The Great Time-Shifting Email Trick

If you’ve ever received an email that was sent at 3 a.m. and wondered what the heck the person was doing up at that hour, you may well have also wondered if they “have a life.”

And you’ve probably sent some email at crazy hours of the night and wondered what the recipient might be thinking about you. Are they thinking that you’re disorganized, under the gun, procrastinating, a workaholic?

Well, if you’re using Outlook and want to work in the middle of the night but have it look as though your email was composed and sent at a more conventional hour, you can use the Delay Delivery option to schedule exactly when the message will leave your outbox.

In the screen shot above, I composed the test email and ran the Delay Delivery feature at 12:18pm. I set it to be delivered at 12:25. Note that it appears as having been sent at 12:25.

In addition to the middle-of-the-night scenario, there are many other situations where you might want to delay an email going out until later in the day or the next morning, or even days or weeks hence.

For example, let’s say it’s 10:15 a.m. and you’re working on a file, and you want to inform opposing counsel of a document revision you’ve just concluded, but you have to turn your attention to something else for the next three hours. If you send the email, you know she’s going to get right back to you but you don’t want to deal with it until later. You can draft the email and use the delayed Delivery option to cue it up for delivery at 2:30 so you can, as the infomercial says, set it and forget it.

Or for a more systematic application of the feature, let’s say you want to remind your clients to send you certain documents at specific times. Your staff can compose the reminder email and schedule it go out on a specific date. This is great task for your administrative assistant: have them identify on a weekly or monthly basis which clients need certain reminders and then let them spend an hour or two composing them and cuing them up for delivery on the right dates.

Once you and your staff become familiar with the feature, you’ll find more uses for this great time management tip in your legal practice.

Here’s how to do it.
1. Open and compose your email
2. Click the Options tab/menu
3. Click the Delay Delivery button/item
4. Check the “Don not deliver before” box

6. Enter the date and time for delivery
7. Click Close
8. Click Send to cue your email

Note: the email will sit in your Outbox until the day/time you designated. Note, too, that your computer must be ON and Outlook must be running at that time for the message to be sent. If your computer is off or if Outlook is not running, the message will be sent when Outlook next launches.

How To Dramatically Cut Your Typing Time

One of the most under-utilized features of MS Word (and WordPerfect, for those still using it), is the ability to substitute a few keystrokes for significantly longer words, phrases, or even sentences.

By learning how to use the “AutoCorrect/AutoText” feature in Word (WordPerfect calls it “QuickCorrect”), you and your staff will significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to produce documents. You can save hundreds of hours a year in unnecessary typing.

There are literally countless situations where AutoCorrect can be used. For example, instead of having to manually insert the symbol for “section” (§) via menus and multiple clicks, you could just type “ss” (or any other keystroke/s) and the symbol will appear. Names of people, cases, organizations, jurisdictions, etc can be entered by typing a few keystrokes. And common phrases or sentences can be similarly shortcut.

The reason most people don’t use the Auto feature regularly is because it’s not easy to access, and they don’t know how to override an autocorrection that they may not want to keep.

To help you overcome these barriers, I have created a PDF with instructions on how to add the AutoCorrect/AutoText icon to your tool bar so you can access it directly with a single click. This document also shows you how to handle overrides. You can download it here:

Many of you use document templates for common drafting tasks, and that’s great. But there are dozens of instances every week when customizing a template would take more time then writing up something from scratch, so you forgo the template. These are the perfect times to use AutoCorrect/AutoText.

To really leverage the value of this Brief, you might consider forwarding it to your staff, and then ask them to identify the most commonly used names and phrases they use (and the most common ones YOU use).

Here’s an instructional video from YouTube on getting started with creating your own own autocorrect shortcuts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52kfVEKnlIY

Since AutoCorrect is the built-in feature in Word that corrects spelling and, for example, changes “(c)” into “©” automatically, another benefit of learning how to use it is that you’ll know how to fix those unintended “corrections” that Word occasionally forces upon us.

This is easy to learn. Invest 30 minutes this week and save thousands of hours over the course of your career.

Be Brave: Unplug During Vacation

Whether you’ve just been on vacation or you have one coming up, here’s a question: were you (or will you be) able to disconnect from your work as completely as you’d like?

