How to get a bigger return from your seminar or conference

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 18:32:50 GMT

I was reading some tips on planning a successful conference and thought there was one tip that was missing. Every event you run should be recorded.

It doesn't matter whether it's a speech, an all day seminar, a webinar, teleseminar, or a multi-day conference, why settle for only what you can get from a one time event?

More on How to get a bigger return from your seminar or conference

I was reading some tips on planning a successful conference and thought there was one tip that was missing. Every event you run should be recorded.

It doesn't matter whether it's a speech, an all day seminar, a webinar, teleseminar, or a multi-day conference, why settle for only what you can get from a one time event?

If you record it, you can

Make it available for those who couldn't attend
Sell the video, or create products from portions of the content
Run the video periodically on your web site
Offer the video, or portions thereof, as a lead generation incentive
Transcribe the event and create reports, articles, blog posts, and audio content
Watch the event so you can make the next one better
License the event to other lawyers in other jurisdictions

In fact, with any content you create, whether it's a live event or something you write on the weekends, always look for ways to get a bigger return on your time and investment. Evergreen content that you create once and use over and over again is a smart, leveraged use of your time.

Wouldn't it be great to do the same thing with your services? No, it's not possible with a service, but you can do the next best thing. Every time you create a form, a checklist, a template, or a script, something you can use over and over again, you are leveraging your time and increasing your return.

To earn more and work less, never settle for a one-to-one return on your time or investment.

How I collect and organize articles and documents to read later

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 19:50:39 GMT

I read a lot. I know you do, too. I also know that the volume of articles and documents that cross our paths every day is overwhelming.

We can't stop the river of information. It would be foolish to ignore it. All we can do is manage the information that comes at us every day, and I want to share with you how I do that.

More on How I collect and organize articles and documents to read later

I read a lot. I know you do, too. I also know that the volume of articles and documents that cross our paths every day is overwhelming.

We can't stop the river of information. It would be foolish to ignore it. All we can do is manage the information that comes at us every day, and I want to share with you how I do that.

Here's what I do to collect, organize, and read the articles and documents in my life:

I subscribe to (over 100) blogs with Google Reader. I can read them later, on my laptop or on my iPhone (I use Mobile RSS).
On my iPhone, I also use Zite, an intuitive app that learns what you like to read and serves up similar content. This brings posts from a wide spectrum of blogs I would never know about. I also use Flipboard and Twitter.
I use Instapaper as a web app (Chrome) and their app on my iPhone. This is where I send posts I can't read at the moment. I send them from my RSS reader, from Zite, Flipboard, by forwarding emails and via a web clipper.
Every morning I go through my RSS feeds and Zite and Flipboard, scanning the headlines of the posts. I delete 98% of them. A few, I read on the spot. I may send five or ten to Instapaper. If it's something I know I want to save, I send it to Evernote. If I'm reading it on the web, I'll open it first with Evernote Clearly, to remove ads, etc. (Evernote is my go to app for saving everything I need to save (for reference or a project) or do. (If you haven't tried Evernote, go check it out (it's free). If you have Evernote and have not been using it much, get my ebook, "Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide to Getting Organized & Increasing Productivity". You'll be amazed at what you can do with Evernote.
For blog post ideas, I go through Instapaper and when I find a post that catches my eye, I'll read it. I may use the article as the basis for a post or it may give me other ideas. I also go through Evernote. I have a tag, "blog-post-ideas," and with one click I can call up hundreds of notes with complete articles or one line ideas.
I save documents (pdfs, Powerpoint, Word, etc.) in Evernote. I usually add a few key words to the body of the note and assign tags. Most of these documents are saved for reference purposes, or to use in connection with projects I am working on or plan to work on. However, I also use a couple of tags to identify notes for later reading. One is "Read/Review," which is assigned to notes I know I want to read at some point. I will also assign a "When" tag (i.e., Now, Next, Someday, etc.) if I know when I want to read it. The other tag I use is "ebooks" for pdf ebooks I've saved. I can browse this tag to find things to read or for ideas.
If there are emails I need to read or save or take action on, I forward them to my Evernote account. I now maintain "inbox zero".
Every day I focus on getting my work done, not on how much I can read. This is key. If I don't read articles I've saved for later reading, I don't worry about it. We're talking about electrons here, so there is no problem with running out of storage space. The articles I've saved in Evernote are searchable and thus a repository of reference materials I may use in the future. So again, I do the best I can and I don't worry about what I don't get to.

So that's my routine. I know there are many other methods and apps available for collecting, organizing, and reading. I've tried many of them and continue to try new ones when they come out. I like keeping things simple, however, and that means using as few apps as possible. Evernote is my "information hub" because everything is synced and available to me wherever I am, and because there are so many ways to get information into it.

How about you? What do you do to collect, organize, and read articles and documents? Please share in the comments.

Project Management for Lawyers

jimc@okbar.org (Jim Calloway) — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 20:46:55 GMT

There are many ways to fail and sometimes few ways (or one) to succeed. Many lawyers tend to view the whole concept of legal project management with some suspicion and wariness. They view themselves as creative problem solvers and do not want their thought processes to be limited to following a flow chart. Besides, just how professional could following a flow chart be?

