#514: The Hidden Value of Doing Less, with Leidy Klotz

Episode Notes

Transcript

Announcer: 

Welcome to The Lawyerist Podcast, a series of discussions with entrepreneurs and innovators about building a successful law practice in today’s challenging and constantly changing legal market. Lawyerist supports attorneys, building client-centered, and future-oriented small law firms through community, content, and coaching both online and through the Lawyerist Lab. And now from the team that brought you The Small Firm Roadmap and your podcast hosts 

 

Stephanie Everett (00:35): 

Hi, I’m Stephanie Everett. 

  

Zack Glaser (00:36): 

And I’m Zack. And this is episode 514 of the Lawyerist Podcast, part of the Legal Talk Network. Today, Stephanie talks with Leidy Klotz about his book, subtract. 

  

Stephanie Everett (00:47): 

Today’s podcast is brought to you by CosmoLex, and you’ll hear Zack’s conversation with them in just a few minutes. 

  

Zack Glaser (00:53): 

So Stephanie, subtract is an interesting concept and people will hear about what you talk with Leidy Klotz about here shortly, but some of that has caused you to rethink how you consume information or what information you’re consuming, right? 

  

Stephanie Everett (01:10): 

Yeah. One of the things he says is, I mean, it’s the whole idea of subtract. I mean, it shouldn’t have to guess too hard. It’s all about should you do less 

  

(01:19): 

When you’re making decisions? We often think we need to do more, but maybe the answer is to do less. And in the context of information, one of the things he said that really grabbed me was that there’s so much information out there, and I see this so much on my LinkedIn feed and in the community, it’s like, what’s the next business book I should read? There’s a group of us that are business book junkies. I’m one of them. And so the new book launches and everyone’s like, oh, I need it. Which book should I read next? And one of his little phrases in this book was like, what are you doing to act on the information you already know? So instead of going to read that next book or listen to more podcasts, are you taking what you already know and actually working on it and making changes on it? And I was just like, that one got me. 

  

Zack Glaser (02:08): 

Yeah, it’s not easy to continue to consume information, but it’s kind of an easy out. So instead of working on something and saying, okay, well I take this information that I already have and let’s figure out how to process it, you can just say, well, I’m reading a book, I’m consuming more information, I’m getting more data. And we can do that with our choices easily as well. Yeah, 

  

Stephanie Everett (02:29): 

Yeah. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought about this before. I’ve often said, take lab. I’m like, guys, you’re not going to join lab and I’m not going to give you some magic bullet easy pill that you, I’m not going to give you some information that you probably didn’t already know. I mean, there could be pieces of business that you don’t know, but the information I give you is not secret. It’s available. You can hear it in the podcast on books. This information is widely known in the business community. So to be fair, you as a lawyer may not have consumed it, and that’s okay. That’s why we’ve consumed it all and narrowed it down for you. But there isn’t secret information that will solve all your problems. But here’s the thing, you got to take the information and do something with it. 

  

Zack Glaser (03:12): 

Act upon it. 

  

Stephanie Everett (03:12): 

Yeah. You got to implement, and that’s what I tell everyone. I’m like, lab is about implementing. It really is about running experiments, seeing what works. I mean, we talk about it as a lab for a reason. So in the same sense, this whole idea of like, do I really need to read another business book? I mean, I’m going to read more business books guys, but for now I’ve kind of put myself on a summer business book diet, and instead of going for the next new book, I’m going back to books that I’ve read before and I’m rereading them with new energy, new curiosity, and a plan for did I really implement the things that really struck me the first time that when I read them, I thought, this is it. I got to do this. Am I actually doing it or did I just think that was a good idea and then I moved on? 

  

Zack Glaser (04:01): 

Right. Yeah, I like that. Well, so what books are you are kind of first up for you here? 

  

Stephanie Everett (04:07): 

Yeah, I mean, I’m like looking behind me right there. I mean, Britain Burchard’s, High Performance Habits is one. I just remember being blown away the first time I read the book and I’m like, I probably need to revisit that one because productivity is one of those things that you get in a good cadence and then you kind of fall out of it and you have to, I mean, if you’re like me, you have to restart and remind yourself, Hey, it worked really well when you did that thing. Why’d you stop doing it? So I think that’s going to be first up on my list. I haven’t decided after that, but I have so many books. 

