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
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