Every now I then I want to say PLEASE read this article everyone. Today is such a case. The anonymous curmudgeon Otto Sorts has posted an article on the AttorneyAtWork site titled Life Is Complex and Uncertain which contains an easy six point approach to project management. (Go ahead and read it now. I'll wait for you.) Great work, Otto. I have no idea why your editors called you "Strange" in the bio section.

But at the risk of incurring some curmudgeonly disapproval, let me suggest that this is only the first part of the roadmap for law firm success. I have mentioned before how I think lawyers would benefit from reading The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande. Otto Sorts has outlined project management for a particular project. Atul Gawande encourages us to then take that work product and, at firm expense, build a template (aka checklist) to institutionalize this thinking process to benefit the firm and the next client for the next similar project. We should let the project plan/template/checklist evolve just the way our standard form documents are modified when the law changes or unexpected difficulties are encountered.

Legal Business Development: Find FOCUS in 18 Minutes a Day!

paula@paulablacklegalmarketing.com (Paula Black) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:00:00 GMT

Peter Bregman writes for the Harvard Business Review and last week he was interviewed on ABC News where he shared his strategy for prioritizing and getting the right things done.

Peter has written the book 18 Minutes: Find focus, Master Distraction, and Get The Right Things Done. OK... 18 minutes, how could a measly 18 minutes get you focused? Peter has a simple formula. Five minutes in the morning when you get your To Do list organized and schedule some of those items in your calendar with a specific time to accomplish them. Then at the end of the day you spend another five minutes to reflect on what went well and where you could improve... and I love this... show gratitude. Now that is only ten minutes... where do the other eight work in? Every hour take ONE minute to ask yourself... Am I working on what I need to? He sets his watch to go off every hour which will remind him of his commitments and priorities.

Now... let's be honest. How often do you say "I don't have time?" Imagine... how that could change when you get present to what you are doing every hour. I bet you will find that you aren't working on what you need to! I have to admit... THAT is exactly what I realized. I was distracted... a lot!

Here are some more take-aways for lawyers who are interested in gaining focus for your business development efforts.

1. Focus on follow through... He tells us that we probably don't lack the motivation, what we lack is the follow through. Use the 18 minutes to focus on the things you need to do in order to follow through on the commitments in your 2012 Business Plan.

2. Learn to say NO... I love this one, as I have written before, is your time being hijacked? We often let others control our time with meaningless interruptions or pushing our buttons of obligations... YOU get to decide how you will spend your time and sometimes the assertion is NO!

3. Narrow your focus to five things... There is great merit in narrowing your focus. We minimize the distractions that get in the way of accomplishing what we have identified as our top priorities.

Black Pearl: Back in October I wrote about another one of Peter's insights.... Find the one big theme for your 2012 efforts. It's great insight to give an over all theme to your efforts. By the way... I finally figured out my big theme... adding structure and organization to my initiatives. What could yours be?

2012 Law Firm Strategy Lessons from the Apollo 13 Moon Mission

riskin@edge.ai (Gerry Riskin) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 16:57:39 GMT

Your law firm’s success in 2012 may require considerable ingenuity under extreme pressure just as it did from the crew of Apollo 13 for their safe return to Earth.

Apollo 13 was the third mission in the American Apollo space program intended to land on the Moon. The number 2 oxygen tank in the Service Module exploded en route to the Moon, approximately 200,000 miles (320,000 km) from Earth. The developing drama was shown on television and depicted in the Apollo 13 movie based on the mission.

If you saw the movie, you may recall that the head of Mission Control assembled a team in a conference room and requested that the materials available to the astronauts in the Service Module be brought to the room because they had but a few hours to learn how to make oxygen to save the astronauts’ lives.

By contrast, when the senior leadership team in most law firms meets to explore strategy, there is no sense of urgency. Worse, after extraordinarily bright people come up with some amazing plans, in most firms they are doomed to atrophy due to a lack of execution.

As you consider 2012, I recommend that you:

Take off the rose colored glasses… the apparent good economic news is at best an exercise in extreme optimism and at worst the willful concealment of the truth

Clients have tasted economic power in the lawyer/client relationship and they are not going to give it up. In fact, if you are not exploring legal process management (LPM) in harmony with some of your most important clients, your firm is headed for rough seas.

Make your plans as if they were a matter of life and death because they very well may be. In today’s perilous times, your firm’s fate may be as precarious as that of the 3 astronauts when the oxygen tank exploded.

I confess that I have framed this in a slightly melodramatic way in order to be provocative. The serious lesson I ask you to take from this is that your plans need a deadline and they must be executed as if life itself dependent upon them. That is why in Edge, we make no apology for being obsessed with action.

Your comments would be appreciated as usual.

(Thanks to Wikipedia for the image and details)

Save time by not filing email; study proves search is quicker

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:40:13 GMT

If you file email in folders, or add labels, to make finding those emails quicker, you're actually doing just the opposite. So concludes a study by IBM Research.

