Technology & Stress: Good Tools or Bad Tools
By Jim Calloway, Director, OBA Management Assistance Program

Does today’s technology make your life easier? Several years ago I wrote about the paradox that we use a lot of technology to make our lives easier and yet many of us seem to suffer from more stress and a greater compromised quality of life today. These thoughts struck a chord with many readers and over the years I have received many reprint requests for that article. Sometimes it was printed with no changes, but sometimes it was edited. I kept track of some of the changes that I liked. So, for this work/life balance theme issue of the Oklahoma Bar Journal, it seemed like a good idea to give you the 2008 updated version of my observations about technology and stress.

Perhaps we do not have so much stress if you take the long historical view. A caveman fleeing a pack of hungry predators experienced real stress. Certainly that is more stressful than a lawyer being late to a motion docket, even if the case was dismissed. So does all of this new technology add stress to our lives? Absolutely. Then would removing it reduce our stress? No. I believe it would have the opposite effect. Can you recall life before fax machines? (Not to mention e-mail.) Communications technology vanishing might be good for courier services and the U.S. Postal Service, but too many of our business models now rely on the Internet and electronic communications.

So let’s think about using our technology more wisely.

CALLOWAY’S RULES OF TECHNOLOGY AND STRESS

THE KEY POINT: USING TECHNOLOGY SPEEDS UP THE PACE OF EVERYTHING

The purpose of almost all technology is to do things faster, and often better, than we humans can.

In simpler times, getting to work an hour early meant an hour of uninterrupted time to prepare for the day. Interaction with those outside the office was limited because their phones were not yet being answered. Now, through the technological magic of e-mail, faxes and mobile phones, you can get to work early and have a half-dozen negative interactions with others before the day even officially starts. We all can, and therefore do, run at a faster pace. And if you let the technology set your pace, it will make you run faster and faster.

To survive in a law practice, you have to learn how to set your own pace.

LIVING IN A TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY IS STRESSFUL

Technology eases our lives in many ways, but it also is demanding and time-consuming. Realizing its benefits generally requires knowledge and understanding.

When you depend on a device to do something for you, can you still do it when the device is inoperable? If there was a power failure in the manual typewriter era, you could light a few candles and keep going. When there’s no power, today’s law office is shut down. The same is true when a machine is broken or “the network is down.” Automated phone systems may be a money saver for the company you call, but you expend time and energy to navigate through the menus. In fact, many of the benefits of e-commerce revolve around forcing the consumer to enter data that previously was entered by clerical staff on the company’s payroll.

We live in a society that provides a constant flood of information. From hundreds of cable TV channels to the Internet to the mobile phone, there is more information pushed at you each day than you can possibly retain and manage. How could anyone manage it all? For most of us the term “information management” would be better described as “information triage.”

There is little wonder that today many of us feel like we are trying to take a drink of water from an open, spewing fire hydrant as we look for an answer. There’s just too much.

TECHNOLOGY ALWAYS INVOVLES TRADE-OFFS

Technology may give us great benefits, but it also can take … and take … and take some more.

There is certainly no free lunch where law office technology is concerned. You may implement technology that does a marvelous job for you, but it still has to be purchased and installed. Plus, it’s mostly useless with investing in training and maintenance.

One of the big stressful aspects of technology today is knowing that you have a tool right at your fingertips that will do the task you need done right now, but not knowing how to make it do so. You likely do not even have all the features of your mobile phone committed to memory and are a rare person indeed if you have mastered your word processing software. But investing hours in training sessions learning how to use your technology can be just as frustrating as not knowing how to work the program in the first place — especially when there is “real work” still to be done backing up at the office.

The reality is we pay for the benefits of technology. You can reduce your stress just by understanding and accepting that premise. Celebrate when technology allows you to land a new client from across the country who would have never heard of you in the pre-Internet days. Then when you spend 45 minutes reading online help files, cryptic instruction manuals and third-party books to learn how to do a task in “only” a minute, try to accept that as well. Besides, hopefully next time it really will only take you a minute to do the task.