If you’re one of the very few who can honestly answer Yes, congratulations! However, if you’re like most of us, you have mixed emotions about your Smartphone while on vacation. It’s a constant (cursed) reminder of the work you’re supposed to be leaving behind, yet being separated from your device for too long creates anxiety (if not clinical withdrawal).

As I’ve written previously, the inexorable trend is that of increased digital connectivity, so it’s becoming increasingly important to exercise boundaries that protect your private, non-work time.

I recently heard an interview with William Powers, the author of the new book, Hamlet’s Blackberry. He and his family uphold an “Internet Sabbath” every weekend. They keep the TV and video games and regular cell phones available; their goal is to create more space and time for themselves as individuals and as a family so they nix the net, text, and email. His description of how this approach has enriched their lives (even his kids’ lives and his kids’ friends!) is inspiring.

And this past week, a client forwarded this excellent article about how to unplug when on vacation:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/07/02/vacation.unplugging/index.html?hpt=C1. It contains several realistic strategies for beating back digital encroachment while you’re away.

Obviously, there are circumstances that can justify your choice to be available for some clearly predefined situations, but these should be rare and of a much higher threshold than routine work. And yes, you have to plan more effective coverage prior to your vacation so that routine communication gets handled in your absence.

So, if you’ve just been on vacation, I encourage you to reflect on whether you – and the people with you – were happy with the amount of time you spent with your device on work-related matters. If you’re getting ready for a late-summer or fall vacation, challenge yourself to set some goals around how much time and under what circumstances you’ll be interacting with email and voicemail and text messages.

Ask yourself if that email is more important than the beautiful sunset or the look on your daughter’s face when makes her mini-golf hole-in-one.

How and Why to Boost Your Energy at Work

The more pressured the environment in which you’re practicing, the more challenging it is to manage your energy throughout the day. And yet, good “energy management” is essential if you want to optimize your efficiency and your effectiveness.

The October 2007 Harvard Business Journal profiles the impact of a simple training program to help employees of a major bank manage their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual energy while on the job.

The bottom line? Compared to a control group of equal size who did NOT get the training, the experimental group of 106 loan officers outperformed their control group colleagues by 20 percent in year-over-year revenue. 68 percent of the group that received the training “ . . . reported that it had a positive impact on their relationship with their clients . . . and 71 percent said that it had a noticeable or significant impact on their productivity. . . .”

Tony Schwartz, co-author of the HBJ article, has developed an “Energy Audit” to help identify how we’re operating in each of the four “energy dimensions” mentioned above. You can take the audit and access some excellent resources here: http://www.theenergyproject.com/.

We all know that the practice of law is a high-pressure career and that those drawn to it tend to be skeptical of the role of “soft skills” in their professional success. However, Schwartz and others make a powerful business case for why these skills (such as attending to your energy during the day) matter.

Your cognitive acuity, your sense of personal satisfaction, your physical health, and your emotional well-being all flow from your overall energy — and contribute to your performance. So take a few minutes one evening this week to take the Energy Audit. Your clients, your colleagues, your staff, and your family will all benefit as you learn to even out your ups and downs and boost your overall effectiveness. And you’ll be happier as a result.

The Simple Two-Word Formula to Beat Procrastination

One of the reasons people put off project-type work is that they’re thinking about the end result and not the very next action they need to take to move the work forward.

Whether it’s a complicated negotiation that’s become problematic or an administrative process improvement project, we can sometimes get stuck because we just know the outcome we want but we’re not clear how to get there. And since we don’t like that feeling, we start procrastinating.

Surprisingly however, the simple act of determining our next physical action to advance the work/project is sometimes all it takes to get unstuck.

The trick is to get extremely concrete (again, about the action). For example, the next action to get unstuck about the negotiation may be to go out to see your secretary and request a document status list for your review. (Rather than endlessly mulling over possibilities in your head based on incomplete information, such a doc list would help focus you.)

The next action on the process improvement project might simply be for you to find the two month old email you were sent outlining the document templates that your paralegal recommended for approval.

The point is that in both cases, you know, at one level, that you just want the thing done! Your eyes are on the horizon. But you have to take some step, and since you’re not sure what that step is, you don’t take any step.

So think of some matter or project you’d like to move forward but which hasn’t moved in a while. What’s the very next physical action to take? Don’t over-think it. Is it getting out of your chair to pull the file? It is picking up the phone to call someone?