The study found that, "Finding emails by searches took on average 17 seconds, versus 58 seconds finding the emails by folder. The likelihood of success – that is, finding the intended email – was no greater when it had been filed in a folder."

More on Save time by not filing email; study proves search is quicker

If you file email in folders, or add labels, to make finding those emails quicker, you're actually doing just the opposite. So concludes a study by IBM Research.

The time spent filing email, in addition to the added time spent retrieving it, can add 20 minutes a day to your workload, the study concluded. A comment to the article questions this, however:

In the majority of scenarios, searching is more efficient, however if you forget. . . the metadata [key words]. . . related to the email, then your search efforts are going to be quite difficult. On the other hand, if you remember that you simply filed the email under the "important" folder, then odds are you may only be a few clicks away. In a black and white world, yes searching is more efficient, however there are still valid purposes to using folders.

My plan to achieve email inbox zero calls for me to get rid of all but one label and rely on Gmail's search capability. I'm pretty sure I won't miss having more labels since I don't use the 50 I currently have. But my view is undoubtedly colored by my use of Evernote to file important emails and to manage tasks and projects.

In Evernote, I tag everything (and sometimes also add key words to the body of the note). The difference, though, is that I don't "file" all my email this way, just the actionable or otherwise important ones, which constitute less than 5% of the total.

I found most interesting the researchers conclusion that most people don't file emails in folders to make it easier to later find those emails so much as a desire to remove from view the overwhelming volume of email. They pare down the inbox so that they can use it for task management, which the study implied was not efficient.

If they used Evernote like I do, they wouldn't have to spend as much time filing all of their email in the right folders, they could simply send the important ones to Evernote and archive the rest.

Evernote and my plan for achieving "Inbox Zero"

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 21:40:39 GMT

I have tens of thousands of emails in my Gmail inbox. At last count, 16, 503 are unread. I have over 50 labels set up. I don't use any of them. It's a mess

More on Evernote and my plan for achieving "Inbox Zero"

I have tens of thousands of emails in my Gmail inbox. At last count, 16, 503 are unread. I have over 50 labels set up. I don't use any of them. It's a mess

When I first learned about Inbox Zero I swooned. The idea is intoxicating. When your inbox is empty, you are no longer overwhelmed by email, you are in control. You enjoy a Zen-like feeling of tranquility. You process your email inbox once or twice a day, keeping it at zero. You have a "mind like water".

I loved the idea, but the thought of going through tens of thousands of emails was about as appealing as a state bar complaint.

Email has long been the final frontier in my productivity makeover. I've resisted changing for a long time. But now, I have a plan.

My plan involves my favorite productivity tool, Evernote, which I use for collecting information and managing my projects and tasks. I use it all day long, in every part of my work flow, as my tool for Getting Things Done. Read my previous posts on how I use Evernote for getting things done.

Right now, when I get an email that requires action of any kind (a reply, a call, review, read, etc.) or that is related to a project I'm working on, or is something I want to keep for reference purposes (receipts, newsletter ideas, research, documents, etc.), or something I am waiting for, I forward that email to Evernote. I then tag it and incorporate it into my gtd system.

If an email requires a reply that will take no more than two minutes, I do it. I may also send a bcc to Evernote.

Sometimes, I get emails that require action that I don't send to Evernote. An example is an email I got recently from someone I haven't spoken to in a long time. I don't want to dash off a quick reply, I want to give it some thought. In this case, I added a @Reply label and archived the email in Gmail. When I'm ready to reply, the label will help me find it.

Yes, I could also send these to Evernote, but I like having the orignial email connected to my reply. And, if I do send it to Evernote, I want to do so after I've replied, so I have both the original email and my reply in one Evernote note.

So, here's my plan for achieving email bliss using Evernote and Gmail:

First, when I have some quiet time, (this will probably require several sessions), I will go through my Gmail inbox, scanning (not reading) and quickly doing the following:

Unsubscribing from newsletters I don't read.
Adding @Reply label to anything I need to reply to that will take more than two minutes but does not need to be tracked.
Sending Action and Reference items to Evernote.
Trashing or archiving everything else.

Once my email inbox is empty, as new emails come in, I will review and process them, as follows.

If it requires a response or action that will take two minutes or less, I will do it, then Archive it; if I want to, I can also send a bcc to my Evernote account.
If it will take more than two minutes but I don't need to keep notes, add it to a project, or track it, I will label it @Reply and do it as soon as possible.
If I'm waiting for a reply or for something to occur, I will send it to Evernote (and add a @Waiting tag).
If it's something I want to keep for reference, an important email, an exemplar of a good sales letter, a receipt, or something I want to read later, I will send it to Evernote.
All other emails will go into Archive or get trashed. At day's end, I will again have an empty Inbox and an empty mind.

The premise behind all of this is to identify emails that need action. That's key. Everything else is reference and can be found through search.

Note, I will use just one label in Gmail, @Reply. I am open to adding others down the road, but only if they truly serve me. For example, I may find it easier to label emails @Read/Review in Gmail, rather than sending them to Evernote for that purpose. I may also add labels for specific projects, or temporarily (e.g., for promotions). But for now, one label will do.

Wish me luck. I'll let you know how it goes.