  

Zack Glaser (04:41): 

There’s plenty. There’s plenty to choose from, 

  

Stephanie Everett (04:43): 

And I don’t have to reread the whole book. Sometimes it could be a chapter or a concept in a book. 

  

Zack Glaser (04:52): 

As you were talking, I was thinking maybe instead of rereading a book, if it’s possible you get it on Audible or do it on audio version and say, okay, well, I’m going to listen to this book this time because I don’t have to really focus, focus, focus. 

  

Stephanie Everett (05:06): 

That’s interesting. Usually audio books for the podcast, for the show, and most books, I have to get the physical copy because I write in them and I notate a lot. That’s how I process. And so usually I don’t like audio books for that reason, but maybe to your point, if I’m consuming the information differently, it might be different. Okay. 

  

Zack Glaser (05:28): 

Yeah. Well, so I would be curious what our listeners would reread first. Obviously the small firms roadmap, other than that, 

  

Stephanie Everett (05:39): 

And by the way, it’s also one we wrote it purposely. So you could just pick up a chapter. If you’re working on this part of your business right now, just go to that chapter. 

  

Zack Glaser (05:47): 

Yeah, just pop in and reread that. Yeah, that’s a good point. But other than that, what would people, we’ve got a great community of great thinkers, what would other people be rereading first? I’d love to hear that through LinkedIn or Twitter or our Facebook pages and Instagram or just email us at email at Lawyerist dot com. We’d love to hear that. 

  

Stephanie Everett (06:11): 

So now here’s Zack’s conversation with our sponsored guests, and then we’ll head into my conversation on subtract. 

  

Zack Glaser (06:21): 

Hey y’all, Zack, the legal tech advisor here at Lawyerist. Today, I have Joyce Brafford from CosmoLex ProfitSolv TimeSolv all of that. Specifically today we’re talking CosmoLex. Joyce, thanks for being with me today. 

  

Joyce Brafford (06:35): 

Always such a pleasure. 

  

Zack Glaser (06:37): 

So I always like hitting you with the weirder questions here because you spend a lot of time thinking about law practice management with me and as I do, and so lately I’ve been kind of bouncing around the idea of productivity versus efficiency and when to use one. And frankly, I think really we put a lot of value on efficiency in our offices when really productivity may be the thing that we want to do. If I sit there and try to do something the single most efficient way I possibly can, especially if I’m doing it for the first time, I’m not ever going to get it done. But if I just do it and I may have to redo it, I may have to reinstall the door on my house I’ve had to do many times while I was trying to get a door installed. I have to do it again a different way. That’s okay because I’m being productive. 

  

Joyce Brafford (07:29): 

Exactly right. Exactly right. This idea of productivity versus efficiency is something we do not talk about enough in law firms. It’s not enough to be busy. What we have to focus on is what we’re creating, what’s the end result? What are we trying to do for our clients, for our law firm, 

  

Zack Glaser (07:47): 

Right? Because I find that efficiency comes from doing something many times over. It comes from iterating on the task. And so we don’t usually come out the door doing something the most efficient way we can. Honestly, I teach kids how to run and cross country, and it’s fun. We all run silly. We all run Phoebe sometimes from friends. And so the efficiency of running, which makes you faster, the efficiency of running doesn’t just come naturally all the time. You have to do it over and over and over. And it’s the same way with the tasks we have in our offices. But running efficiency, I can measure because I can say, well, I’m getting faster. How do I measure the productivity in my law office? 

  

Joyce Brafford (08:31): 

Yeah. So I think you bring up two great points. One was the question you just asked, how do you actually measure productivity? And the second piece is how do we ensure that everyone gets to that level of productivity? There are some tools that increase efficiency. There are some tools that can be used for the transference of knowledge so people can get better even faster than they would on their own. But at the end of the day, what we do have to measure is productivity. And there’s several important reports on this that you can pull in CosmoLex, you can pull of course, your productivity rate, you can pull your effective billing rate, you can pull your collections versus billing rate. You can look at financial productivity, you can look at your utilization rates. So all of these data points are going to tell you, one, are you busy? But that is not enough. That’s the whole point of this conversation. Are you busy? Okay. Okay, not enough. What we need to understand here is how does my busyness translate into revenue or increased opportunity in my firm? That’s what we’re looking at here. 

