Josh Messick

“Self-help” in a profession that is all about being selfless might seem counterintuitive. As public defenders, we serve those most in need, sometimes to the detriment of ourselves. Burnout and stress become the norm. Must we accept this as our fate?

The answer is no. I dove into the world of self-help, so you don’t have to. Starting with the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, then Peak Performance by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness, I have boiled down the key lessons that will help each of us avoid burnout and thrive as attorneys and human beings. Better habits won’t fix heavy caseloads, but they decide how you carry the load you have.

Lessons on the road

Bear with me as I briefly explain how running served as a gateway to how I work now.

I am a runner. I started running on my own in high school to stay in shape while not getting much playing time during basketball season. I have not stopped since and have raced everything from sprint triathlons up to marathons. A fall marathon is almost always on my calendar, and my training is built around that one goal race.

Each year of training follows a similar rhythm. The basic structure stays the same. Each year, there are different seasons of training as you build a base, start building speed from that base, run just for fun without having a race planned, or start a marathon training block. I always build in time just to run for fun to keep from overtraining. Each season throughout the year also has phases that progress and build on one another, such as the build, peak, and taper. Each phase has three progressive weeks where intensity grows, followed by a deload week to allow your body to absorb fitness. Each week has two hard runs, one long run, and the rest easy. Even specific runs alternate hard effort with recovery. What is true about every level of the structure is that both stress and recovery are built in. It’s universally accepted that to get faster you must run, then rest to let your body absorb the benefits, and repeat consistently.

This system is second nature to me. However, I have always struggled to find the same harmony in my schedule professionally. With the goal of getting everything done, I continually tweak and implement new productivity systems to get on top of my work to-do list so I can finally be at peace. This is a losing battle. Just as Sisyphus will never push the boulder all the way up the hill, we will never get on top of all the demands on our time. But we are not doomed. We just need to change our perspective away from the outcome and instead learn to enjoy the process.

Atomic Habits and Peak Performance opened my eyes to the fact that running and working follow the same systems. Atomic Habits explains how habits are created or eliminated and how taking small actions leads to big results. Peak Performance bridges the gap between professional and athletic performance with its equation, stress + rest = growth. Training your body is the same as training your mind. Stress is stress, whether physical or mental.

You need a system

Start by building a system, if you do not have one that works for you. A system is not our case management system, but the architecture of your day. Without one, you default to whatever is given to you and go about the day without intention. You work reactively. The usual situation is you have a deadline, you stress about it, then you instead work on what is in front of you, and by the time the deadline comes around you complete it in a panic. The cycle continues as you tell yourself you will eventually get on top of everything. As I said, getting on top of everything is a myth we tell ourselves. Fear not, a system will help us focus on what is worth our limited time and what we can ignore. We must start with our identity to guide the system we want to create.

Develop your purpose/identity

Who do you want to be? Identity-based goals are more effective than outcome-based goals. Let us assume you want your identity to be an attorney who is confident and prepared. An outcome-based goal might be to catch up on all your cases. Okay, sounds great. How do you do that? An identity-based goal might be to take five minutes before each court appearance to reflect on who your client is and what the goal of the hearing is. It is a concrete action that you can take and serves your purpose of being prepared. Ask yourself, what would a prepared attorney do? You can have identity-based goals for each area of your life (professional, community, personal).

Habits audit

Once you have written down who you want to be, sit down and write down all your current habits and decisions that you make throughout the day. This will help you identify those habits that you need to eliminate because they do not serve your identity.

Create/eliminate habits that serve your identity

Understanding how habits work will help you create habits that serve you and override habits that do not. Habits follow a loop: cue – craving – response – reward. There are four laws of behavior change to help guide you through the process.

Make it Obvious/Invisible

Make the habits you want to start obvious and visible. These are your cues. For habits you want to eliminate, do the opposite. The best example of this law is dieting. If you want to eat healthier, keep healthy food stocked in your fridge and track calories to make it obvious. Stop buying junk food or hide it in the pantry. In the office, keep a list of client contact information open on your computer to make it obvious. Turn off email notifications during deep focus writing blocks to keep distraction invisible.