Have you achieved "Inbox Zero"? What do you think of my plan?

[Book Review] Evernote: The Unofficial Guide To Capturing Everything And Getting Things Done

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:39:43 GMT

If you're a proponent of David Allen's Getting Things Done (GTD) productivity system like I am, you've probably tried numerous ways to incorporate it into your work flow, from paper and file folders to web and mobile apps, and everything in between. Many of these are complicated, with lots of bells and whistles and a steep learning curve. Others, like plain paper or a Moleskin notebook are simple but for many of us, too limited.

More on [Book Review] Evernote: The Unofficial Guide To Capturing Everything And Getting Things Done

Enter Evernote.

I'd been using Evernote for a long time, first for collecting information and ideas, eventually, for all of my documents. One day, I decided to see if I could also use it to manage my tasks and projects. Although Evernote isn't designed as a task management application and it is limited in that realm, I found a way to make it work for me, and today I use it every day for exactly that purpose.

I like having one app for almost everything I do. I like having all of my notes and documents in the same place as my tasks and projects. It's simple, reliable, and flexible and provides me with a complete system for managing my work and my life.

I went looking for others who use Evernote for Getting Things Done, and my search led me to fellow attorney and blogger, Dan Gold. Dan is a maven in the world of technology and productivity and has tried just about every productivity app under the sun. He used Evernote like I did, for collecting information, but was unable to find the right way to use it for GTD. In his quest to achieve a "mind like water," he finally found the right combination.

The story of his journey is told in his newly published ebook, "Evernote: The Unofficial Guide To Capturing Everything And Getting Things Done," now featured in Evernote's Trunk (store). It's a great read and provides a much needed lesson for using an extraordinary piece of technology in conjunction with a seminal productivity system, to manage your work and your life.

I read the book and found that to a great extent, Dan's journey paralleled my own. We both liked the power and ubiquity of Evernote but were frustrated with its limitations as a productivity tool. After trying various apps and workarounds, we eventually found the solution.

In his book, Dan credits my blog post about how I use Evernote for GTD (and another blogger's post on that subject) with providing some of the missing pieces in his set up. I appreciate his saying so but in reality, Dan had most of the pieces already in place. Like I had, he was adding elements–other apps that integrate with Evernote and a more complex arrangement of notebooks and tags. My post and the other blogger he credits simply showed him that Evernote didn't need anything else, it could be used "as is" for GTD.

The key is not adding elements but subtracting them. Not using more notebooks to organize everything but fewer, and using enough tags, but not too many, to manage everything.

If you are a newcomer to Evernote or GTD, Dan's book will sell you on why you need to be using them; it won't tell you everything you need to know about how. What it will do is show you how you can use them together to create a complete system for getting things done.

"Evernote: The Unofficial Guide To Capturing Everything And Getting Things Done," is a quick read and available for immediate download for just $5. Dan promises free updates and since Evernote is continually being developed, this makes a great value even greater.

How to stay focused when you need to get things done

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 18:59:15 GMT

You've got work to do, deadlines to meet, things that must get done, and you know you need to focus but it's difficult because there are so many interruptions.

How do you cope?

More on How to stay focused when you need to get things done

You've got work to do, deadlines to meet, things that must get done, and you know you need to focus but it's difficult because there are so many interruptions.

How do you cope?

"6 Ways to Minimize Interruptions When You Need to Focus," offers some good tips:

Close the door while you're working
Wear headphones to prevent colleagues chatting
Say, "Could you come back in ten minutes?"
Let your phone go to voice-mail
Turn off Skype, Email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. . .
Get into the office early

In short, these tips remind us to, "avoid outside stimuli". That's why we went to the library to study for exams, isn't it? Interruptions by others are easy to fix, if you want to. But do you really want to? I think we enjoy interruptions–we like the respite they provide from the tedium of our work.

I've found that when we really do need to shut off outside stimuli, because of a deadline, for example, we do. The fear of loss of the looming deadline motivates us to do what we need to do–and we do it.

The greater challenge is not with outside stimuli or interruptions by others, it is with interruptions we impose on ourselves. It's not the outside interruptions keep us from getting our work done, it's the interruptions in our brains.

When we're working, we're also thinking about other things we have to do. Our neurons are firing, reminding us of promises unkept, other tasks that must get done, thinking about the game tonight, and imagining what will happen if we don't meet our deadline. It is this internal chatter that is so hard to turn off.

So, how do you focus when your brain keeps interrupting you?

One way to do that is by removing all of those tasks and reminders from our brains and putting them into a "trusted system" to be processed and done at a later time. The term "trusted system" comes from the Getting Things Done™ (GTD) system which I've written about before.

Another technique for increasing focus is to give yourself short segments of time during which you are committed to working on the task at hand. Twenty-five minutes, fifteen, ten, or two, whatever you can handle. No matter how busy your brain may be, it can focus for two minutes. Once those two minutes are up, you are allowed to do something else or think about something else for, say, another two minutes. And then, you return to the work you were doing in the first segment, or onto something else.

It's called, "The Pomodoro Technique."