Sometimes the bogeyman of procrastination doesn’t need to be exorcised at a deep psychological level. Sometimes it just takes getting clear on the next action.

Distractus Interruptus: Rethinking Mobile Device Alerts

In previous Briefs, I’ve advocated turning off your email alerts and periodically putting your phone on Do-Not-Disturb in order to reduce the number of times your train of thought is interrupted – and therefore your productivity diminished – throughout the day.

The object is to retrain yourself to accept incoming communications on your terms, not on everyone else’s terms. For example, you could choose to check your email and voicemail every 90 minutes. (When was the last time you experienced 90 minutes free of digital interruptions while working at the office? And how productive and satisfying was it?)

Well, now I’m going to ask you to take it one step further by turning off the audio and vibration alerts for the text messages and emails you receive on your mobile device.

I realize this may elicit from you a reaction such as “Are you nuts?” But think about it for a minute:

How many times a week are you interrupted by that audio or vibration alert? It’s probably a few hundred. And where are you when these alerts divert your mind from whatever you’re doing? The car? A meeting with colleagues? On a landline conversation with a client? At lunch with a prospect? At your desk drafting a pleading? At dinner with your family?

Finally, how many of these seemingly benign “alerts” in an average week are important enough to justify the persistent fragmentation of your attention to the activity at hand? I submit it’s less than five percent.

By turning off your audio and vibration alerts, you can choose to check your device when you want to. You’ll still see that you have new text messages and emails via the icon on your device, but you won’t be interrupted and distracted nearly as often throughout the day.

Obviously, my seemingly contrarian suggestion regarding mobile alerts relates to the broader issue of “digital addiction.” Thanks to last week’s widely-discussed New York Times article on the negative effects of being plugged in all the time, the dialog right now is hot. (See Hooked on Gadgets and the fascinating related articles.)

The topic – and our behavior — is worth reflecting on because our already-ubiquitous technology is only going to become faster and more interconnected, and its use made even more “necessary” by the social and commercial forces that benefit from its expansion.

So, the sooner we learn to tame its intrusiveness, the better. If we don’t push back now, why do we think we’ll be able to two or five years from now when the milieu of instantaneousness is even more intense?

You can turn off your audio and vibration alerts by going the “settings” screen on most devices and then finding the “alerts” option. Or ask your IT person. Or Google the phrase “[name of your device] message alert settings.”

Cultivating the Motivation to Change

In order to get improved results in any endeavor, you need to change what you’re doing. All the best strategies and tools will yield nothing if they’re not applied. And application happens in the realm of action – that is, in the realm of behavior – not in rumination or wishful thinking

Yet, as we all know, changing behavior is often extremely difficult. We’ve lived within life-long patterns, and we’re predisposed to avoid the dissonance that comes with letting go of the familiar and embracing the unfamiliar (even if we know the shift would be good for us).

The secret of course, is to be sufficiently motivated to choose different behaviors. It’s just not enough to think something’s a good idea (e.g., to delegate more, to organize your office, or to set up-front expectations more clearly). You have to feel what it will be like to achieve your goal (e.g., to be able to leave the office an hour earlier than you usually do — and feel good about–, or to just be less frazzled during the day).

But what does it mean to feel sufficiently motivated? It means that you’ve imbued your goal with enough emotional energy to drive you forward, even in the face of internal resistance.

And this begs the question: can you consciously boost your motivation to change? Fortunately, the answer is yes.

First, visualize, in detail, what achieving your goal would look like and feel like. What are the good things that would come, for example, from your being able to spend more high-quality time with your family in the evening? Let yourself sit for even just a minute – right now – reflecting on that, and let yourself feel the blessings you (and they) would experience.

Next, focus on what you can do today to begin moving toward your goal. Start with one small, incremental step. Is there a task you could delegate that you’d otherwise do yourself that would allow you to leave earlier and still know that it will get taken care of to an acceptable level? Could you try to capture your time throughout the day instead of needing to spend time at the end of the day going through your emails and paperwork and in order to generate your bills?

Whatever your goal, first imagine the fruit of your success – and let yourself experience the feelings, the emotions, that success will bring. Then, target one specific instance of that success and focus on what you can do to realize it. Then do it again and again, one day at a time.