Make it Attractive/Unattractive

Make the habits you want to start attractive and the ones you want to eliminate unattractive. This is the craving step of the habit loop. For me, I paired a habit that I love (drinking coffee) with one I wanted to start (writing daily) to make it more attractive.

Make it Easy/Hard

Make the habits you want to start easy and the ones you want to eliminate hard. This is your response step in the habit loop. Going back to my writing habit, I decided to reduce the friction to start by priming my environment the day before. When I leave work, I exit out of everything except for the document that I want to start writing with the next day. When I come in the next day, it is already set up and ready to go. I had to eliminate my habit of checking the news first thing by deleting news applications from my phone and thus increasing the friction to finding and reading news.

Make it Satisfying/Unsatisfying

Make the habits you want to start satisfying and the ones you want to eliminate unsatisfying. Do this by creating rewards. Making a satisfying habit could be giving yourself an immediate reward or completing the task with a friend. The opposite could be the fear of letting down that friend or making a social contract to keep you accountable.

Stress + rest = growth

Stress without rest is just damage. Growth happens in recovery, not in the grind. Peak Performance suggests alternating 50-90 minutes of focused work with 7-20 minutes of real recovery. Rest is a skill that takes practice on a daily, weekly and long-term scale. Real rest could be going for a walk, time in nature, sleep, a shower, or listening to music. Doomscrolling on the internet might seem like rest, but it is just another way to stress yourself. In a world that glorifies the grind, having the courage to rest is a real competitive advantage.

Relating the growth equation back to running. The 50-90 minutes of deep work followed by 7-20 minutes of rest is your interval training. The weekend is for your easy running. The recovery week after trial is the deload week. Vacation is the off-season.

Design your environment

Life is fraught with distraction, especially in our modern world where the expectation is that we are always available. Designing your environment to cut out distraction and focus on the task in front of you is essential. This will look different depending on what you are working on.

During periods of deep work when you need zero distractions, like when drafting a motion or prepping for an oral argument, the goal is to create a space where you can focus on the single task at hand. Any distraction or context switching can knock you off task for around 23 minutes. When I want to focus, I keep my phone completely out of sight and silenced, I organize my desk and computer to only have the relevant information, and I communicate my boundaries to others. Communication is important so others will know that you will get back to them as soon as you can. In court, your environment can be what you bring with you. Are you organized and have the relevant information at the ready?

Reflect and refine

Your systems and habits should evolve to reflect your current values and situation. What works in one practice group may not work in another. Your goals for your career might change. This is why it is important to have your system written down so you can be intentional with the changes that you make as you experiment with what works best for you.

Practice Suggestions

Here are just a few possible suggestions for each practice group to give you some ideas:

Appeals

• Begin every day with imperfect writing
• Protect your deep focus and batch shallow tasks
• Perform a shutdown ritual to end your day
• Prime your environment for writing
• Automate recurring work processes

Trial

• Map your case with the end in mind
• Utilize office days and teleworking intentionally for deep work
• Batch shallow work during low-energy time
• Delegate to staff
• Communicate your boundaries
• Utilize longer recovery after trials

High Volume Courts

• Automate recurring work processes, like client intake
• Schedule deep work on office days
• Prime before each hearing and client meeting
• Batch discovery review
• Develop context cues when switching environments (court vs. office)
• Protect the lunch hour

Conclusion

The bad news is that you will never have the perfect system and you will never get on top of everything. The good news is that realization is also liberating. Now you are free to focus on what truly matters and use your limited time wisely. Here is a summary of how to start:

1. What is your identity? Who do you want to be?
2. Document your current habits and daily decisions.
3. Use the laws of behavior change to create a positive habit or overwrite a negative one.
4. Be intentional about stress + rest = growth.
5. Design your environment.
6. Reflect and refine.

It turns out, life truly is a marathon.

In anticipation of Survivor 51 premiering tonight, I will briefly explain my passion for one of my favorite shows.

My love for Survivor can be broken up into three parts: the early years, the COVID years, and the rebirth. Maybe I like to think in these terms due to one of my other passions, Ancient Egypt, as it can be broken up into the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom. Not to get too far off topic, but now that I think about it, Survivor and Ancient Egypt share other similarities. A band of people coming together to form their own society, hunters and gatherers, competition, all looking to outwit, outplay, and ultimately, outlast.