The most common implementation is a twenty-five minute block of time, followed by a five minute break. A timer is set, and when the bell sounds, you take your break. Kinda like prize-fighting. After the break, you return for the next round.

The technique was originally promoted via the use of a kitchen timer resembling a tomato ("pomodoro is Italian for tomato") , like the one depicted above. I use something a bit more high tech.

On my PC's desktop is an icon to launch an app that takes the place of a kitchen timer. There are many apps that do the same thing. The one I use is called, "Focus Booster," and it's available for free for Mac and PC.

Give it a try. Start with a twenty-five minute pomodori. When you're done and you've taken a break, go for another. If you can't stay focused for twenty-five minutes, try ten. Or one. Eventually, you'll be able to move up and get some work done.

Have you tried the Pomodoro Technique? How has it worked for you? Do you have a favorite app or do you use a kitchen timer?

Today is the Tomorrow that You Worried About Yesterday

matthew.devries@stites.com (Matthew DeVries) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 17:08:47 GMT

I write this post from a hospital bedside. My wife has been through a whirlwind of surgeries the past week and we are still adjusting to some complications.

As we sat talking last night, my wife reminded me of a recent fortune cookie: "Today is the tomorrow that you worried about yesterday." With some major "wait" time, I thought about what I had to do to prepare for the surgery and the possible problems. Here are a few tips to help you plan for your time away from the office, whether for a vacation, work trip or even a medical emergency:

Whenever possible, "plan ahead" and schedule your days away. The real point here is to actually "plan" you time away from the office. When you are talking about a vacation, mark the time off on your calendar, even if you are staying in the area. While this may be harder for emergencies or minor trips away, you can at least plan that you will be out a certain number of days following the event.
Tell your clients and customers about your time away. Whether you are an attorney, a business executive, an architect or project manager, you should tell your closest relationships about your expected absence. Even if you don't have time, make sure you set up your email to send an automated message about your time away from the office, informing them of the date you are expected to get back and giving them an emergency contact number.
Schedule your "away" work and deadlines before you leave. If you find that you have a project deadline that occurs while you are away, either finish the project, assign it to your closest ally, or get an extended deadline ... all before you leave. If you plan to work while away (which I would not advised while on vacation), then prepare folders for each individual task. That way, you can grab a folder if you have a spare couple of hours to work, whether on a plane or in a waiting room.
Find access to wi-fi. Most hotels, vacation hot spots, and even hospitals have access to wi-fi. But you should make sure ahead of time. If you cannot find wi-fi access, there are numerous applications that can turn your mobile phone into a modem for your laptop.
Pick an ally in the office to help you during your absence. It is important to have a strong network of co-workers in your office. Although your customers or clients will be aware that you are unavailable (or have limited availability) while you are away, there are situations where emergencies may occur. In such a case, prepare a trust-worthy co-worker to help you while you are away, whether it involves your regular work tasks or things that need to be done on an emergency basis.

Question: Do you have any "away from the office" tips?

Image: Melissa Venable

Beating Back the Time Bandits: How to Save An Hour Per Day

dlorenzo@dlorenzo.com (David V. Lorenzo) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 08:58:31 GMT

Time is your most valuable asset. And it is perishable. You will never again get back the ten minutes you spent figuring out how to install the toner on the copy machine. That time is gone.

Everyone wants more time from you. Your spouse wants you to spend more time with the kids. Your paralegal and your associates want you to spend more time working with them. Your partner wants you to spend more time billing. Your client wants you to spend more time on his matter.

Everyone wants more of that precious asset but only a few are truly worthy. Yet we do not treat our time as a perishable asset. We treat it carelessly. We give it away and we waste it on stupid inane tasks that are handled inefficiently.

Below is one technique – just one – that will help you save an hour per day.

Never, Ever Answer a Ringing Telephone

Taking an unscheduled telephone call from ANYONE is a horrible idea. There are only three types of UNSCHEDULED calls you receive during your work day. They are:

Personal calls
Calls related to a client matter (past, present or future)
Calls from someone who wants to sell you something

In all of those cases, it is a bad idea for you to pick up the telephone. Here’s why:

Personal calls should be handled on personal time. If you are at work, work. Have a conversation with your spouse, kids, mother, whoever and explain to them the importance of momentum and productivity. Then be proactive and call the people who are most likely to call you during your “personal” time (while driving, while having lunch, while taking a break from your work).

Taking unscheduled calls from a client or about a client’s matter is a disaster because you have no idea why the client is calling you or what the call is about. It is far better to have an assistant take a detailed message from the client and ascertain the purpose of the call. This way your assistant can schedule a telephone appointment to discuss the matter when you are prepared and have the client’s file in front of you.

Never, ever talk to a salesperson. Have your assistant screen all sales calls. If you have a legitimate need for the salesperson’s services, set up a telephone appointment to speak with that person.

Don’t have an assistant? Get a voice mail transcription service. I use Phonetag. This service transcribes my voicemail messages and sends them to me as an email attachment. You can then choose what you want to do with the call.

Here’s the bottom line on time management and this specific technique: You must train people to do business on your terms. Does that sound egotistical?