Why You Should Push Back on Scheduling Requests

When you’re on trial or your vacation’s booked, and someone wants to schedule a meeting with you, what happens? You offer times that do not conflict with these non-negotiable commitments. How about when opposing counsel or a key client presses you to meet on a day you’re already committed to an important deposition or a critical client site visit? Same thing. You schedule around what’s already booked.

Even in the worst-case scenario of a Judge setting a trial date that conflicts with another, previously-set trial, you work it out, right? If you have no one to cover for you, the second claim on your time has to accommodate your calendar.

But what happens when you’re pressed to accept an appointment (e.g., a closing, a depo, a case status review) in the absence of a pre-existing, “non-negotiable” commitment?

All too often, you’re willing to accommodate whoever is making the meeting request – even if doing so winds up jamming you up. It’s as if because you don’t have one of those immovable commitments in place, you feel guilty or fearful about saying No to the request. You want to say No, and you know you probably should say No and offer a time that works for you, for the sake of your effectiveness and sanity, but you accept the other person’s timing anyway.

Obviously, I’m not suggesting that you blithely disregard the urgency of the other party’s request. There are times when the urgency is mutual and in your client’s interest (or in the interest of your firm somehow).

But I am suggesting that you consciously practice looking at your calendar and your upcoming commitments and workflow, and be willing to push back on appointment requests in order to preserve your maximum effectiveness. Take the extra few seconds to become aware of your mindset in the moment – and then negotiate the appointment from a place of confidence.

It’s very much like exercising a new muscle group. It will feel uncomfortable for a while, but with consistent use, you’ll be stronger for it. Remember, no one else has an interest in abiding by – much less protecting – your schedule. So you have to.

The Time Saving Solution to Copy-Paste Formatting Woes

You know how frustrating it is when you select some text from one source – a Word doc, a web page, a PowerPoint slide, a PDF, an email – to copy it and paste it into another document you’re working on. Usually, the font and paragraph formatting properties are copied into the new document and they can be a real pain to undo. So you spend extra time fiddling with indents and line breaks, etc.

Here’s a fantastic solution: PureText is a no-cost utility which, with a single click, strips the formatting properties of whatever text you’ve copied into your clipboard so that when pasted, the text appears with the properties of the document you’re working on. (PureText is a Windows-based program, but there are a variety of “plain text conversion” options for the Mac, too.)

Once installed, PureText sits as an icon in your system tray, and all you do is click the icon AFTER you’ve copied the target text and BEFORE you paste it. One click. It’s that simple. PureText will save you hours of time and headache, and make you more productive.

You can download PureText here: http://SteveMiller.net/PureText

Stop Giving Yourself Deadlines

Stop giving yourself deadlines. They’re not real. The only real deadlines are externally dictated. Instead, make careful commitments, and think of them that way – as agreements you make with yourself and with others.

The origin of the word “deadline” is germane here: prior to becoming synonymous with “due date,” deadline referred to the specific boundary around a civil war detention camp beyond which escape-minded prisoners would be shot. Decades later, with advances in printing technology, journalists borrowed the mechanical meaning of the word (where ink stopped being printed at the edge of a page) to describe the day and time their stories had to be filed.

In both contexts, it’s the imposition of an external authority or condition that creates the motivation to comply. That’s why it’s so hard to give ourselves deadlines. What are the consequences if we miss our self-imposed “deadlines”? Stress and guilt sure, but we’re not going to be shot.

Obviously, it’s challenging (for many reasons) to keep the commitments we make to do specific things by specific times. We take on too much. We underestimate how long something will take. We struggle to stay on top of organization and priorities.

And most of us, to one degree or another, subconsciously want – or even need – the pressure of that externally dictated deadline. Why? Because true deadlines trigger adrenaline rushes, and we’re finally forced to focus our energy and time (i.e., we temporarily cease struggling with what to do next. There are finally no options.)

This isn’t “just a matter of semantics.” The psychological difference between establishing a mental deadline that sounds external and making a carefully considered commitment that comes from within is huge.

It’s a matter of being in integrity with yourself and with the words that come out of your mouth. The classic client service adage applies: “Under-promise and over-deliver.”

Try practicing this week. Set your intention to notice the internal dialog you have with yourself about when you’re going to get something done. And pay attention to the words you speak to others about those tasks. Ask yourself if you can really keep the commitment you’re making. Then amend your words as necessary.

As long-time readers of my weekly tips have heard me say again and again, time management is really self management. And improved self-management always starts with awareness.