In the early years, I watched Survivor with my family as a young, impressionable kid. Like we did with other shows, sitting down to watch “our show” after dinner was highly anticipated. For that time, we were all together in the living room enjoying something in common. I was fascinated by the adventure of Survivor, even though I was miserable any time we would go camping ourselves. After I went off to college, I did not keep up with any shows for a long time.

Then COVID hit. There are many stories of people rediscovering past interests or starting new hobbies during our time in quarantine, and I was no exception. After working in my studio apartment all day, was itching to find something to take my mind off the current state of the world. That manifested in my re-commitment to running and falling in love with Survivor all over again. I binge watched season after season of the same seasons that I had already watched as a kid. It was comforting in a time that was truly uncomfortable. After COVID, I started a new job, moved cities, and no longer had the time to binge watch old Survivor seasons.

Then I met my wife, who was a fresh slate, having not seen Survivor. I’m not sure how it came up - probably me asking, “have you seen this?” while looking through the infinite options for our next show to watch. There is something special about sharing something you care about with some one else. Once you have explored a topic as much as you can, the next step for fulfillment is giving back that knowledge to others. And I think you get even more joy than when you discovered it yourself. My wife may not be obsessed with Survivor like I am, but she graciously indulges my rants about anything and everything Survivor.

My all-time favorite season is the original, Survivor: Borneo. It was of course the first season that I watched, but I also think it was the only season that had everything that I love most about Survivor. It was truly a season about 16 strangers coming together in a hostile environment to form their own society, with the added twist that you have to vote someone out every few days. The focus of that first season was on the experiment. Strategy, socializing, competition, and camp life were all necessary components. These days, camp life is an afterthought and being competitive frowned upon.

My favorite castaway will forever be Boston Rob. I’ll never forget his line that “fear keeps people loyal.” His winning season is a masterclass. Not to mention how he turned his showmance into a life long wife and kids.

I have applied to be on Survivor and will again in the future. So, here’s my pitch on how I would fare:

If you know me, you know I am not exactly a social butterfly. But, I think I could work this to my advantage. The benefits of my more relaxed, calm exterior is that I am easy to talk to and confide in. I can be trusted since I’m not everyone’s best friend. And I prefer to listen and not interject unless necessary, letting others get their ideas across and be heard. The downside to my personality is that sometimes people do not like that they cannot get a read on me and fear what I am thinking. The people inside my circle know the true me but anyone outside of that might feel threatened. This would be on me to expand my circle behind what I am used to. I think my strategic chops would be my greatest strength. I might not be the most adept around camp but it would not be due to lack of effort. Competitions would be a strength, my background in triathlon should help with the physical challenges on water or land.

I don’t want to give too much away for when I inevitably get cast on the show. For now, the tribe has spoken.

I have always been a late adopter of each new social media platform.

Starting with Myspace, then Facebook, then Instagram and Snapchat. I would join after the newness had worn off for everyone else. I had Twitter for a moment. Never came around to joining TikTok.

I’m not sure why I was always late for the party. I think I have always had some hesitation in doing things just because everyone else is doing them. Or maybe my resistance to change is the better answer.

Yet, I still struggle with doomscrolling and the addictive nature of it all.

I have halfheartedly attempted many times over the years to come up with solutions. Deleting my accounts, deactivating them, you name it. All just to come back to the status quo. Likely due to the fear of missing out.

The issues with social media are true of the internet in general now. I can spend an entire afternoon switching between different news sites until my brain turns to mush and I forget where I am.

In comes Cal Newport – have I mentioned him before? If you are not sick of me talking about him yet, then I apologize in advance, because you will be eventually. I stumbled across his podcast Deep Questions and eventually his books on the intersection of attention and technology.

I have come to realize that the missing piece to reclaiming my attention is to replace my social media and internet habits with analog habits.

In his book Digital Minimalism and elsewhere, Cal Newport prescribes a 30-day digital declutter to get perspective on your relationship with technology. The declutter has three steps.