Think about it this way: You are always operating from an agenda. You can operate from your agenda or you can operate from someone else’s agenda. It’s up to you.

Train the people who call you for personal reasons. Train your clients. Train your assistant. And most importantly, train yourself.

The only person who can improve YOUR productivity is YOU. Start today with this simple technique.

David Allen on how to handle distractions

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 22:22:36 GMT

I thought you'd enjoy this short video by David Allen, the "Getting Things Done" guy himself.

How to read more and get more out of what you read

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 20:06:16 GMT

Attorneys read a lot. Still, there's always more we want to read, if only we had the time.

I was reading an article, yesterday, "7 Tips for becoming well-read," and it has some good tips for reading more, things like starting small (e.g., 15 minutes during lunch) and minimizing distractions. But I didn't think the tips went far enough so I came up with my own:

More on How to read more and get more out of what you read

Attorneys read a lot. Still, there's always more we want to read, if only we had the time.

Be ruthless in what you select to read. Spend a few minutes with a book candidate and decide whether or not it is worth your time. Read reviews, the book's cover, excerpts, and ask the person who recommended it. A few minutes spent in this process could save you hours of wasted time.
Skim. You don't have to read the entire book, cover to cover. The 80/20 principle tells us that 80% of the value of a book is contained in 20% of its content so look for that.
You don't have to finish it. If you don't like it, stop reading it. Don't waste time on books that don't resonate with you.
Learn to speed read. Why spend five hours reading something you could read in 30 minutes?
Subscribe to book summaries services. Their editors summarize the books for you. For most books, that's all you'll need but if you like what you see in the summary, you can put that book on your list to read in its entirety.
Delegate. An employee can read for you, present a summary, and/or bring to your attention those books or articles he thinks you would want to read.

This will allow you to read more by eliminating a lot of marginal choices. You'll have more time to read the "best of the best". When you do, here's how to get more out of what read:

If a book is truly high value, you may want to read it more than once. When I was in high school, I read, "How to Read a Book," by Mortimer Adler. He presents a process for reading a book several times, each time with a different purpose. I don't think every book qualifies for several readings but when you find one that does, a second or third reading could have immeasurable value.
Highlight. If you think you might read the book again, highlighting passages will make the second reading faster because you can, if you choose, read only the highlighted passages. (If you don't think you will read the book again, or use it as a reference, there's not much point in highlighting). For the record, I use a yellow highlighter on my first read and, usually, a red or blue pen on the second read.
Take notes. You'll learn more about what you're reading if you think about the words while you are reading them. Put the ideas in context, ask yourself questions, speculate on the options, and write it all down. It takes longer but you'll get more value out of what you read. You'll remember it better, too.
Read (and take notes) as though you had to teach the subject tomorrow. This will force you to zero in on the essence of the material, and master it.

So those are my tips for reading more and getting more out of what you read. By the way, none of this applies to fiction. We read fiction to escape, to learn about exotic places, to solve a mystery, to feel emotions, to have fun, or to learn about the human condition. Not something you want to speed up or delegate.

"What can I do in the next two minutes to grow my law practice?"

Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:20:38 GMT

I know, you're busy. I also know you have lots of ideas for getting more clients and increasing your income that you aren't doing. You're so busy with work, there's no time for anything else. But actually, there is.

More on "What can I do in the next two minutes to grow my law practice?"

It's called, 'marketing in the moment".

It doesn't require you to set aside a half day, a weekend, or even an hour to work on marketing projects. Marketing in the moment means taking advantage of the little snippets of time we all have throughout the day to do the "little things" that, in the aggregate, help your practice grow.

The idea is simple (as all great ideas are). Throughout the day, as often as you can, ask yourself, "What can I do in the next two minutes to grow my practice?"

There are lots of things you can do in two minutes. You can

Call a client to ask if he knows about your new Facebook fan page
Send an email to a prospective referral source
Review your notes for your upcoming speech
Jot down some thoughts for an article
Brainstorm ideas for a new report or seminar
Write a list of new key words for your web site
Check in with someone who's working on a project for you
Check out a competitors web site
Read the comments on a book you've been thinking about ordering
Read another article on this blog

Periodically throughout your day, between phone calls, while you're driving, while you're eating lunch, or whenever you think about it, pause and ask yourself, "What can I do in the next two minutes to grow my practice?" (You may want to write the question on a sticky note or index card and put it where you can see it.)

You're asking your subconscious mind, of course, and it won't disappoint you. While you've been working and sleeping and doing all the things you do, your subconscious mind has been working on your ideas and coming up with new ones, and, because you asked, it will deliver those ideas to you in bite-sized, two minute chunks.

You'll remember people you may not have thought about and you'll call them or email them. You'll open your bookmarks and see a web site you've been meaning to look at. You'll jot down ideas for your newsletter or blog. You'll do a lot of things you may never have done had you not asked that question.

Try it. Ask yourself that question right now. Then go do it.

Seven steps to better delegating for overworked attorneys

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:38:50 GMT

Attorneys, especially sole practitioners, are often poor at delegating. "Nobody can do it as well as I can," they say, and that's not ego talking, it's usually true.