  

Zack Glaser (09:33): 

Yeah, I remember running my firm, you step out of your office and you look and everybody’s clocking away at their computers and you think, man, we’re doing great. We’re doing great. Everybody’s busy, everybody’s got something to do, but maybe you’re not. So let’s talk about utilization rate. What is that when we’re thinking about that? 

  

Joyce Brafford (09:52): 

Yeah, your utilization rate is the amount of time you’re actually spending on your billable, non-billable or no charge tasks and where you actually are during the day versus how much time you have available in the day. So if I’m looking at my utilization rate and my value of that, I can see am I spinning my wheels? Am I driving my own value down? Am I driving my own productivity down because I’m spending all this time on administrative tasks? Am I driving my own productivity down because I’m spending all this time on unbillable or no charge tasks? Am I actually collecting what I need to collect for the value of my firm? So when I’m looking at my utilization rate, I want to look at where I am actually spending my time and the type of work that’s taking up that time and the value for each one of those columns, billable, non-billable, no charge, and then my total value for the day. 

  

Zack Glaser (10:51): 

And so just to kind of state the obvious here, if I’m going through my day with what I do, I can’t track that. I don’t have a way to track that, but so cosol X though has the ability to kind of keep track of the things that would help me do that. 

  

Joyce Brafford (11:06): 

Oh, man. Listen, I love these questions. You’re so good at this, Zack. It’s clear why you have a job. Listen, audience at home, Zack’s really good at this. Yes, of course. CosmoLex has a great way to do this. So several ways to keep track of what you’re doing in CosmoLex, and let’s just lay ’em out there. Number one, timecards, right? No matter where you are in the system, drop down a timecard, throw in some data right there. Number two, keyboard shortcuts all over the place. Tap a key, get your time entry, your hard costs, your soft costs, whatever you need, wherever you are in CosmoLex, track, that time you’re in the middle of a project, your recording time for something else, not a big deal. You get a phone call, press t, for example, pull up a new time card, answer the phone, fill in your client data, run that timer T for time card. Isn’t that 

  

Zack Glaser (11:54): 

Fun? Gotcha. 

  

Joyce Brafford (11:55): 

Of course there’s the sheet. And listen, we all know that lawyers are in love with time sheets. Do I wish that we would all engage in contemporaneous billing and not need huge time sheets that we complete at the end of the workday or the workweek? I wish we would, but all of that information is there, and so you’re able to easily track with just a few keystrokes with prefilled fields that are connected to what you are doing no matter where you are in the system, no matter what clients you’re working for, you can track your billable time, your flat fee tasks, your hourly rates, your no charge or no billable rates. You can write things down pretty easily and charge back to clients. Say, you know what? I’m going to give this time back to this client right here very, very easily. But yeah, no matter what you’re doing or how you work, if you’re great at contemporaneous timekeeping, we can help you. And if you’re not great at contemporaneous timekeeping, like 90% of the lawyers out there, we’ve got the solution for that as well. 

  

Zack Glaser (12:50): 

Yeah, it’s Friday afternoon. It’s terrible. 

  

Joyce Brafford (12:52): 

Friday afternoon, Friday afternoon, put your time in. But a couple quick tips that I’m going to pull from CosmoLex and sort of no matter what system you’re using, if you are adding something to your calendar, go ahead and mark it as billable. If you know it’s going to be billable, even if you don’t have the time to put on it right now, go ahead and mark it as billable future tasks that you add into your workflows for things that you’re working on, not just today, but the tasks that you’re going to complete for your client a week from now, three months from now, go ahead and mark them as billable even if you don’t have the time on it, and then come back and make those adjustments. Anything that you can preemptively say, I’m going to have to bill for this, put it in there. CosmoLex has this wonderful tool called the money Finder that allows you to capture all of that time. If you forget to put time on it, a task, an event, a note, calendar entry, whatever, CosmoLex will tell you all about it. It’s a great tool. We’re here to help you get paid. That’s the end of the day. Get paid. Don’t be busy, be productive. 

