As I wrap up my second year of practice, I can’t help but reflect on how much I’ve grown—not just as a lawyer but as a juggler of priorities, a planner extraordinaire and even, dare I say, a budding Excel wizard. This year has been a whirlwind of lessons, growth and occasional coffee-fueled late nights, from perfecting the fine art of contemporaneous time entry to building meaningful relationships with colleagues.

One of the most important habits I developed this year is entering my time contemporaneously. If you’ve ever stared at a week-old stack of sticky notes trying to reconstruct what you did last Tuesday at 3 p.m., you’ll understand the pain of trying to backfill time entries. It’s like solving a riddle you wrote in invisible ink. By entering my time as I go—whether it’s drafting motions, responding to client emails or attending depositions—I’ve saved myself stress, made an almost foolproof billing spreadsheet, created more accurate billing records and, most importantly, avoided the dreaded last-minute scramble when timesheets are due.