I love productivity tools. I don’t know which I have more of on my iPhone: productivity tools or camera apps. Recently, I was asked by a reporter to summarize some of my best tips. So for you, dear readers, in advance of any publication, are the six tips that anyone can use. They don’t require you to have particular hardware and where I recommend software, I am careful to provide a choice.
1. Use just one system for your todo’s. Whether it’s post-it notes or Toodledo on the iPhone and Web (my own favorite), be true to your system. If you step outside of your system, you are far more likely to lose key actions you need to take. Knowing that, you’re also likely to lose piece of mind.
2. Use a time segmentation method (like the Pomodoro method) to handle lengthy tasks. These methods have you work, using a timer, for a specific period of time, say, 10 minutes, then take a break for a specific period of time, say, 2 minutes. All you need is a kitchen timer and determination to eat that elephant one bite at a time.
3. Set your top priorities (I limit myself to 7) each day before you begin work; or even the night before. Keep going back to those priorities throughout the day so that you don’t get side-tracked down less-important rabbit holes.
4. Stay on top of delegated tasks daily. The more confidence you have that you know what you’ve delegated to whom and when you’ll get it back, the more you’ll be able to comfortably delegate. Its a virtuous cycle that can take hours of work off of your desk every day.
5. If you’re afraid to use the delete key, use the archive key with your email inbox. Whatever it takes, get that non-essential mail out of there. I think having an empty inbox is a worthy goal but even if you can’t get to that, you can delete all the spam, newsletters and other non-essentials.
6. Use a todo management system that fits your style and desired level of complexity. If it’s too complex, you won’t use it. If it’s too simple, you’ll be frustrated by its limitations every day. For those who like a full-featured todo system, I recommend www.toodledo.com or www.nozbe.com. For those who want something simple, a stack of post it notes and a board to rearrange them on can be perfect.
Recently, I wrote a blog on How to Create Your Law Firm Procedures Manual in One Week. In that article, I mentioned that an internal wiki - in paticular, one provided as part of the Google Apps suite would be pretty great for hosting your procedures manual. I invited responses if you'd like a blog on the topic of Google Apps and… Continue reading | 2 Comments
In it's online article, 15 Ways to Grow Your Legal Practice, the American Bar Association endorses mentoring: http://www.abanet.org/lpm/lpt/articles/mkt09091.shtml…
Procedures are the codification of best practices. By having written procedures in your office, you ensure that every single client will receive the very best treatment you and your team know can be provided.
You can even house them on an internal wiki (such as the inexpensive one provided as part of Google Apps at $50/year per user) where they can be constantly improved.
Procedures do not turn people into machines. On the contrary, by taking people's minds and memories off of the rote parts of their jobs, procedures free people up… Continue reading | 2 Comments
Here are some tips for struggling professionals. They all require either time or money and since we're talking about people who are struggling, I'm going to assume they're using mostly time:
1. Solidify your referral relationships and ask directly for referrals. We're all in this together and if you tell your referral relationships that you are looking to them to provide you with a referral in the next week, you are more likely to get a referral in the next week. Of course, it's crucial that… Continue reading
Whether you are just starting out in law practice or are adding Estate Planning to an existing practice, there are 9 decisions you must make that will affect your practice for years to come:
1. How are you going to draft your documents? Almost all estate planning attorneys use document drafting systems to save time and avoid mistakes. You can pay between $700 and several thousand every year. In general, you get what you pay for but how much power you need depends upon your target market.
2. Who is your target market? If it is… Continue reading | 1 Comment
The new search engine by Microsoft, Bing, requires another look at your website to make sure your html formatting is in good shape, you've got plenty of text on each page, and you haven't excluded the Microsoft webcrawler from your site. Read the first tips for Bing SEO here: Bing SEO Tips
Our 6-person firm just implemented AdvologixPM.com, a SaAS practice management system, and we are very happy with it. It's built on the salesforce.com platform which gives me confidence in the company's stability. The technical support has been beyond superb. The company is still small enough that I can call or email Jonthathan Reed, the Advisory Board Chair, or Paul Duchenes, CEO and Tech Guru anytime and get a same-day or even same-hour response. The AdvologixPM folks even added functionality for JungleDisk when they learned we were using that to store our client files (we're moving everything to… Continue reading | 4 Comments
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