It is Monday, March 15, 2021, and I make a commitment about the next day. Tomorrow will be unique, a day released from my usual workday routines. I am going to cast aside my ingrained delayed gratification practices, those which coax and induce me through a stressful law practice. I usually insert little rewards throughout my day – food, social media, casual but hilarious conversations with my law partners, and I listen to Amazon Audible on the drive home. It might be childish, but I have been known to forestall a bathroom break until I compose and send a difficult email. The proletarian pleasure of warming up my coffee in the microwave can be sufficient to get me through hundreds of pages of prebill reviews.
I suppose a more emotionally balanced person would plan a special day pursuing only what appealed to her, abandoning tedious tasks like they are disagreeable leftovers from last night’s supper. But not me, at least not tomorrow. Instead, I design a day where I tackle only things that I do not want to do – a kind of procrastination Hail Mary, aimed at executing on an ever-deepening checklist of duties delayed. I am oddly curious about experiencing a day completely devoid of easiness; I have a dubious sense of morbid anticipation.
I awaken in the early morning at about 2:30 am, my stomach erupting with gastrointestinal distress. I almost never have an upset stomach, and I grind though it with a steely sense of humor. It is, after all, the perfect start to what I expect will be an agonizing day. Befittingly, when I fall back to sleep, I have a nightmare – childhood abandonment themed – which visits me a couple of times every year. But even after a poor night’s sleep, I remain grimly devoted to my plan.
I pull on a sweater with slightly scratchy fabric, knowing that it will irritate my skin for a while. Once I am at the office, I forbid myself from opening Facebook, which is my enjoyable entry to the workday, while I eat cereal. I force myself to complete yesterday’s timesheet. I fill my morning with uninspired projects, reviewing run-of-the-mill files, approving operating costs expenditures, and responding to emails that I have ignored for more than 24 hours. I make a routine veterinary appointment for one of our dogs that should have been done several weeks ago.
At noon, I watch a legal ethics webinar on changes to the code of professional conduct that relate to attorney advertising. Though the speakers are knowledgeable and polished, the topic is painfully disinteresting. I eat a mundane lunch consisting of a self-made turkey and cheese sandwich and an apple.
And then the day gets hard – brutally so. Though I had committed to attacking projects that I had dawdled and delayed on first thing in the morning, I managed to prolong and procrastinate those tasks until the afternoon. I hunker down. I email a reminder to a client that I need a strategy decision on a case; the client had not been in contact with me for four or five months. I had rationalized that the ball had been in the client’s court, but in truth, it is my ethical duty to move the matter along even if it means prodding my client.
I have several other cases where clients are due a status update, but I used the “no progress to report” excuse to delay communications. I review a file that was neglected to the point that I was worried about malpractice, and after analysis, I realize that everything is fine. Next, I open a file that had sat in my office for a year and a half. The client had missed a proof of claim deadline in a probate case, and after I confirmed the validity of the estate notices to creditors, I let the client know there was nothing I could do. The news was accepted with adult resignation. I knew that I should close the file, but I just could not. I felt that a better lawyer would have found a way to get the client paid, even when there was no legal basis for it. I print out the electronic case notes and prepare it for closure. A sense of relief and finality blows softly past me.
I finish my day performing a half hour of personal tasks that I had postponed for reasons I cannot fathom. I feel emotionally free in a way that has eluded me for months as I metaphorically lift a dank cloak of responsibility from my shoulders. As I shut down my computer, I chuckle at a quote from somewhere that keeps ambling across the changeable construct of my mind:
I completed a task in 15 minutes that I procrastinated on for
six months. I have learned absolutely nothing from this.