Our long-standing clients know that I take August off, as do friends and family. It is a discipline that I have been using for the last five years or so, because in reality August is a non-month work-wise for us and our clients. August is an opportunity to refresh before the busiest months of the legal year, which for us typically are September to December and then February to July. The ebb and flow of working life enables the opportunity to take some time to pause, reflect, and relax.
When I have bumped into friends and business contacts at the early season football games, down the pub or whilst out and about relaxing, the question is always the same:
'You take the whole of August off?!'
Followed by a panicked:
'You check emails though, right?'
You will have already gathered that the answer to the first question is, yes, I take the whole of August off.
The answer to the second question is no. The out of office reply is on and in the case of a genuine emergency, my business partner can of course get hold of me.
The anxious facial expressions some professional contacts display at my not checking emails is often amusing. However, in 2024, I had a huge project on for a client and there were some emails exchanged in relation to that particular unique one-off project because of court deadlines. It encroached to the tune of about three days in the early part of the August 2024 break.
So, just as at weekends, I do not check emails. Rest and recovery are crucial to performance in sport, business and life. Thus I have a separate work phone and personal phone, meaning that the purpose of the August shutdown is to shut down, pause, reflect and relax. There are business purposes behind this and also personal objectives.
From a business point of view, it is about ensuring that I am refreshed for the busiest time of the year between my return and Christmas. As a professional services firm, particularly law firms come back from the summer break and tend to lead into the biggest projects of their financial year - therefore the most challenging projects for ourselves.
From a personal point of view, it is the opportunity to spend time with family, to see my wife and children a little bit more (although as young adults they want to do their own thing more than hang out with the old guy).
August is to switch off without the distractions of working life. I also get to spend time with friends without the risk of an email, or a phone call, cropping up and distracting with the guilt that goes with clients coming first for the rest of the year.
Crucially though, it allows me to reflect on the past year and to plan for the next year. As any business owner knows, you have to plan and you have to look forward, and my time to do that is in the day or two immediately before my return.
August is the month when most people are away and therefore business wise the least gets done, from our clients’ point of view anyway. Whilst the UK may have left the EU, when it comes to August we are increasingly following the French trend of an extended break. Perhaps this is a reflection of our warming climate, perhaps it is a reflection of the intensity of professional life in the age of distraction with emails, instant messaging, etc, but perhaps it is also a reflection of the post-Covid lessons learned from the pandemic and lockdown.
The first two to three weeks for me are a complete chance to decompress.
I have focused, in those two or three weeks, on doing exactly what work psychologists tell you to do on holiday: I have not thought about work at all.
Only once I am relaxed and refreshed, with the urge to get back to working life, do I start to plan from a personal objective and business objectives for the year ahead. The opportunity to have read books without distraction for weeks on end and walked miles on end with time and space to think steers the year ahead.
This year I have been reflecting on the lessons of some of the world’s most successful professional services businesses, on high performance, on key strategies and key performance indicators, and of course, enhancing explanations and services. In other words, without working, I have focused on personal and professional development and read widely, and given myself the time and space to think about how to apply concepts that are familiar but had been forgotten, or which are new in developing and which need to be understood to be applied.
As specialist solicitors advising professional service businesses, we operate in a unique space. However, the privilege of thinking and solving problems for a living requires regular self-reflection and reflection upon how we are exceeding the needs of clients.
For me, that is August: rest, recover and get ready for the next year.
My challenge to others in professional services is: can you truly take a break, reflect, relax, and re-energise to go again to deliver excellence to your clients? If you can do so without an extended break, I am in awe of you. But for most of us, a week or two probably does not cut it and we are getting by, the overwhelming lesson of the last few years and the August pause for me is that it is crucial for personal and professional reasons.
Paul Bennett is a leading regulatory lawyer and partner with north west firm Bennett Briegal. A full version of this article is available at www.bennettbriegal.co.uk
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