  

Zack Glaser (13:49): 

I like that. Don’t be busy. Be productive, man. I’m going to end this on that. Yeah, Joyce, once again, thank you very much for your help knocking these ideas around and people want to know more. They can always go to cosmolex.com. I appreciate your time. 

  

Joyce Brafford (14:04): 

Thanks, Zack. 

  

Leidy Klotz (14:09): 

My name’s Leidy Klotz. I’m a professor at the University of Virginia. I’m here to talk about my book Subtract and how it can be useful to all kinds of people, and I guess especially people running their own law businesses. 

  

Stephanie Everett (14:22): 

Thanks for being here today. I got to tell you almost immediately in the intro, I got a little blown away with this book because you really questioned the idea of doing more, doing less. I already shared some quotes with my team about consuming information. So I guess just to kick off this conversation, I would love for you just to frame it up for the audience about your research and what kind of conclusions that led to you in the idea of subtracting. 

  

Leidy Klotz (14:49): 

Yeah, I mean, so I guess one easy way to illustrate it was the beginning epiphany to start doing the research. I was playing Legos with my son. We were trying to build a bridge. So one of the columns was shorter than the other columns on this Lego structure. And my son, who’s three at the time, I’m trying to solve the problem for my son. So I turn around behind me to grab a block to add to the shorter column. By the time I turn back around, he has already removed a block from the longer column, and I’m like, you, Stephanie. I mean, I think about less is more and ways to streamline my life and how to become less busy. But in that moment, it really helped me kind of frame this problem as why is it so hard to think of subtraction when we’re trying to make something better? 

  

(15:38): 

And in this case, it was like we’re trying to fix the bridge, trying to level the bridge, but in a lot of ways that act of trying to make something better is that’s the unifying thing that all the professions do. I mean, as engineers, we try to make a level bridge as lawyers are trying to come to the right outcome as doctors are trying to make the patient better. And so we’re all kind of engaged in this process of trying to make something better. And why is it that our first instinct when we do that is to think about adding and then what does it mean if we think about adding? And then if my son wasn’t there, I would’ve added and moved on without even considering this whole other class of options. So that, I mean, the story’s awesome because we then did 10,000 hours of research, probably me and some great colleagues, and to come to the conclusion that what we tend to do is what I did in that moment, which is when we go to solve problems or when we go to make things better, we have this kind of shortcut in our decision making, Hey, what can I add? 

  

(16:45): 

And it’s not necessarily a problem to have a decision making shortcut, but it is a problem if you add and then move on without even considering this whole class of other options. So that’s the quick summary of the research, but finding that out also has all kinds of implications for, okay, how do we know this? What do we do about it? And how do we use it to see subtraction more and to follow through with it more when it is the right choice? 

  

Stephanie Everett (17:13): 

I think one of the interesting points you make too is the idea of subtracting doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing less activity, that it actually takes work to subtract. And I probably didn’t explain that very well, but tell us more about that concept. 

  

Leidy Klotz (17:29): 

No, I mean you explained it perfectly succinctly. And also I think that’s one of the most important things, especially for high achievers and type A personalities. I mean, there is a variety of less that is just not doing something and sometimes that’s appropriate, but what we’re talking about taking away, and it’s often extra work. One example that comes to mind is I was talking to a speaker design company, so very physical product, and they said that when they go to redesign their speakers, if they’re going to take something away, they actually allocate more design time because they know that taking something away is going to require them to think about how the whole system works together. And there’s more things that they’re going to have to test as opposed to if they just add one little new feature onto the product, it’s going to be less time. 

