This title may be a bit surprising considering my previous admonishments to work hard. But this may be the most important tip I have—not just for succeeding in law school, but enjoying it and staying nominally well adjusted.
What I mean is that you need to take time out to do things other than study and do your reading. What you do, precisely, depends on you, but you absolutely must take a break from the law.
A few examples. In my case, one thing that has been and remains sacred is my knitting group. Every week for a few hours, I went to socialize and do an activity that had little to do with law school. That's because most people in the group weren't law students. I was at the group unless I had a specific conflict (competitions, for example) and I scheduled many obligations around it. I was even knitting through finals.
The group also illustrates an important point about spending time with people who are not law students. Don't get me wrong, I love my law school friends. I'll keep them forever, I hope, and they play a very big part of my life. But there's a bigger world out there, and it's important to keep grounded in what's important to everyone else in that world.
This is especially true of partners and families. Law school has an insidious way of making itself seem like the most important thing in the world. It's not. Your friends and family are, so keep your priorities straight. I've heard from a lot of married law students that they went into law school with the express goal to "stay married." That is a proper goal, and it shows that those people have it right. And those that kept that in mind from day one were successful. Others weren't.
I didn't have an abundance of romantic partners, but I did have several close friends who weren't law students. This was my time away, and it kept me sane. I also had a few other hobbies: I cooked a lot, watched movies, and read a large number of books. But it was the personal connections that carried me through.
It is natural to ask about what happens during finals and competitions and other high-demand times. Law school, though, is just one high-demand time after another. You can't let yourself get too caught up with pushing aside your personal obligations for the law school dominatrix. The best solution is to realistically assess your obligations and avoid overcommitting, and make sure you keep up on your obligatory work. If you have kids or other extraordinary obligations, this strategy means you may have to turn down competitions or other opportunities. Tough. Wouldn't you rather see your kid's first steps? It also means you'll have to be a better time manager than someone with fewer committments. It takes some work, but the returns are worth it. Often, it helps to treat law school like a job, going at a set time every morning (whether you have a morning class or not), and coming home at a set time in the evening. Single parents must adjust accordingly.
Admittedly, I had no family to worry about in law school. That could be considered a "luxury" for a law student. In some ways, it probably is, but the down side is that it was harder to get out of the law school mentality. Even though having non-law-school friends and doing other things helped a lot, I probably was not always successful.