The Danger of Mental To-Do Lists

The more free-floating to-do’s you carry around in your head, the more likely it is that you’re compromising your day-to-day effectivenes — and specifically, how well you’re managing your time.

Why? Because our ability to concentrate is not a purely cognitive process. It turns out that our subconscious and our feelings significantly influence our performance. If we know that we have to-do’s hanging out there somewhere – tasks, intentions, commitments that are not written down – our subconscious feels the need to devote some energy to keeping them from vanishing altogether.

This is what so many people experience a low-level, generalized anxiety that they’re missing something they should be doing; and it’s the classic middle-of-the-night fear that they have missed something important.

Fortunately, the solution (or at least the start of the solution) is simple. Take a Saturday or Sunday morning and make a list of the all the to-do’s, commitments, and next-actions that are jostling for consciousness in your mind.
By getting them out of your head and onto paper, two great things happen. First, you relieve the mental pressure of having to remember them, and second, you have the ability to review them and prioritize them in a more organized, rational way.

I know that you might resist doing this because the list might be so long that you’ll feel intimidated or depressed.
But do it anyway.

Once you get over the shock of doing it, you’ll feel tangible relief – and you’ll be able to concentrate more effectively and more efficiently on whatever you’re attending to in the moment.

Don’t worry about not knowing what to do once you’ve got the list on paper. The mere act of creating the list itself – and of freeing up the mental energy it brings – will help you use the list wisely.

The Happiness – Success Connection

When audiences around the world are asked to complete the following sentence, one word is overwhelmingly provided.

Your response?
It was probably “happy.” No other answer – successful, wealthy, healthy, well-adjusted, etc – comes remotely close.

Why is that? What does it tell us about what we value?
The good news is that it affirms our good judgment. We get it viscerally that life is brief and precious and that little else matters if we are not happy (or content, or at peace, or however you prefer thinking of it).

Yet, relatively few of us make a serious commitment to consciously increase our happiness even though it’s the core state of being we wish for our loved ones.

What does this have to do with productivity you might be asking? Or with time management for lawyers?

Let me answer with another question: All things being equal, are you a better lawyer, a better colleague, a better boss, when you’re happier in your life or when you’re less happy in your life?

Even in the midst of the fiercest litigation, your energy, focus, demeanor, judgment and confidence are enhanced when you’re operating from a place of increased overall happiness in your life.

As psychologist Philip Zimbardo notes in his book The Time Paradox, “Most people do give themselves time to be happy in their two weeks of vacation a year. But that is not enough. You need to integrate happiness into your . . . life.”

Now, if consciously cultivating increased happiness seems either superfluous on the one hand, or desirable but impossible on the other, consider some of the simple actions you could take this week:
• Browse the humor section in a bookstore
• Pick up a simple present (like a book) for a loved one
• Take an after-dinner walk
• Tell someone you love that you appreciate them
• Listen to some music you enjoyed in your younger days
• Write a quick note card to someone you appreciate
• Get tickets for a play, a concert, or ball game
• Rekindle a hobby you’ve let slip

If you already do some of these things, great. The trick is to elevate them (or whatever activities bring you happiness) so that they’re a more regular part of your ongoing experience, and not relegate them to the “when I have time” category of your life.

Would you advise your kids to spend their adult lives attending to happiness only when they could “fit it in?” Probably not.

So commit to doing ONE thing this week to bring a little bit of extra happiness into your life that you otherwise wouldn’t have.
You’ll be a better lawyer, colleague, boss, spouse, and parent for it.

How to Minimize Time in Phone Tag Hell

April 19, 2010

Like so many technologies, voicemail is both a blessing and a curse. We rely on it, but we’re often frustrated by it. So how can you use it more effectively? How can you minimize the amount of time you spend playing phone tag?

First, become more aware of when you can use voicemail to move a conversation forward. If you’re reaching out to someone new or you’re contacting someone about a new topic, there’s no conversation to sustain, that’s true. But at the very least, you can let the person know when you’d like them to try to get back to you. Or you can, depending on the nature of your call, ask them to get back to your assistant with the answer. Or you can leave your email address and offer that as an option for a return communication.

However, the vast majority of voicemails deal with ongoing situations within existing relationships — and yet too many people simply play phone tag. “Susan, it’s Larry. Give me a call back. I have a question about the latest revision of the buyout clause.” That kind of message is only one step up from “Tag. You’re it.”