  

(18:24): 

And so that was really insightful of them that they realized it because I think most of the time we don’t realize it. And if you kind of convert that to a white collar process, it’s the same basic thing. It’s like, okay, we want to subtract this procedure that we’ve been doing forever and it seems like it’s useless, but do we really know that all the things that it’s doing or the reason that it was put in place in the first place? And so you have to, if you really want to do your due diligence in figuring out if it’s the right thing to do, you have to investigate and understand the whole kind of system that that procedure is embedded in. And then maybe you can subtract it, but it was a lot of work. So that’s one way it’s harder. You have to understand the whole system. I’d say another way it’s harder is just to subtract. You have to have added in the first place. So it’s just more steps. And I think maybe an example of this is a piece of writing. So you can write something that conveys the basic idea and it’s like, alright, we all get it. But you can always make it better by taking things away. But that’s extra work. It’s extra time, extra work, and it’s extra work that people might not even recognize, disappeared. 

  

Stephanie Everett (19:36): 

And I think the writing example is a good one, probably for our audience because in law school, the first assignments we’re given in law school, in our legal writing class. I mean, you have page limits and the courts also impose page limits. And that’s one of the hardest things is I want to make all these arguments I need to. And so you always think you want to make more arguments, but you have less space, physical space to do it in. So I used to write a brief, but then it would take me days to edit it down, trying to get it in that word count or in that page, what can I shorten? What can I take away and still convey this idea? That’s really hard. 

  

Leidy Klotz (20:13): 

Yeah, it’s hard, but it makes it better. And I think mean though, the page limits, I mean, that’s amazing, right? I mean, and I’ve heard of this. I was talking to the Federal judicial Council and they said that sometimes you’re allowed to ask for longer page limits for a relaxation of, and they’re like, this is one thing we could do to help with subtraction. It’s just not prove any of those. But it’s the opposite incentive for most assignments. Most assignments in school are at least 10 pages. So at least that page limit’s actually a really good example of, okay, we are kind of forcing subtraction. And then you realize that all this extra work you did to make it fit within the page limits and get the main points across is in fact work and it’s making the brief better. 

  

Stephanie Everett (20:58): 

Yeah, I mean, I guess I’d love to speak to that a little bit more because obviously you lay it all out in the book, but what are the benefits of this idea of subtracting? Tell us a little bit more, especially maybe in light of somebody’s listening and yeah, okay, this is starting to make sense, but how do I get my team on board? How do you get other people excited about the idea of subtract? 

  

Leidy Klotz (21:21): 

Yeah, I think the biggest thing I think is just, okay, this is another option that we have. And I’m not sitting here saying adding is bad. If I had to choose one or the other, I would probably choose adding. But we don’t have to choose. These are two complimentary options for making things better. So that’s the first thing. But our brains kind of tend to put these things in opposition and they’re not, they’re complimentary approaches for making change. I’d also say that helping people understand that taking away is a way to display competence or is a way to show that you’re doing a good job. Because I think it’s really one of the fundamental problems with subtraction is that the things that we add remain in the world and there’s evidence of them for people to see that we’re displaying competence, we’re doing a good job. 

  

(22:10): 

One of the stories that’s in the book is the Bauer birds. So these are the birds where the male birds will build a ceremonial nest. Well, the male build birds will build a nest. The female birds will go and look at the nest, decide which male to mate with based on which nest they like the best. And then the female birds go and build a nest to actually shelter and raise the young. So the whole purpose of the first nest was just to show that the Bauer bird could move sticks around in the world. And this is one of the most robust ideas in psychology that not just bowerbirds, but humans too have this desire to show that we can effectively interact with the world. And it’s not just physical things, but also white collar tasks. This is why it feels good to check something off your to-do list. 

  

(22:59): 

Okay, how does that disadvantage subtraction? It’s like when you add something, the evidence of your competence, the evidence of your effectiveness is right there for everybody to see. When you subtract, it’s like maybe somebody notices, but pretty soon it’s out of sight, out of mind. And so if you can help build that recognition into your processes, I think that can help make people see that, okay, subtraction is something that’s valued here. So for example, one of my colleagues, when she says no to something, she will leave that thing on her calendar that she said no to. And just as evidence that when she has the free writing time or the free time to do her highest value work, she’s like, okay, this time brought to you by saying no to that other thing. So she’s reminded of the effectiveness, she keeps the subtraction visible, and I think that’s one way to do it. 