First, take a 30-day break from all optional technology. During your break, purposefully explore real life, analog activities that you find meaningful. Finally, at the end of your break, determine which technologies you are going to let back into your life and how you will use them to serve your values.

This could not have come at a better time for me, as the fear of missing out has largely dissipated now that my values have shifted from those of a single man to those of a married father. Your circle becomes smaller and the things you value clearer.

Here is a summary of how my experience went.

First, I had to decide my definition of optional technology. Cal suggests any tool, application, service, or website that you can eliminate without major harm or disruption to your daily professional or personal life. For example, I decided I could eliminate news sites, LinkedIn, and Instagram, which were my biggest sources of distraction. I also created a set of rules for other technologies that I could not eliminate, like work email. For these, my rule was that I could only use them during designated times, no more than twice a day.

With my digital declutter rules laid out, my 30-day break began. My goal was to replace any newfound down time that I had with reading, writing, thinking, physical activity, and connection with friends and family. These activities all kept me in the real world and were connected to one of my core values as a husband and dad, attorney, and runner.

I also implemented several other ideas to help limit distractions from technology. I deleted from my phone every social media app or app that makes money by holding my attention. There was one exception to this, Snapchat, since it is my main source of connection with my wife and son when I am away from them. I kept my phone on do not disturb by default, only allowing text and phone call notifications from my family in case of emergency. I kept my phone “land lined” at all times – set on the kitchen counter at home and on my bookshelf at work.

Digital Minimalism has many suggested analog practices that helped guide my efforts along the way as well.

The first is to spend time alone. I already did many of the suggestions here by going on runs without my phone and journaling. Another was to not hit “like.” This suggestion is all about “conversation-centric communication,” which was a very helpful way of thinking about the relationship with my phone. This approach has you use text messages to set up real world conversation and hold phone call office hours. And finally, spend your time doing high-quality leisure. This means spending your free time doing active leisure over passive consumption, producing tangible things through craft, and participating in structured social activity. This last one is the most difficult for me, as I tend to find comfort in analog activities that can be done alone – like running, reading, writing. I want to take the plunge into clubs that involve those same activities – run club, book club, a club for dads, for example.

At the end of the 30 days, I sat down and wrote my digital minimalist operating procedures. Starting this blog is one such practice I have implemented to get back to old school socializing. I decided I could live without modern social media, in fact, I accomplished more and was happier during my time away from it. I will still check my less-smart smart phone two times a day, along with email, and be purposeful about my use. I will only check the news once a week (I paid for a print subscription to The New Yorker).

I now read more, write more, think more, and go about my day with more intention.

I did not perfectly adhere to my rules during the declutter and know that it will not be possible going forward. But it’s not about perfection. I’d like to think of them as a strict set of rules but not unyielding. All a part of my information diet. Will I instinctively pick up my phone to check my fantasy football team sometimes? I think so. Just like I will reach for junk food on occasion. In the end, if I am using technology intentionally to serve my values, it’s a win.

Otherwise, you can find me reading, writing, and checking in on friends instead of checking in on my phone.

There was a time, not too long ago, that I resigned myself to taking on life alone. As a husband and father now, I cannot imagine going about life without them by my side.

I love my wife and kid in an over-the-moon, movie-like kind of way. There is no me without them. My accomplishments are their accomplishments. My little family is the center of my universe and I would not have it any other way.

Pre-family me is hard to remember or relate to now. The best example of this is with the marathon that I ran last year.

On paper, it was my seventh time running a marathon. I have never made much of a fuss about running them, it has just been another thing that I do from time-to-time. Running in general has been a constant for me since high school. Even in the lead up to this marathon, I did not think too much about it.

But, around Mile 18 (nearing the dreaded “wall”) I began getting emotional and tearing up thinking about seeing my wife and kid waiting for me at the finish line. I realized that everything about this race and the training that led up to it was different. The race was the culmination of the first year of us navigating the complexities of being a young family. Life is a marathon as it turns out, with both highs and struggles.

We trained for and were completing the marathon and racing toward the finish line of our first year together. Every training run, carb-loaded meal, and running shoe unboxing was a group effort. We all made sacrifices so that I could run a silly race. For the first time, I was not going it alone. Confirming what I already knew, I was better because of them and ran a personal best.

