Using Your Passions to Shape Your Practice
Today, I read an interesting Op-Ed on the history of the work/life balance movement that charted how Americans have approached work over time: from family-oriented jobs such as farms and small shops; to isolated jobs in factories and offices; to remote-based jobs and small-business entrepreneurship.
In the first period, people had jobs that defined their lives, and they had very little time or energy to think of anything outside of those jobs. Outside of work, family activities and personal interests were limited by “the call of nature and the needs of the community.”
With the introduction of mass-production and specialization, factories and large offices allowed owners to ensure efficiency and focus by isolating employees from their homes to work together in centralized locations. The writer suggested that the concept of work/life balance developed during the boom of factory and corporate jobs to encourage mandatory time to fit in family and personal life.
Now, instead of a job that defines our lives or a job separate from life, many people are finding ways to use their life, passions and hobbies to define their jobs. This third segment of people includes many of the attorneys who read this blog and use our services. At Total Attorneys, it is our goal to help attorneys build successful law practices that adapt to the kind of life you want to live, and that goal was inspired by people like you: the solo practitioners with entrepreneurial spirits; the virtual lawyers with desires to make work fit into life, not the other way around; and the small firm attorneys who decided to leave big law to pursue niche markets that coincided with personal passions and values.
What are some of the ways you have used your own passions and interests to shape your career? What are some of the tools you use to make life and work co-exist?