  

(23:54): 

I think you can also, there’s some cool examples. I think when you subtract enough, it becomes visible. If you’ve got a 30 page limit for a brief and somebody hands in a five page brief, that’s really well done. I don’t know, that might be a bad example. It’s out of my realm. But maybe people would be like, oh, that was intentional, right? It wasn’t that they couldn’t think of 25 more pages. It was that they tried to make this as stripped down as possible. And if you think about Apple products, nobody says, oh, Steve Jobs couldn’t think of another button to put on the iPad. It’s just, oh, clearly this was what they were going for. So I think back to your question, I’ve just rambled a long time, but back to your question of how do you convince people that this is something that’s valuable? One, it’s a positive thing. It’s a way to make positive change, and two, it’s valued in the work environment. 

  

Stephanie Everett (24:50): 

One of the things that struck me while I was reading, we ourselves, we offer subscription services for our company and we’re also working with lawyers to help them redefine and rescope how do they serve people? What’s offered? And one of the things I wrote down is, I know we do this, we offer more to justify our price or our value. And so it even shows up in these charts everybody wants to do, if you go and go buy something today, you’ll see option A, and it has five things, and option B cost a little bit more, but it has seven things, and then option C, that cost the most may have to have 10. And I was really struggling with this thinking about this. I was like, wow, how do we convey to our clients that subtracting might be the most valuable thing? We just want to stack up logistics because we think logistics are going to justify our price or our value. And I’m just curious your thoughts on that. 

  

Leidy Klotz (25:45): 

Yeah, super interesting. I hadn’t thought about that. One of my favorite quotes about physical things is that one of the problems with all the stuff that we produce is that we then have to consume it, right? It’s like you can order all this stuff really inexpensively on Amazon and yeah, ostensibly it’s good, but then now you’re taking it out of the boxes and putting it in your house and you have to find a place for it. Then you have to remember where it is. It’s kind of the same thing with the services, right? Yeah, we could offer this and ostensibly it has some value, but I guess we maybe don’t think about the cost I guess to our schedules and also to our, I think there’s a big cognitive cost here. I mean, you hinted at that when we talk about the writing and the information that just, there’s limits to how much information we can actually pay attention to, and that’s the reason for the brief links, but it also applies to everything. And yeah, we’re not just computers taking in everything and giving it equal weight. We need to filter the information as it comes in. And I think that’s becoming more and more critical, especially, I don’t know, there’s a great quote that it’s in the book, but it’s from Herbert Simon, and he said A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and he was railing against Xerox machines. And it’s like now in the time of ai, and it’s just all this stuff that is out there, and it’s like the issue is filtering and deciding what to pay attention to. 

  

Stephanie Everett (27:17): 

Absolutely. And that was actually part of what struck me, even just in the introduction, you said something to how many more podcasts or kind of promoting against my own interest right now, because you were like, how many more podcasts do you need to listen to or books do you need to read versus taking that information that you already have consumed and distilling it and making it actionable. And that really just hit me because I was like, oh yeah, I do that a lot. I’m always consuming information, but how often am I stopping? And then trying to really get very specific and apply it. And that was kind of the challenge I took to my team after reading that part of the book, because I do agree with you, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. What are my frustrations right now? Is this word overwhelm? Because I hear it so much. Everybody seems to be in a state of overwhelm, and I think the reason I’m frustrated is because I am like, ah, how do we get people out of this? I’m over it. What do we do? So what are your thoughts? 

  

Leidy Klotz (28:16): 

No, that’s really honest about the podcast. I’d also say this podcast is the very clear reason for listening to it. I mean, I think it’s very actionable tips for running a business. So I just had that realization, especially this is one of the things I always thought about less, but as I’m writing the book, I’m like, holy cow. I literally was running on a treadmill watching the news and listening to a podcast. So trying to do these three things at the same time, and it’s like, okay, fine. Maybe that’s something to do. But also running is when I tend to get my best ideas from connecting all this stuff that I’ve been working on. And so it was shutting out the opportunity to do that. So that’s where I was like, okay, I need to pay a little more attention to how much information is coming in. 

