Last week, you did your brain dump. You grabbed a pen and paper, set a timer for twenty minutes, and got every rainmaking task rattling around in your head onto the page. Then you asked yourself three hard questions about each item. If you did that work, you’re already ahead of most lawyers.
Now comes the harder part: the cull.
You’ve got a list in front of you. Some of those items are real. Some of them are noise. And most attorneys can’t tell the difference because they’ve been carrying both around for so long that they feel the same.
Here’s the thing about “should.” Lawyers are drowning in shoulds. You should network more. You should be on LinkedIn. You should host client events. You should build relationships with referral sources. You should, you should, you should. Half of your list is probably shoulds — things you believe a rainmaker is supposed to do, not things you actually want to do or things that actually work for your practice.
The other half? Those are the real items. The ones that energize you or at least don’t make you want to hide under your desk. Maybe you actually enjoy one-on-one conversations. Maybe you love speaking. Maybe you genuinely want to deepen certain relationships. Those items feel different when you read them — they don’t have the weight of obligation attached.
So here’s how you cull:
Go through your list and mark each item with either a W or an S. W for “want” — something you’d actually do or at least don’t dread doing. S for “should” — something you think you’re supposed to do but have zero genuine interest in.
Don’t overthink it. Your gut knows the difference. If you hesitate, it’s probably an S.
Look at your S list. These are the shoulds. The things you’ve been telling yourself you need to do to be a “real rainmaker.” Here’s the truth: a rainmaking strategy built on shoulds will never stick. You’ll white-knuckle it for a few weeks, burn out, and end up back where you started. So ask yourself one question about each S: Is there someone in my practice who actually does this and loves it?
If yes, that’s their lane. Not yours. Cross it off and move on. You don’t have to be good at everything.
If no, then you’ve just identified something the entire firm is avoiding, which probably means it’s not actually that important to moving business forward.
Now look at your W list. These are the items with some genuine energy behind them. These are what we’re actually building your rainmaking practice on. But here’s where most attorneys mess up: they still don’t do them, because they’ve never actually committed to doing them. A W that stays on a list for six months is just a nice idea.
So ask yourself about each W: Am I willing to do this consistently for the next ninety days?
Not eventually. Not when things slow down. Consistently, starting now. If the answer is no, move it to the maybe pile. If the answer is yes, this stays.
What you’re left with is your real rainmaking list. Not the one you wish you had. Not the one you think you should have. The one you’ll actually do.
Most lawyers have never culled their list this way because it requires admitting that half of what they’ve been planning to do was never going to happen anyway. That admission feels like failure. It’s not. It’s clarity. And clarity is what actually moves your practice forward.
Next week, we’ll talk about prioritizing what’s left so you know what to focus on first.
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