Ask yourself, “What can I say in the message I leave that will increase the likelihood of the person getting back to me with the information I’m looking for?”

To answer that question, you have to give some thought to it; you have to plan for the possibility (the likelihood?) that you’ll get your target’s voicemail. Take 60 seconds before you pick up the phone to organize the statement – and the requests – that you’ll leave.

If you’re seeking information, practice being more specific than you’ve been in the past. Be specific, too, about what you’re asking them to do in terms of getting back to you.

For example: “Susan, it’s Larry. I have a question about the latest revision of the buyout clause. Does the Targeted Account List referenced in schedule A include the accounts Alan brought with him when he joined the company in 2007? If so, does it include all of them? If not, which? I should be in the office tomorrow morning until about 11. In case you don’t have my number handy, it’s 555.555.5555. If we don’t connect, please leave a detailed answer on my voicemail. Or my email is LWR@lawfirm.com. Or, feel free to call my assistant, Anne, at 555.555.5555. She’s fully aware of the situation. Thanks.”

Of course, you probably wanted to speak with Susan, which is why you called her, rather than emailed her. But being prepared to leave a specific message is the next best thing in lieu a live conversation.

A message like that moves the conversation forward and increases the chances that you’ll get the info you need without having to play tag. It’s one of the most effective attorney time management techniques available, and it’s easy to learn.

As long-time readers of my weekly tips have heard me say again and again, it all starts with your mindset, with increased awareness of an otherwise simple behavior – in this case, that you can cut down on phone tag by moving the conversation forward through the specificity of the voicemails you leave.

No More Login/Web Form Headaches

April 12th, 2010

The more time we spend online, the more time we have to spend entering passwords and other data to access and process the information and commerce upon which we increasingly depend.

At a seminar this past week, the subject of password management arose, with attendees offering sob stories of lost passwords, out-of-date password tracking spreadsheets, and general exasperation with online forms.
Here’s an absolutely fantastic solution. It’s called Roboform Pro.

Roboform remembers all of your user login names, passwords, and personal data for any website you visit.

Link to Roboform:
http://www.roboform.com/php/land.php?affid=jlc08&frm=frame10 **

Roboform employs the most secure encryption available and is simple to use. It costs $39 per user, but is worth 100 times the cost.

Think of all the time you spend entering your address, contact information, juris number, credit card information, etc.

With a single click, Roboform also fills in all web-based forms, saving you countless hours of typing. You can have several “identities” and “passcards” (for example, for your personal and business credit cards).

Roboform works on both stand-alone and networked computers, and with all browsers (although there are a few extra steps required when setting it up for the first time with non-Explorer browsers such as Firefox).

Link to Roboform:
http://www.roboform.com/php/land.php?affid=jlc08&frm=frame10 **

RoboForm does not yet have a version for the Mac, although there is a web-based version in beta which works independent of browser or operating system. There are several Mac-based password management programs that compare to RoboForm, including APassword and IPassword.

** Disclosure: these are affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission from your purchase. You do not pay more, and this is the only price available, with or without an affiliate purchase.

Tackle Email Overload

When you think about the fact that email has become mission-critical to our professional lives, isn’t it a bit odd that we can work week after week, month after month without paying attention to maintaining our email systems properly? Yet, to our detriment, many of us do just that – and thereby aggravate our email woes. (It’s akin to an airline saying that because they only make money when their planes are flying, they’re not going to spend time on maintenance.)

Obviously, email and information overload is a huge challenge, and there are many ways to get at the problem. But here’s one truth:

Whether it’s daily or weekly, you need to make email maintenance a regular part of your practice management routine.

Here are few actions you can take to make your email more manageable.
1. Rather than just deleting your junk mail, right-click it to “Add Sender to Blocked Sender’s List.” The more you use this option, the smarter your built-in spam filter will become. And of course you won’t get any more junk from that sender. NOTE: For pure junk mail/spam, this is better than “unsubscribing” using the link at the bottom of the message because these “unsubscribe” links are often nothing more than a ruse to confirm that your address is valid; by clicking it you wind up getting more junk.

