the past few years. For every article and blog post on self care, wellness, and mindfulness, there is an equal on busyness and overwork.
If you visit a few law firm websites, you will likely see some iteration of "we work tirelessly for our clients" or "we're available 24/7 for our clients". I get it; competition is fierce, we're in a service industry, and a client's legal issues are supremely important. Some attorneys internalize the 24/7 message, however, and create a culture of "busyness". If they're not busy, they're doing something wrong. Billable hours compound the problem, but that's a topic for another post.
There are numerous articles on the negative impact on your health when you overwork and deprive yourself of sleep. There are vast benefits of downtime and just plain doing nothing. Not everything you do during a day needs to be measured by how productive you are. In fact, one of the benefits of downtime is being more productive when you are working. Here are three pieces that speak to culture of busyness and the benefits of downtime.
The first was featured in The New York Times' Opinionator -- "The 'Busy' Trap" by Tim Kreider. The second and third articles extol the virtues of downtime -- "The Power of 'Low-Stakes' Productivity" by Leah Fessler and "The Case for Doing Nothing" by Olga Mecking
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