There is risk in giving a task to someone who might not do it as well as you or might not get it done on time, but delegating is essential to the growth of a law practice. Delegating gives you leverage and leverage helps you to earn more and work less.

More on Seven steps to better delegating for overworked attorneys

Attorneys, especially sole practitioners, are often poor at delegating. "Nobody can do it as well as I can," they say, and that's not ego talking, it's usually true.

To get better results when you delegate, follow these seven steps:

Give specific instructions. Describe what you want done in sufficient detail, in writing if possible. If instructions are given orally, ask them to be repeated back to you. Tell them to ask questions if they don't understand.
Give objectives, not procedures. Tell them what you want done, not how. If you've chosen the right person for the job, trust them to get the job done. Guide them, don't micro-manage them.
Tell them why. They'll do a better job when they are invested in the outcome instead of just carrying out orders so explain why the task is important. And, if you give them more than one task at a time, tell them the relative importance of each.
Give a due date (and time). Due dates help them to know what is expected and allow them to prioritize their work flow.
Equip and empower them. Make sure they have what they need to get the job done–tools, a budget, assistance–and the authority to decide what to do. Don't make them come back to you with every little decision.
Offer incentives. If you have an especially valuable project, you might want to offer something for getting it done early or with a better outcome. A day off, dinner for two for them and their spouse, a cash bonus, all work well.
Give praise. When they do a good job, thank them (even though they were doing their job) and praise them. Let them know you are pleased and they'll want to do a good job for you next time.

Checklists every lawyer needs

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 18:01:01 GMT

In his article in Lawyers USA, Jim Calloway observes that while most lawyers use lists and checklists in their practice, they don't use them enough.

I agree.

Checklists can make you a better lawyer and make you more money. Checklists help lawyers

How To Double Your Productivity in 30 Days

dlorenzo@dlorenzo.com (David V. Lorenzo) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 08:48:37 GMT

All of us are plagued with too much work and too little time. Many of us have experimented with various time management systems and various electronic scheduling programs that we hope will keep us focused and on track and help us improve our productivity.

In reality we all possess the tools we need to double (and in many cases even triple) our productivity.

The secret is focus.

I’m not taking about listen-to-your- wife-while-you-watch-the-basketball -game focus. I’m talking about focus on one task and one task only to the point of excluding everything and everyone else.

And I’m talking about that kind of focus all the time.

But for most people, this is easier said than done.

Here’s how you can do it:

Step one: Write down everything you have to do and everything that takes up your time and energy during the course of the week. Make a big list. On this list put everything you spend time working on and thinking about.

Then lump these activities into categories. For example: driving to and from meetings, research, preparing a talk, returning client phone calls, sifting and sorting email, networking, drafting an agreement, etc.

Step two: Select the five areas of focus that are the best possible use of your time. Notice: This step has a hidden step within it. You must determine what your time is worth and decide what is the best possible use of your time.

Once you have selected the five things (or categories) that are the best possible use of your time, you can move on to step three.

Step three: Ruthlessly eliminate everything else from your life except the five things that are the best use of your time. The idea is to delegate or otherwise permanently dispatch these things from your life. Get rid of them completely.

Typical excuses:

Whenever I introduce this concept to my clients they always push back on certain items. Email for example, is one of the biggest time wasters on the planet. Here’s what I encourage you to do with email:

1). Never keep email open on your desktop while you are working.
2). Train your assistant or paralegal to sort your email. Have her alert you to anything urgent, handle what she can handle and flag things that need your attention.
3). Schedule time to check and respond to email every day. Select an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon.
4). If something in your email will need longer than 5 minutes of work, schedule time to handle it. Actually put it on your calendar – as long as it is one of the five things you are focusing on.

Another area people complain about is the telephone. Here is my solution for that problem:

Never take an inbound call. Have all your calls go to voice mail. Have the voice mail transcribed and emailed to your assistant or paralegal. Have the assistant handle the issue or schedule time on your calendar for you to handle the issue later on (as long as it is one of your five areas of focus).

Using Checklists in your Law Practice

jimc@okbar.org (Jim Calloway) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 18:01:14 GMT

Using Checklists in your Law Practice is the title of my Lawyers USA column that was just posted to the Web. I'm sure everyone reading this uses checklists in many different ways. But I hope my column on this very important topic will give you some new ideas. One idea that I reccomend to every single lawyer is to get a copy of The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande and read it! The book is not very expensive and may be the book that shows you the way to a more successful practice. You can also "check out" his online checklist for checklists to help evaluate your personal checklists.

Evernote helps lawyers get organized and get things done

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:23:54 GMT

Thirty years ago, if you asked lawyers what they thought about all the information they had to manage in their practice, I'm pretty sure you would hear words like "swimming," "drowning," and "SOS!". I know that's what I would have said.

More on Evernote helps lawyers get organized and get things done

Our files and file cabinets (and desks, and floors, and side chairs. . .) were bursting with information: client data, research, pleadings, discovery, notes, correspondence, memos, briefs, inventories, photos, receipts, transcripts. . . It was a constant challenge to keep up with everything.

