What do Steve Jobs wearing the same outfit, The Mandalorian refusing to take off the helmet, and well your favorite Hawaiian shirt wearing lawyer coach have in common?
We do all have strong feelings about wardrobe…and yes I do realize I just placed myself with one of the most successful CEOs in history and the best recent Star Wars show…
But for the purpose of our newsletter, it is about protecting your attention before the whole business starts spending it for you.
Jobs removed a daily decision. The Mandalorian has a rule that removes debate. And me, well I also removed a daily decision AND get to be super comfortable and happy with my attire all day. And sure, we make (on average) 35,000 decisions a day…what’s one more?
But also, we only have so much attention and decision making.
The Lie We Tell Ourselves
“I just need to be available.”
Available sounds generous. Responsible. Leadership-y.
It also sounds like something Ted Lasso would say right before accidentally agreeing to 14 meetings, three emotional support conversations, and a biscuits-with-the-boss situation he did not have time for.
If you are available for every client worry, staff uncertainty, Slack ping, and “can you look at this real quick,” then your day is a suggestion box with a law license.
And yes, I have done this too. It feels helpful in the moment. You answer the question. The person moves forward. Tiny win.
Cue the theme music.
But the hidden cost is that you trained the system again. Next time, they do not ask, “Who owns this?” They ask, “Can Jordan answer this?”
That is not leadership. That is becoming Clippy with a bar card.
What Actually Needs to Change
Protecting attention does not mean hiding from your team like you are Batman in a cave pretending that is a healthy management structure.
It means deciding what earns your attention.
Your attention should go to owner-level work: strategy, hiring, culture, money decisions, referral relationships, and the work only you can actually do.
It should not go to “where is the template,” “is this done,” or “I did not want to decide so I brought you the whole suitcase.”
Because once every question comes to you, you are not running a firm anymore. You are hosting a very expensive episode of The Office where everyone keeps walking into Michael Scott’s office for approval, except somehow you also have CLE deadlines.
What This Looks Like in Real Life
I see this constantly with law firm owners. Their calendar says they worked nine hours, but their brain says they got mugged by boring law-office trivia.
A client email becomes a case status check. The status check reveals a missing task. The missing task becomes a staff conversation. Suddenly it is 4:42 p.m., the CEO work is untouched, and dinner is sponsored by resentment.
And the worst part is, nothing felt dramatic while it was happening.
There was no Avengers portal opening in the conference room. No Imperial March. No Nick Fury showing up with an eye patch saying, “You have become the bottleneck.”
It was just one interruption at a time.
This is where the life-first filter matters. If part of the goal is being able to pick up your kid at 3 p.m., take a real vacation, or have one strategic thought without five interruptions, your operating rules have to support that.
Memory is not a system. Availability is not a system.
Remembering 900 loose threads is also not a system. That is just a Pixar movie where all the emotions are Anxiety.
How to Start Fixing It
Create office hours for questions.
Set one or two windows a day where non-emergency questions get answered. Then define urgent.
“I feel nervous” is not the same as “a filing deadline is today.”
One is real. The other is your team’s version of hitting the Staples easy button, except the button is you and it keeps making sad lawyer noises.
Give every repeating question a home.
If your team asks the same thing twice, put the answer in the case management system, SOP, checklist, AI or weekly meeting agenda.
The goal is not to answer faster forever. The goal is to stop being the answer.
If every answer lives in your head, congratulations, you built a law firm powered by one very tired hard drive.
Make decisions smaller.
A lot of interruptions happen because your team does not know the decision boundary.
Give them guardrails: under this dollar amount, decide; if it affects a deadline, escalate; if the client is angry, use this path.
Specific beats “use your judgment” when judgment has never been defined.
Otherwise you are basically handing someone a lightsaber and saying, “Just be responsible.” Great advice,
Obi-Wan. Very clear. No notes.
Audit the interruptions.
For one week, keep a simple list.
Who interrupted you? What did they need? Could the answer have lived somewhere else?
You are not doing this so you can glare at your team like Ron Swanson discovering unnecessary government paperwork.
You are looking for the broken routing.
Protect one CEO block.
Pick one 60-90-minute block this week for owner work. No client calls. No email. No staff questions unless the building is metaphorically on fire, and even then, please make sure it is actually on fire and not just someone looking for the toner.
Use that block for the thing you keep saying matters: hiring, marketing, financial review, culture, strategy, or referral relationships.
In other words, do the work only the owner can do before the day turns into Mario Kart and someone throws a blue shell at your calendar.
The Real Point
Your attention is one of the most expensive assets in the firm.
If you let everyone else spend it first, you will do your most important thinking with whatever scraps are left at the end of the day.
That is how owners become busy, tired, and weirdly unsure why the firm still feels stuck.
This week, do not try to fix your entire calendar. Find the one category of interruption that hits you most often and build a better path for it.
One category. One rule. One less reason for everyone to summon you like Beetlejuice.
Learn more about Atticus coaching and schedule a free discovery call here .
Next week ,
we are going super deep on The Secret to Better Delegation? Clearer Instructions.
Until then, take five minutes and write down the last five interruptions that pulled you out of real work. Circle the one that should never have reached you.
That is the first rule to build.