2. Unsubscribe from legitimate information providers whose material you don’t read regularly. Beware of the impulse to want to keep the subscription because you might miss something important in the future. If you’re not reading it regularly now, you’re not going to read it regularly in the future, so let it go. If you really need to find something in the future, just look for it on the web. It’s a fallacy to think that the “loss” of a potentially valuable email in the future is worth the cost of the perpetual information overload such thinking creates.

3. Use rules to automatically route email into subfolders within your main Inbox by category of sender. At a minimum, you should have a rule to route email from staff/in-house colleagues; clients; and newsletters/bar associations. (Hint: search YouTube for “Outlook Rules” to learn how.)

4. Consider setting up a second or third email address through Gmail and using that address for your current and future subscriptions and other non-essential email.

Making email maintenance a regular part of your practice management routine will pay off in reduced distraction, more efficient searching of your email, improved productivity and more effective overall time management. Want to try something radical — and powerful? Schedule a recurring 15 or 30 minute event weekly for this task. Early Friday or Saturday morning, or Sunday evening works well for many folks.

Push-back on the Responsiveness Illusion

Having received a number of responses to Monday’s TimeSavvy Brief on the “Responsiveness Illusion,” I’m following up with comments from two readers. The first asks the question I’m sure many readers asked. He then goes on to answer his own question.

The second addresses the common rationale that great cases are sometimes landed because you’re the first to speak with a prospect (i.e., you’d have not gotten the work if you hadn’t answered the phone).

Comment One
“How does one reconcile your take on the responsiveness illusion with the advice given by Arthur Green (Lawyer’s Guide to Increasing Revenue) that you should get back to client phone calls within 2 hours?

One solution I have been trying is to have either Sandra or Alex return calls for me asap (I need to clarify for them my definition of asap though) so that the client does get a return call quickly.

I already see that doing this helps us clarify what the client wants before I speak to them and also makes them feel that we respond right away — even though I have a schedule that precludes instantaneous response.

This system of course would be good to introduce to clients at intake (I usually just introduce new clients to staff at intake now; I’ll start adding that next step). We have been less successful at getting clients to actually call Sandra or Alex. They tend to always call me but it’s pretty easy to send a quick email or text to S or A so they can get back to the person.”

Comment Two
“I get it conceptually that letting myself be interrupted by phone calls is disruptive, but I’ve gotten cases that I’m sure I wouldn’t have because I took the call on the spot whether the call was from a prospective client or a referral source. I’m not convinced I would be better off not taking those calls.”

My Response
The first attorney (criminal defense) is most of the way toward his solution. It’s all about setting up a system with your team and framing expectations up front.

The second attorney’s situation (corporate law) also speaks to having a reliable of system of call screening by a support person. Sure, you don’t want to miss the high-value opportunity, but taking ALL calls in the hope that ONE of them will eventually outweigh the ongoing disruption of your productivity (and profitability) is a statistical loser.

So you need to put in place a level of screening support that will cull the very few calls that justify an interruption of your focus. And then you need to make sure you’re planning “communication blocks” two or three times a day, so you can, indeed, get back to callers in a reasonable period of time.

Beware the Responsiveness Illusion

Far too many attorneys have convinced themselves that they must tolerate their disjointed, interruption-laden approach to managing their time in the name of “good client service” (aka, “responsiveness”).

But like an optical illusion, what seems to be true about responsiveness often isn’t.

Let’s unpack the assumptions that fuel the responsiveness illusion. Here’s the thought: If I don’t respond immediately, the client will:
• Be angry
• Think I’m not on top of his matter
• Think she’s not important enough to me
• Not send me additional work
• Complain about my fees
• Fire me

These assumptions, of course, are all born out of fear. And they don’t take into account context and expectations (i.e., the overall character of the relationship, and the implicit and explicit communication you’ve had on the subject of accountability.

A second source of the illusion is ego. It’s gratifying to have important clients need you. That’s normal and fine. The trick is to stop your ego from establishing unattainable performance standards that will wind up boxing you in.

It turns out that 95% of your clients are actually reasonable human beings with whom you can discuss your mutual needs and expectations about communication. After all, what clients report they want from their lawyers is integrity (that your words match your actions), high-quality legal thinking, and a trustworthy relationship. Yes, they’re also looking for effective and even aggressive advocacy, but it’s an extremely small percentage of their calls and emails that constitute actual emergencies.