I do not think I would even be writing this without them. Everything I do comes back to the desire to be a more present and engaged husband and father.

As we navigate life, and train for another marathon, our little family gets stronger.

When ChatGPT first became mainstream, I was wary that it could be anything more than an alternative to Google searching. Peer pressure set in quickly, promising to ease everything from everyday tasks to my professional work. I admit, I got caught up in the allure of it all. I set out to experiment with ChatGPT and Claude with the goal of using them as both my personal assistant and personal law clerk. I knew that AI made mistakes sometimes, but don’t we all? That’s what I was for, as editor-in-chief of my new team of assistants.

The results were incredible. I had Claude create a personalized marathon training plan for me. I had ChatGPT look over my redacted work notes and give me issues that I should look into. I even bounced ideas on how to improve my personal productivity and planning system. It all seemed to be better than I ever could have imagined without AI.

Today, I am not using AI at all, save for the ubiquitous summarized search results produced by AI. Here are the lessons I learned during my AI experiment:

1. It created more work. For all of the quick output AI fed me, the amount of time I spent fixing it’s mistakes, or trying to get it to fix it’s own mistakes, was not worth it. Generic writing that needed to be cleaned up, hallucinated legal citations that needed to be verified, answers that were given to satisfy my prompt instead of an honest answer, the list goes on and on. I spent more time editing AI’s outputs than if I had just done the work myself, and the edited quality was worse because of the starting point.

2. It’s an addictive distraction. Like any other new technology, we need to step back and ask ourselves why and how we are using it. I found my use of AI akin to social media, filled with the infinite follow-up questions and designed environment that keeps you engaged. Using the Digital Minimalism framework, I asked myself if this directly supports something I deeply value? Sure, in theory it could. Is it the best way to support that value? Definitely not. As I outlined in the earlier, doing the work without the use of AI resulted in better quality.

3. It’s a solution to a problem I did not have. I love writing, reading, and thinking through issues. The promises of AI to do these things for me strip away part of what makes my life enjoyable. Plus, why replace things like cognitive functioning, community building, and analog activity to do a few things more efficiently?

There are many more reasons why I think it is best to be wary of AI use, but I will save those for another day. For now, I want to be a human doing human things, and AI does not fit into that equation.

It’s funny, thinking back on life’s experiences and how they sub-consciously shape you. I guess you could say my journey to starting a blog started with my search for a roommate before moving to NYC to start grad school. One prospective roommate I connected with preferred to communicate over long-form email. They were going to grad school in hopes of being a movie critic and had a blog reviewing each movie they watched. I was fascinated at the commitment to writing they had and courage to write something that in depth not knowing anyone would ever read it or care. This was in 2013 also, which felt like the pinnacle of the rise of social media. I never thought once about starting a blog of my own.

Now, 13 years later, here I am starting my own blog with zero expectations. The spark that led me here has stayed dormant in the background that whole time.

Over a year ago, my work transitioned into what I would call typical “knowledge work.” I am an attorney who now specializes in appeals. The time at my desk alone with my thoughts and need to self-motivate to get my work done skyrocketed. The change was also spurred by my being a new father and wanting to have the ability to work from home more and be present with family. Looking for ways to improve my focus and develop new work systems led me to read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. From there, it has been a passionate roller-coaster through all things “self help” and professional development. It has been a cycle of plan, read, implement, and repeat. I even gave a presentation on how other attorneys can implement the ideas of Atomic Habits and Peak Performance (by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness) into their practice.

Naturally, I came across Cal Newport and his extensive work on cutting through the noise and focusing at work and at home. My “a-ha” moment came from his book Digital Minimalism, and listening to who knows how many episodes of his podcast Deep Questions touching on the same subject.

This blog is my way of replacing the addictive, algorithmic social media accounts that I have with a form of “old school” social networking. No endless scrolling or any of the other designed dopamine hits from pulling the slot machine lever that is modern social media. Plus, my job boiled down is to be a writer. This blog gives me an outlet to hone my writing skill - to practice imperfectly and daily-ish.

I’m beginning to feel human again.