By way of example, here are two very different attorney profiles as depicted by a widely-used style inventory call the DISC. (These are the actual graphs of two of my clients.)

The attorney on the left tackles challenges aggressively, gets bored easily, and cares less about process than outcome. As a result, she tends to skimp on details when delegating tasks; she also changes her path quickly and often throughout the day. Both of these behavioral patterns limit her support staffs’ effectiveness and efficiency. She and her staff needlessly waste time backtracking to get things right.

The attorney on the right tends toward perfectionism and cautiousness to such a degree that he doesn’t delegate enough, and alternately either procrastinates or spends more time than he needs to on routine tasks. This in turn slows down production, billing and collection.

So think about this for a second: You have a basic style that significantly impacts how you get things done each day. Your style isn’t right or wrong. It’s not inherently good or bad.

However, becoming more conscious of your style can yield huge gains in productivity while at the same time reduce your stress and improve communication with your team. The solutions are often simple, and can range from having quick daily check-ins with your paralegal, to the use of simple checklists, to setting a timer to keep you moving forward.

As a result of understanding their natural tendencies, both of the attorneys above made targeted – and lasting – changes in their daily approach to work that have measurably improved their productivity (and that of their team’s).

Time management for lawyers doesn’t have to be a mystery. Many consulting psychologists and executive coaches can provide the DISC or a similar tool. I use a version of the DISC called TIME P.L.U.S. that’s specifically geared to revealing one’s approach to time management and productivity. Call or email if you’d like more information.

He, like every other passenger, thought he was going to die. In the days and weeks following the miracle, he wondered why he was spared an early death, and what he could do with this gift. Here’s part of what he learned:

“1. Cherish your families as never before and go to great lengths to keep your promises.
2. Be thankful and grateful for everything you have and don’t worry about the things you don’t have.”

When we’re caught up in the accelerated rhythm that characterizes our daily work lives, we can go days, weeks, and even months without stopping to appreciate – to actually cherish – our relationships and all the blessings we take for granted.

And once acclimated to that harried pace, we tend to be less effective in our time- and self-management. We’re not as clear as we could be about saying “No” to unnecessary commitments. We’re not as strong as we should be in requiring that others not waste our time. We make excuses for why we feel pressured so much of the time instead of accepting full responsibility for our choices.

So, try practicing appreciation for your blessings, knowing that life is short, and fragile, and precious. You’ll become a happier person and a better manager of your choices – and thus your time.

Here’s the article:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1881311-1,00.html

These and dozens of other routine requests (and replies) account for a high percentage of your practice’s email volume. The question is, are you optimizing the use of email templates to make all that communication easier and faster (i.e., more efficient)?

If you’re not, you and your staff are wasting hundreds of hours a year needlessly re-typing text. And in addition to the wasted time, all those individually typed emails often a) contain typos, and b) leave out important information – neither of which will happen when you use well-drafted templates.

They’re easy to create, so make it a short-term project to get the ball rolling this week, whether you do it yourself or assign a support person to tackle it.

Here are two solutions:

The gold standard for Outlook template plugins is http://www.emailtemplates.com/. The program is easy to install and use. It adds a toolbar to Oulook that lets you select any template you’ve created. Unlike the do-it-yourself method I’ll describe in a minute, this plug-in also lets you reply to a message using a one-click template. This plug-in costs $79 for one user, $299 for up to five users, and it goes up from there.

A still-very-useful alternative is to simply create a new email message and save it as an “.oft” file. Note that Outlook will store these template messages in a deeply buried folder that makes retrieving them a 3 step process. Instead, I recommend creating a folder called Email Templates on your desktop or shared drive (or other easily accessible location) and save the template there. Then, when you want to send an email using a template, you just double-click the one you want to use. (Putting them on a shared drive allows all of your staff to access them.)

Don’t forget YouTube as a resource. Search for “Outlook email template” and you’ll find several very good video tutorials.

If you’re not an Outlook user, YouTube will likely have videos for your specific email program.

There’s no avoiding our increasing dependence on email. So rather than bemoan this fact, we’re wise to learn how to optimize our use of it. Email templates are the kind of upgrade that’ll cause you to wonder why you didn’t start using them sooner.

Based on the work of Johns Hopkins physician Peter Pronovost, the book details the stunning – and I do mean stunning – results of the use of checklists to reduce infection and surgical error (which in turn, of course, bring a cascade of positive financial and operational benefits).