Look, if a client would fire you (or penalize you in some way) for getting back to them in three hours instead of within 15 minutes of their otherwise routine email or voicemail, then either you’ve established inappropriate/unrealistic standards, or they’re a problematic client and you should consider letting them become someone else’s headache.

Simply put, if you feel that all (or even most) of your clients have the right to demand that you sacrifice your autonomy throughout the day, you’re not in control of your practice. And when you’re not in control, paradoxically, you’re more likely to damage the very relationships you’re stressing out about. So one of the secrets of successful time management for attorneys is to shift your internal belief system about what “responsiveness” and “client service” really mean.

What should you do? First, recognize that you’re carrying around an illusion, a distortion of what’s true. Then, assess the relationship with your current clients, one by one, to determine with whom you need to have a conversation about reframing communication expectations. (Assuming you’re serving them well overall, you’ll be amazed at how reasonable they will be. And if you’re not serving them as well as you should be, get to work fixing the problems; you’ll then be able to reframe successfully).

Finally, become comfortable discussing communication expectations with ALL prospects and new clients at the start of the relationship. For some help with this, the best book on the topic of relationship building remains The Trusted Advisor, by Maister, Green and Galford.

How to Get Tech Help Instantly

How often do you say to yourself, as you’re sitting at your computer, “there must be a way to do this” or “there must be a way to do this faster”? Probably a few times a month at least.

But, you don’t have a reliable tech person instantly accessible. (Or you do, and they’re too expensive.) As a result, both you and your staff tolerate the knowledge/skill gaps that slow down work flow. Think about the cumulative impact of these gaps on your bottom line over the course of a year. Lower production, less revenue, more stress — you get the idea.

So here’s one frequently overlooked solution: YouTube.

YouTube is a fantastic resource for how-to videos on a huge range of software and hardware issues.

• Want to have your computer start up automatically to avoid boot-up delay when you get into the office?
• Want to learn how to use track changes more effectively?
• How to mail merge your contact list to easily send that firm announcement you’ve been delaying?
• Want to add an alternate signature to certain emails?

Whatever you’re looking to learn, YouTube can often provide the information or solution you need.
Of course, there’s always the question of whether you should be spending the time finding the solution or whether you should delegate it to an assistant who can then show it to you. And speaking of your staff, let them in on the YouTube-as-resource idea. It’ll save them time and make them more productive too.

Two tips to find the most helpful videos (since you’re likely to get dozens of hits per search):
1. Choose videos with a higher number of views
2. Look for videos produced by a company (such as MHelp2U) as opposed to an individual

Like Wikipedia, YouTube is part of the truly profound revolution in knowledge and information referred to as “crowd sourcing.” The sooner you get comfortable tapping its value, the better.

Overcome To-Do List Paralysis

Check out this fascinating research tidbit from the brand new book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, by Fast Company columnists Chip Heath and Dan Heath:

“A gourmet food store. The store managers have set up a table where customers can sample imported jams for free. One day, the table showcases 6 different jams. Another day, 24 jams. As you’d expect, the 24-jam display attracts more customers to stop by for a sample – but when it comes time to buy, they can’t make a decision. Shoppers who saw only 6 jams on display are 10 times more likely to buy a jar of jam.”

The authors are discussing information overload, decision paralysis, and what writer Barry Schwartz calls The Paradox of Choice. At a certain point, Schwartz says, “choice no longer liberates, it debilitates.”

So what’s the relevance of this to improved productivity? To becoming Time Savvy? It’s this: We all have dozens, if not hundreds, of options on the table of our “to-do list” at any one time. But if we don’t narrow the scope of choices by setting aside time to plan, prioritize, and schedule a subset of those options, we’re more likely to feel overwhelmed by them. And when we feel overwhelmed (even if unconsciously), all kinds of bad things happen. For example, procrastination and stress increase, while confidence and effectiveness decrease.

So start your day by limiting the number jams on your table given your “white space” for the day (i.e., the otherwise unscheduled time on your calendar). You’re far more likely to get more of those things done.

Remember, if you try to keep all of your to-do’s in your head as open loops (instead of narrowing them down realistically), you’re keeping way too many options on the table. You’ll scan them mentally, but it’ll be harder to make the commitment to take action.

THE Key to Improved Time Management

Each of us has a core work style (governed by our core personality style) which, when consciously understood, can provide powerful insight into how we go about managing our time.

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.