DEALING WITH CHANGES GENERATES STRESS AND TECHNOLOGY WILL ALWAYS BE CHANGING

Technology expands, improves and changes. Dealing with change is always stressful.

Computers in the law office clearly make certain tasks, like billing, much easier. But it seems that as soon as you master one part of technology, there is an improvement or an upgrade that requires you change how you operate. This seemingly constant process of learning, then relearning and then learning anew all over again has lead many to rebel and refuse to change.

Lewis Carroll described the way many of us feel in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: “You have to run as fast as you can to stay where you are.”

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DISTANCES THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN COMMUNICATIONS

Certainly you can get a laugh from an e-mail from a friend or be touched by a warm voice-mail from your spouse.

But we learned in the early days of e-mail that there was more to interpersonal communications than the words. Without the context of facial expressions, voice tone and other cues, a lot of misunderstanding arose. E-mailers soon adopted emoticons, like little smiley faces, to improve their communications.

As we communicate more and more by e-mail, we should be aware of this fact. If you sit in your office with the door closed and send out directions by e-mail all day, your staff will feel more job stress and will not function well as a team. Good teams are based on relationships and understanding. It is difficult to create or nurture a relationship via e-mail.

Younger citizens stay connected constantly via instant messaging or applications like Twitter. Some of them would argue that it helps them stay closer to and more connected with their friends. “Texting” has been added to our vocabulary whether you like it or not. We have to recognize that those who grew up with these tools may respond to them in different ways. But I still see the “texters” making physical contact when they meet together, whether it is a handshake, a hug or a hard shove (in the case of adolescent boys.)

My opinions are certainly influenced by my experiences and stage in life. But the practice of law can be isolating and I caution that we guard against our technology making that more so.

YOU CAN BE CONNECTED ALL THE TIME AND YOU CANNOT BE CONNECTED ALL THE TIME

With relatively inexpensive investments in technology you can be literally be available to your clients and to your work projects 24/7. This is not, of itself, bad. Using a laptop or personal digital assistant to make use of otherwise unproductive time is a good thing. Being able to check in with the office electronically when you are home with an illness can be a good thing, too.

But lawyers tend to be highly motivated, highly focused individuals. Fifty- to 60-hour work weeks are not uncommon. Current technology allows you to work around the clock from wherever you may be. You can check the office e-mail from home at night after the family goes to bed. You can track down your staff or other attorneys at odd hours with their mobile phone numbers. You can access your office files remotely. You can, quite literally, work all the time.

You can — but you can’t. We human beings are not machines. We cannot stay focused on work for too long without a break. When we try to do it, we begin to function erratically. We lose our tempers. We lose our objectivity. We make mistakes. We manifest the results of our stress in many different ways.

SO WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT THIS?

You need to set your own pace and recognize that the use of technology tools will pressure you to speed up your pace.

You need to adopt a triage approach to the flood of information you receive every day. You cannot handle it all. You must practice prioritization, which may be the most important job and life skill of the 21st century.

You need to give some thoughts to the trade-offs and negative consequences of your technology instead of just blindly accepting them.

Do not let technology tools to convince you to undertake more than you can handle. You can only safely handle so much work. It is very important to not let your technology’s capabilities lure you into agreeing to do more than you can or should do. We all need to practice saying “no” or, at least, “not now.”

You need to give yourself permission and time for fun and recreation. Lying on the sofa watching an old movie you love is not being lazy; it is recharging your batteries.

GOOD TOOL, BAD TOOL

Technology gives us a set of tools. These are new tools and powerful tools. But they are still tools—our tools. And we should control our tools.

We have decisions to make about how to use our technology tools. Using the tool when it helps and not using it when it detracts is the key—that and always knowing when it is time to hit the “off” switch.

Originally published in the Oklahoma Bar Journal May 10, 2008 - Vol. 79; No.13.