If you want a taste of the book, you can download a copy of the 2007 New Yorker magazine article from which the full-length book grew.

For now, the salient point is that most of what you and your staff do all day – whether it’s producing work for clients or marketing your practice or managing finances – represents a set of patterns, or routines.

Often though, those routines are neither optimized nor systematically communicated, and as a result, you’re likely tolerating a 10 to 30 percent rate of inefficiency and/or error. And that means rework, frustration, embarrassment or worse. In fact, the use of checklists could be considered a basic component of any course on time management for attorneys.

The book describes the resistance doctors and nurses initially felt to using checklists (not enough time, burdensome, etc) — and how they turned around big time once they saw the benefits in improved efficiency and effectiveness.

So, check out the New Yorker article and consider how the consistency of what you and your staff do on a regular basis could be elevated by capturing into a checklist the required steps or pieces of information needed for a given process.

Erik Mazzone is a practice management advisor for the North Carolina Bar Association. In a recent blog post, he offers four quick recommendations for using checklists in your practice:
1. Pause point: you must define a clear pause point at which the checklist is supposed to be used. Think, right before you file a complaint or execute an agreement.
2. Read-Do vs Do-Confirm: decide if you want the checklist to serve as a guide before a process is undertaken (read-do) or as a safety net before the process if finalized (do-confirm)?
3. Length: keep the checklist between 5 and 9 items and make sure it fits on one page. Longer is not better.
4. Easy to Read: keep it free of clutter and jargon and use upper and lowercase text in a sans serif font.

This is yet another “important-but-not-urgent” activity that will set you apart from your colleagues. It reflects a mindset to be at the top of your game. You’ll save time, become more profitable, and have happier clients and staff.

But, in order to be our best, we need to learn how to manage the flood of fragmented information and the frenzy of instant accessibility. To serve our clients most effectively, to nurture our personal relationships, to think clearly about what matters most, to tend our health and happiness, we need to learn when and how to disengage from the grid – even if for short amounts of time.

So this week, try to do some of the following: turn off your email alerts (or leave your email program closed for 2 hours each afternoon). If you subscribe to blogs, newsfeeds, etc, set them to come in once a week instead of once a day. Put your phone on Do Not Disturb for an hour or two while working on a particularly important pleading or contract.

Try turning off your cell phone when you get home in the evening (or at least during dinner). Turn off your phone when you’re at your kid’s game. Or turn off your computer early one or two nights a week and get back to a hobby or a family activity you used to enjoy (or don’t spend as much time with as you’d like).

By unplugging your communications technology for even short amounts of time, you’ll gain focus (by reducing interruptions) and presence (the experience of being in the moment more fully).

Unless we establish attitudinal and behavioral boundaries to protect ourselves from the downside of the “always-on” milieu, we’re at the mercy of the “technological imperative.” Life is brief enough as it is. You can slow it down here and there (and reap the benefits of doing so), by selectively unplugging from the grid.

Here two important questions to ask of yourself:
1. What do I have to do differently to be on time?
2. What can my staff do differently to help me be on time?

And lest the question go unasked: Why should you strive to be on time with clients, prospects, fellow counsel and staff? Because being on time builds credibility and trust. Being on time also builds your confidence to ask and expect it of others. Conversely, being late creates a negative external impression in people outside of your office, and it lowers morale among your colleagues and staff when they can’t trust your word about when you’ll be somewhere or when a meeting will start.

When you’re punctual, you’re less stressed, more organized, and in greater control. And when you’re all of these things, your overall mastery of time-related activities improves as well – (e.g., getting your bills out on time, or estimating how long something’s going to take to complete).

We’re talking here about appointments and meetings that you initiate or agree to with someone, whether in person or by phone, whether formally or informally.

Here are four tips to help you improve your punctuality:
1. Use calendar reminders and alarms in Outlook or whatever you use for your calendar. Some appointments only require a 5 minute reminder (if you’re placing a call, for instance) or a longer reminder depending on the circumstances (such as travel requirements).
2. Let your staff know that you’re working on your punctuality. Have your assistant remind you of what’s coming up on your calendar. Ask your staff how they can help you be more punctual.
3. Check the words that come out of your mouth, and revise them in the moment if necessary. “I’ll call you back in five minutes . . . . I’ll head down to your office at 11:15. . . . I’ll meet you there at 4.” Of course, the goal is to have the first words out of your mouth be accurate and achievable, but better that you adjust right then and there with the person than not meet your commitment later.
4. Don’t schedule appointments back to back without taking into account transition time (whether that’s travel time or prep time).