  

(29:05): 

And just adding more information is not the only way to get better. I also need to set aside some time for distilling it. And yeah, that’s the best advice I have on that one is just start to think about that balance. It’s such a privilege to have all the amazing information out there and to get it so quickly. And I think the danger is that you never actually spend time thinking about how it applies to you. And like you said, distilling it, bringing it together, and thinking about, okay, what does this allow me to subtract from my mental models? What did I thought before? Do I no longer think? And that’s incredibly hard, but also incredibly powerful. 

  

Stephanie Everett (29:49): 

Yeah, I mean, one of the things I’ve heard from this that maybe I didn’t appreciate the nuance in the book in our conversation is just asking the question about subtract is part of the decision-making process is a place to start. And so maybe could you give us an example of where you could see that working for a business owner? 

  

Leidy Klotz (30:08): 

Yeah, that’s a great one. And the general idea is like can you build it into your processes, right? Because listening to this podcast, great, it’s a reminder that we’re going that subtracting is an option. And hopefully with more practice people just get better at doing that. But I think the more that you can build it into the everyday processes, the more likely it’s to happen. So annual reviews, for example, our annual reviews, and at least for my academic job is like, what are the three amazing things you’re going to do next year and what are the three? And that’s great, but you could also put a spot on the annual reviews for what are the three things you’re going to stop doing so that you can do these three amazing things already working to your full capacity. And then it does two things. It helps you think of it, but it also deals with this issue of showing that it’s valued, right? 

  

(30:59): 

Because now you’re talking to your boss about like, okay, yeah, this is the thing that I thought of. And they say, good job. We’re proud of you for thinking of this thing that could be subtracted. So I think that’s an example of building it into the process. Another really simple personal level one is just we talked about checking things off your to-do list. I mean, when you spend time thinking about your to-dos, can you spend time thinking about stop doings? And so these are things that I’ve been doing for the last two years and maybe I don’t need to do it anymore. Maybe it’s not, doesn’t raise to the level of the five critical things that I really need to be doing. And it’s hard. I mean, for a while I was trying to balance my to-do list and my stop doing list and have the same number of things on each, but I found that really hard. But if you can get these stop doings, they can be really powerful and necessary to keep things in balance. So I guess the principle though is can you think about your daily processes, your early processes, and can you build reminders of subtraction into them and also rewards for subtraction into 

  

Stephanie Everett (32:06): 

Them? Yeah, we talk about that a lot in our program. When I’m working with lawyers, we’re always talking about what can you stop doing? And yeah, everyone’s always heard me say, sometimes a no makes you more money because lawyers love to say yes to lots of things. And I’m like, no, stop doing so many practice areas and stop trying to help everybody get really clear on who you help. And then, so I guess this idea just really resonates with me, but we have to be active in it. To your point, we have to keep reminding ourselves and thinking about it as part of our framework for everything we’re doing in our business. 

  

Leidy Klotz (32:43): 

Yeah, I think that one way to think about it is just that the default mode of operation is going to push you towards this adding, adding, adding, adding. And you just need to be intentional about taking away to keep things in balance. I also empathize with, I mean, the desire to do everything. When I talk to teachers, they’re like, of course I want to help every student and do the maximum amount possible. I think the more you care about something, the harder it is to conceive of subtracting a part of it. But you’ve also got to keep in mind the opportunity cost because when you get overwhelmed, you’re not doing your best. And so it’s not to say don’t try to help people. It’s just try to take a bigger picture view of how much help you’re providing and whether adding or subtraction is going to get you there. 

  

Stephanie Everett (33:31): 

Yeah. Cool. Well, one of our values here at Lawyerist is stay curious. And so that’s actually where this whole idea, I actually posted it in our stay curious channel when I read your book, because a lot of times this whole concept of stay curious is like, what are you learning? Which implies you’re learning something new, you’re reading something new, and I was like, oh, maybe we need to refine it to stay curious might be what are you perfecting? Which might imply implementing or subtracting if I were to take it that far. But anyway, something I like to ask guests when they come on is what are you staying curious about right now? And it could be around this idea of subtracting or just anything. I’m always curious about what people are doing next. 

