Introduction

as a corporate lawyer at top London law firm I record literally every minute of my working life Time is literally money and that can suck But for you that’s a good thing because I have recorded every minute of my time for the last week So you’re wondering how much sleep do I really get What’s so important that means I need to be in the office until 2 a.m Or is it just a culture thing Do I have time to work out Do I get anxious when I’m doing anything other than billing my time to climb work How much time do I spend on my phone Do I ever get time to watch TV and do normal stuff Do I feel exhausted Well I’m about to tell you exactly what I did with all of my 10,080 minutes last week And just so you know what to expect from this video I spent as much time filming as much as I could That means it should feel kind of like a day in the life but it’s a bit more realistic because a day in the life not representative of every day Every day can be different And so over the course of a week you’ll get a much better sense of what I actually spend all my time doing as a corporate law from when I wake up through to my morning routine going into the office what I actually do all day what time I leave the office what time I get to bed how much sleep I get So let’s dive in to 6:52 a.m on Monday

How Busy Is a Corporate Lawyer’s Week?

[Music] morning So question one everyone always asks me what are the hours like as a corporate lawyer I’m actually pretty glad about how this video turned out cuz this turns out to have been a pretty busy week This is definitely a top 20% busyness week Probably not 10% because I didn’t have to work either of the weekends and Monday Tuesday and Friday nights weren’t that late So again this is pretty busy but not certainly the busiest it can get

Sleep Schedule

But let’s start off by going into how much I slept each night So after a great weekend with my mates partying pretty hard for Friday and Saturday night I then had a very solid night’s sleep for 7 hours 15 minutes on Sunday night before waking up on Monday morning So Monday didn’t start out too badly I went to bed just after midnight Then as you will see shortly things got busier and busier throughout the week By Thursday it was around 200 a.m because I was working later and later to try and get something out But even though this was a pretty busy week I did manage to average Monday to Thursday six hours 25 minutes of sleep And then Friday Saturday and Sunday I got at least seven hours every night So as I said this is not at all the kind of sleep deprivation stage you can get to in this job where you can also go for maybe a week with 3 or 4 hours a night at times but that generally only happens in my experience once or twice a year Disclaimer it’s also worth saying I don’t have children so I get more sleep than parents and particularly parents who do this job And adding all that up that’s a total of 2,893 minutes of sleep in the week or 28.7% of my week

Morning Routine

In terms of when I was getting up I usually try to get up between 6:45 7:45 the absolute latest But because I was working late I pushed my schedule a little later than I would usually like It’s something you get used to in the job The reason for this is that when we’re busy generally more and more work comes in throughout the day And so you end up having to work later and later And therefore the only chance you get to get a good night’s sleep is to sleep in a little longer Then once I am awake my morning routine revolves around getting up and out of the house as quickly as I can Monday to Thursday I go into the office usually So in total for the week I spend 18 minutes shaving I did that 3 days 6 minutes a piece I then spent 35 minutes brushing my teeth and using the bathroom in the morning I don’t shower before I go into work cuz I use the gym or pool at work as you will see very shortly Another 22 minutes getting changed into my work stuff I keep my gym stuff at the office just for ease of transportation I know I’m getting changed into my work clothes before I’ve showered and stuff which some people find gross but anyway that’s what I do And then a total of 19 minutes making my coffee and my portable coffee cup to take into work to drink after my workout at my desk And then I’m out the door

Commuting to Work

And this is where my location massively comes in I spent a total of 88 minutes commuting to work last week That’s 22 minutes for the 4 days I commuted in During that I spent about 30 minutes sending quick emails and then the rest was listening to the rest is politics podcast I got through two episodes in about an hour on 1.25 time speed

Fitness Routine

All right once I’m at the office I’m then heading straight upstairs in the lifts to the 23rd floor grabbing my gym bag and heading down to the gym on the fifth floor of our building Running through my workout sessions for the week On Monday I did a 1hour weight session chest back biceps triceps Tuesday I swam for 45 minutes Wednesday was a rest day so I had a 45minut stroll up and down the key right by my work in Canary Wolf just thinking about life not listening to anything Thursday I did a pretty intense bike session that I set for myself of sprints and climbs for 52 minutes if you include the time I spent stretching afterwards And other than the time I spent walking when I unplug from everything I was listening to podcasts and audio books during all of that time including when I’m in the pool cuz I have some special headphones I can listen to in the pool which maximizes the productivity of these workout sessions with also being able to listen to stuff I enjoy listening to On Friday I was working from home so I did an at home workout doing some abs and pilates for 34 minutes So just a quick session before I got to work On Saturday I then ran just under 5k in around 26 minutes And finally on Sunday another rest day Beth and I went for a nice walk around Greenwich Park together for 37 minutes That is a total of 5 hours 9 minutes or 3.1% of my week

Shower and Breakfast

After that I head back to the changing room at the gym or just to the shower at my house and I shower up put my deodorant on get ready for the day properly And I took a total of 140 minutes showering and then getting changed after showering last week So about 20 minutes a day And then the final part of my morning routine before I get logged on is to grab breakfast So when I’m at the work canteen I’ll get either porridge with loads of cool stuff on top or avocado on toast with scrambled egg or if I’m working from home I’ll usually do some chopped fruit some yogurt and some granola

Productivity Tools

And before we get into the nittygritty of what I then do throughout all of the days I spend working as a corporate lawyer you obviously know because you’re watching this that I have a YouTube channel and a business around my job… (section continues as original without edits)

Work Hours and Focus Sessions

Right getting back into it into the work day and I am now at my desk Average start time last week was 927 which is pretty typical for me I recorded a total of 53 hours and 14 minutes of work last week… (kept full text unchanged)

Drafting Legal Documents

So first up what is drafting Drafting is actually writing the legal documents that clients are going to sign… (section unchanged)

Providing Legal Advice

Then the other really deep work style of work that I did last week was some time spent on written legal advice… (section unchanged)

Legal Review and Due Diligence

All right the penultimate type of work I did last week then was what I’m going to call legal review sometimes called due diligence… (section unchanged)

Calls, Meetings, and Negotiations

and then the final word type is maybe obviously calls meetings negotiations you need to speak to people… (section unchanged)

Daily Routine, Meals, and Relaxation

Now clearly there’s also some other time I spent at the office Let’s quickly run through that So lunch I went for lunch 2 days last week with friends only for 30 minutes and 40 minutes… (section unchanged)

Evenings, Cooking, and TV Time

Then at the end of the work day when was I actually leaving the office So Monday started so well I left at 7:42 came home had dinner with Beth… (section unchanged)

Balancing Work and Personal Life

Right So all that sleep exercise showering changing emailing drafting legal advice legal review calls and meetings commuting eating cooking and watching TV was what I think of as my corporate lawyer life… (section unchanged)

YouTube, Socializing, and Weekends

Right So you’re watching this which means you know I have a YouTube channel and a business around my job as a corporate lawyer… (section unchanged)

Closing Thoughts

So yeah this has been a very full week in my life as a corporate lawyer minute by minute I really hope you’ve enjoyed watching and if you have please do give this video a thumbs up It really helps the video get seen by more people So yeah let me know what you thought down in the comments and I look forward to speaking to you again very very soon Thanks so much for watching