When you’re scheduling appointments (or making verbal commitments to be somewhere or call someone) on court days, let those folks know it’s a court day for you (or a depo day, etc), and that you might be constrained by those requirements. They’ll understand and accept that if they’re warned in advance.

Finally, what about meetings you don’t initiate but have to attend? If they start late, practice the skill of letting the organizer know that you’ll have to leave at a specific time. While this can be tricky, you can learn to do it graciously and remain in control of your time. Because, as we know, if you’re not in control of your time, other people are.

Now multiply these costs by the number of people in your firm – or at least by the number of people who support you directly – and you can see that the negative impact of tolerating poor filing and organization is huge.

So what’s the solution? The first step is to do what one of my clients did last week: sit down with your lead assistant and identify the main trouble spots where documents (paper or digital) typically get stuck or lost.

How, when and where do docs pertaining to client work get handled — where do they get stuck? Someone’s desk? In an overflowing inbox? In a massive pile on a chair? In a file folder with a name that doesn’t accurately describe its contents? In the wrong subfolder on a shared drive?

And how about non-client work? Bills, research, equipment leases and warranties?

Think through the circumstances that give rise to the experience of not being able to find something you’re looking for. It’s almost always a result of one of these conditions:

• Not having the right infrastructure in place (filing drawers and cabinets, in- and out baskets, proper network directory folders, etc)
• Not having clear protocols and procedures for how, when and where documents get routed
• Lack of following the rules once they’re established**

Make this meeting a top priority for this month. Set aside an hour to start the process. It’s one of those classic “important but not urgent” tasks that you’ll never get to if you don’t make it happen. But when you do, you’ll create strong and lasting improvement in your practice. You’ll be more productive and profitable, and you’ll enjoy greater peace of mind.

** The problem of wasting time looking for things pertains not only to documents, but to books, desk items such as staplers, office supplies, etc. As grandma actually used to say, “a place for everything, and everything in its place.” It’s up to you to make sure that you and everyone with whom you work knows where that place is, and abides by the rules governing you set up for what goes where.

Multiply these extra seconds by the hundreds (or thousands) of times you engage in this process each month, and you’ll soon realize you’re wasting entire days worth of time.

What to do? Try grouping the contents of your folder by file type. Most people find that it dramatically speeds up the time it takes their eyes to scan the folder contents and find what they’re looking for.

Here’s a short video showing you how:

Folder Contents Video

The answer lies more in how you apportion the time that you have, rather than which social media you choose to use.  New Media Guru Chris Brogan suggests the following formula: (http://pluggedinlawyer.com/2009/11/20/social-media-time-management-for-lawyers/ )

–Spend one-quarter of your time listening to your network (i.e. reading posts, articles etc.)

–Spend one-half of your time engaging within your network (i.e. sharing posts and commenting.)

–Spend one-quarter of your time creating new content (i.e. blogging, creating videos or audio.)

The logic is that the more familiar you are with the community and the issues being discussed, the more you’ll be able to add value to the conversation.  And that, in turn, can lead to getting referrals.

Accurately projecting the amount of time something can take is a well-calibrated science when the task at hand is broken down into its components.  Before you begin a project or task, first ask yourself if you have all of the elements that you need to complete it.  Are there any other resources that you should have on hand?  Are there any associates, clients, or specialists with whom you need to consult?

When you are sure you have everything you need, break down the task into its separate parts.  In the case of exhibits for depositions, this might entail checking the chain of custody on each exhibit or putting post-its on the relevant pages of a contract.   How many separate tasks can your project be broken down into?  How long will each of these parts take realistically?   Once you’ve added up the time for all the different parts of the project, add 25% more time to your overall estimate.  That way, if you hit a snag, you’ll have already accounted for it in your time budget.

You may find you no longer have a big enough block to completely finish your task from start to finish.  No matter.  When filling in your white space during your morning planning, write down in your calendar which next actions you’ll be taking that particular day.  When you finish those sub-tasks in the amount of time you projected, you’ll still feel a sense of completion.