  

Leidy Klotz (34:14): 

Well, what I’m doing next, I’m working on a book about how our surroundings make our psychology and how our psychology makes our surroundings. And I’m still working on the elevator pitch for that. But it’s really exciting for me, and I think it’s kind of this overlooked part in this, I don’t know, self-help is the right word, but it’s this overlooked way to make our lives better is to think more intentionally about our physical surroundings. So I’m excited about that. Curious about that. I really love going to talk about subtraction to people like you. I think one of, obviously you start doing these podcasts as a way to like, oh, you’re supposed to get the book out there in the world and share your ideas. And yeah, that’s cool and that’s part of it. But it’s just been incredibly rewarding to learn how all these different professions and people trying to make the world a better place are using the ideas. 

  

(35:08): 

So that’s why I like to do this, and I’ve learned today from the things that you’ve talked about. So that’s another way that I try to stay curious, even though it wasn’t intentional. I think now it’s intentional is that I know that by going to talk to people like you, I’m going to learn more about this idea and then I can go share those iterations with other people I talk to. So I think that’s really cool, especially since this is an idea that I’ve spent years on you it out there into the world. And the book is not so much a finished product as kind of a step in the iteration of my thinking about this that’s been advanced a lot by talking to people like you. 

  

Stephanie Everett (35:50): 

Yeah, I totally appreciate that. We wrote a book, it’s on its second version now, and I think the same, it’s not done. And I think we put so much pressure on ourselves to put this finished product out into the world, whether that be a book or a draft of a brief or a business plan, what your first offering’s going to be when you help somebody. And I have this saying, I don’t know if I made it up, or I always say the first draft can’t be perfect, right? But you have to get it out there and you have to, then it’s almost like this thing and it has to breathe and change and get fixed. And so I get what you’re saying. That resonates a lot with me. 

  

Leidy Klotz (36:28): 

Yeah, no, I think, and it’s hard. It’s super hard. It’s hard for me. It’s one of the things that I deal with with PhD students is like, look, this is just a slice in time. You’re just writing up where this research is at this moment in time. So we got to come up with a good saying for that because it’s freeing to think of it that way. And it’s like that’s actually how ideas work, right? It’s not ever done. 

  

Stephanie Everett (36:53): 

Right. Cool. What else do you want people to know about this concept? Is there something that you wished I’d asked you that I didn’t? 

  

Leidy Klotz (37:00): 

No. You did an awesome job of, I don’t know. I think you hit on the very main key points, the fact that this is not easy, right? This is hard. I think that’s part of the reason that more people don’t do it, or the types of people that we’re talking to don’t do it because it’s seen as like, oh, this should just be easy. And in reality, it takes a few more steps. And then I think the other part of it though, it’s like it’s hard in that it’s more steps, but it also can be incredibly fun, and I try to talk about it in a way that’s fun. Also try to, the examples I think are fun, but just when you think about that act of, at least when I have 60 pages of writing and need to get them down to 40, that’s more fun than trying to generate the writing in the first place. I think it puts you in this kind of state of flow, and it’s a problem solving puzzle to take things away, and you’re kind of working at the limits of your ability because it’s challenging. So I think that just because it’s work, it doesn’t mean that it’s not fun work, and I think it can also be incredibly rewarding work as well. 

  

Stephanie Everett (38:01): 

Absolutely. Well, it’s been so much fun having you on today and learning about this, and so we’ll make sure we put a link to the book, obviously in the show notes, and if anybody wanted to connect with you or is there a good place to send them? 

  

Leidy Klotz (38:15): 

Yeah, my parents gave me a good Google name, so you can find me really easily. Yeah, I love hearing for people, and yeah, I appreciate the work you do, Stephanie, and the work that your listeners do. 

  

Stephanie Everett (38:27): 

Awesome. Thank you. 

  

Zack Glaser (38:30): 

The Lawyerist podcast is edited by Brittany Felix, are you ready to implement the ideas we discussed here into your practice? Wondering what to do next? Here are your first steps. First, if you haven’t read the Small Firm Roadmap yet, grab the initial chapter for free at Lawyerist dot com slash book, looking for help beyond the book. Let’s chat about whether our coaching communities are right for you at the Lawyerist dot com slash community slash lab for more information. The views expressed by the participants are their own and are not endorsed by Legal Talk Network. Nothing said in this podcast is legal advice for you. 

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