One of the most common reasons lawyers stall under pressure is not lack of knowledge or ability.

It is starting with the wrong question.

When faced with a complex problem, many lawyers instinctively ask:

“How should I organise myself?”

It sounds sensible — even responsible.

Yet very often, it is the fastest route to overthinking and delay.

In my lawyer-centric, CPD-rich programme Marvellous Client Care and Professional Excellence in the Age of Legal Disruption, one of the most effective exercises explores a simple but powerful shift:

From How should I organise myself?

To What can I immediately act on right away?

The difference is subtle in language, but profound in effect.

A practical example

A client sends a 200-page fintech agreement for urgent advice.

The business is highly regulated. The stakes are real.

Lens A: How should I organise myself?

• Research the financial-services regulatory framework in depth

• Anticipate all potential legal and compliance issues

• Contact the regulator (e.g. CySEC in Cyprus) for guidance

• Prepare comprehensive, end-to-end advice

• Study articles, commentary and specialist materials

None of this is wrong.

In fact, much of it may be necessary.

But it is not where momentum begins.

Lens B: What can I immediately act on right away?

What is the minimum meaningful unit of action I can take now?

• Print the agreement

• Send a short email confirming receipt, clarifying the reason for urgency, and distinguishing between hard and soft deadlines

• Propose sending high-level risk points first, with deeper analysis to follow

• Call a colleague with relevant experience and ask for initial guidance

• Pick up a highlighter and mark the clauses that immediately raise concern

This lens is about movement.

Action — even small, concrete action — breaks the deadlock that over-analysis creates.

Why this works

“How” questions tend to pull the mind into abstraction: frameworks, systems, perfect sequencing.

For reflective or conscientious lawyers, this easily becomes analysis paralysis.

“What” questions are different.

They anchor thinking in the physical world: printing, writing, calling, marking, sending.

As human beings, we live in two worlds:

• the world of thought, and

• the world of matter and action.

Progress requires one foot in each.

As I note in The MARVEL of Happiness, when faced with a difficult problem, asking “What should I do?” often narrows thinking.

Asking “What could I do?” opens it.

And asking “What can I act on right now?” gets you moving.

In complex legal work, movement matters.

Philippos Aristotelous