Making The Most of Social Isolation: Mediate Now

Making The Most of Social Isolation: Mediate Now

Admit it: before the COVID-19 crisis, your personal and professional lives were probably going a mile a minute. You needed more hours in the day to accomplish everything on your to do list and to see everyone you needed to see. 

Suddenly, the world entered the great pause. Things slowed down considerably or just stopped completely. If you’re enjoying all this newfound free time during this period of social isolation, you might be tempted to keep putting work on the back burner.

Don’t put off doing tomorrow what you can do today. Here are three tips to make the most out of social isolation when it comes to your working life.

Keep Your Practice Lights On, While Moving Files Forward

Not all steps along the litigation process lend themselves well to virtual meetings and some things must wait until life returns to the new normal. Mediations over Zoom and other videoconferencing platforms  have been found to be quite effective by many participants. 

Scheduling mediations through virtual conferencing technology will help keep some files in motion during this period and clear up some time in your schedule when social distancing ends.

Embrace Technology to Expand Your Client-base

Face-to-face interaction with clients remains the gold standard. Using  this opportunity to embrace technology can expand and improve the reach of your business. Virtual meeting platforms allow you to work with clients all over Ontario in a more engaging manner than using traditional telephone communication with the occasional in-person visit.

Not all clients will be comfortable using new technologies. That’s OK. However, there are probably many more that will look at this as a very positive addition to your practice and would be willing to give it a try.

By introducing a novel way to interact with your clients, you make it easier for your clients to look at virtual mediations as an acceptable way to move along the litigation process.

We Will All Be VERY Busy Once We’re Back to “Normal” – Expect Delays

Trials and some mediations are being postponed for several months. We can expect a flood of work in the future and a bottleneck when in-person meetings resume. This will cause even further delays. Get a head start now!

CONCLUSION

“Future me” is always so thankful when “Past me” does something to make my life easier. Using this unexpected pause to binge-watch some television series or finally picking up that book you’ve been meaning to read is a good idea to give you some rest and relaxation during a stressful time. 

Don’t forget that work never truly stops… it just builds up. Do what you can now to spare yourself some headaches later.  Every task you do today is one less task you will face on tomorrow’s “to do” list.

I recently completed a much-watched webinar offering tips on conducting virtual mediations. Click below to sign up for the next one. “Future You” will thank “Present You.”

May 6 from 2-4 EDT | May 13 from 12-2 EDT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Logan CooperLogan Cooper joined the Cooper Mediation team in November, 2017 and now devotes 100% of her professional time to mediation.

Contact Logan at: logan@coopermediation.ca or (416) 726-1344. Alternatively, you may view Logan’s Online Calendar to book a mediation: www.coopermediation.ca/logan-coopers-online-calendar/.



Cooper Mediation