Then, we'd come into the office on Monday morning to a pile of mail, phone messages, and a new stack of files, on top of all the unfinished work from the week before. We had to keep up with our reading–case summaries, newsletters, magazines, memos–and we had to make sure our library was current. Law books were updated monthly or quarterly with inserts (remember "pocket parts"?) or loose leaf pages and sometimes, we'd get the latest updates only to find the previous updates unopened in a box on the floor. We had to insert the previous update first, even though many of those new pages were themselves replaced by the most recent update.

The amount of information in our lives was daunting and we often felt overwhelmed.

Wimps! Yes, wimps, I say!

Seriously, look at our lives today. Not only do we have so much more information, it's everywhere. In our files, on our computers at home, in our email, and on our phones. It follows us, mocking us as we attempt to keep up with the never-ending flow. Just when you think you might be close to ALMOST catching up, another thirty "must read" articles, emails and Google alerts appear and you know there will be another thirty before lunch. Oh, and let's not forget text, instant messages, tweets and status updates.

Technology has damned us. And technology will save us.

If you're feeling overwhelmed by all of the information in your life, relax, take a deep breath, exhale, and repeat after me: "I will never get caught up and I don't have to."

Because you don't have to, even if you could. What you do have to do is become a better librarian.

Librarians manage vast amounts of information. They read a lot but they don't read everything. Instead, they know what they have and where to find it, and if you want to gain control over the tsunami of information that washes over you every day, you need to do the same.

Librarians have a system for processing, storing, and retrieving information. They

Collect,
Categorize,
File, and
Find.

They had a system for doing this in the non-digital days (remember card files?) and today, they use technology. You can, too.

. . .if you took away every piece of software I own and left me with Evernote (and an Internet browser) I could run my two businesses, blogs, and personal life without missing a beat.

I don't practice any more but I still have an immense amount of information I need to manage. After many attempts at other software solutions, today I use Evernote for everything. In fact, if you took away every piece of software I own and left me with Evernote (and an Internet browser) I could run my two businesses, blogs, and personal life without missing a beat. (Actually, I could be 100% cloud-based and use only the Evernote web app instead of the desktop client.)

Evernote allows me to collect, organize, label, and access information (notes, docs, task lists, audios, photos, etc.) at any time from anywhere. My Evernote account syncs my laptop (windows), my iPhone, and "the cloud" (web app). I enter information via my desktop application, via email, and via a web clipper that allows me to capture entire web pages or any portion thereof. With my iPhone (Android and other platforms are also supported) I record audio notes, take photos of a whiteboard or paper notes (or anything else), and enter text notes, and send them directly to my EN account.

Notes are organized via notebooks and tags. I can quickly find whatever I need by browsing or by searching tags and/or key words. I can also share notes and notebooks with my wife or business partners and I can make designated notes (or notebooks) public.

I store everything in Evernote: notes, web clippings, ideas, checklists, pdfs, photos, my copy writing "swipe" list. I'm moving all of "My Documents" into Evernote. Then, I'll start scanning the mountain of paper notes I have collected over the years and go 100% paperless. In addition to having ubiquitous access to my information, Evernote provides an extra layer of back-up protection. If my computer goes down, my information won't go down with it. (I also back-up my local EN database via an external drive and via Mozy.)

But I don't just use Evernote for storage and retrieval, I also use Evernote every day as part of my work flow. I write everything in Evernote (this post started out there) and I use it all day long as (part of) my task management system. (I'll share my gtd system in a later post.)

Evernote won't let you jettison your time/billing or document assembly applications and it won't let you edit videos. It doesn't create spreadsheets or Powerpoint slides. But for managing large amounts of information, I've found nothing better. I've used OneNote (and loved it) and before that, InfoSelect (and loved that, too) but Evernote stands in a class by itself.

Evernote is free and there is a paid version with additional capacity and features. Download it and fall in love with it today.

Effective Time Management for a Successful Practice

Fri, 01 Apr 2011 23:17:43 GMT

Attorneys are always looking for ways to manage their business and increase productivity. One of the most common mistakes attorneys make in their practice is mismanagement of their time. While most time-management skills seem to be common sense, like most things in life ideas are easy to have but harder to implement. Instead of just [...]

Instead of just saying you want better time management and trying to enforce it, strategize and focus on how to make it work. Evaluate the three steps below and build a plan that you can stick to and help enable you to maintain long-term success.

1. Start by identifying what causes the most interruption such as:

Excessive paperwork
Postponing projects
Lack of ability to delegate
Lack of support staff
Poor organization
Unclear goals

2. Plan how to avoid situations that can potentially waste time such as:?

Avoid over thinking new projects
Avoid useless memos, conversations, emails and travel
Do the hardest part of a project first
Give attention to only items that need focus

3. Identify effective time management techniques that will keep your focus:

Prioritize your daily schedule
Organize a schedule for phone calls and emails
Organize assignments by dates due
Delegate work that can be done by co-workers

Effective time management is a crucial part of running a successful law practice. It begins with small steps which will yield big results. Managing your time effectively will help you manage your practice efficiently. Attorneys are held accountable for the lives of their clients. It is imperative that you manage your practice productively to ensure the most success for your clients and yourself.

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