Jim Calloway, The Daily Record Newswire
Time management is a challenge for many, lawyers and non-lawyers alike.
Attorneys in private practice must manage many things, from legal work to supervising staff to handling the business side of the practice. Lawyers often express frustration with their ability to manage their time each day, perhaps because they normally bill for their time by the 10th of the hour — and it’s all too easy to compute the potential revenue loss of even 12 minutes.
In addition, legal work has a way of becoming increasingly complex or expanding in scope on rather short notice. Entrepreneurs are eager to accept new work and sometimes take on more than they can comfortably manage.
Time-management and organizational gurus such as David Allen and the late Stephen Covey have become household names within certain circles. Allen’s “Getting Things Done” method is widely known, and almost everyone has heard of Covey’s book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.”
In addition, in 2007, Timothy Ferriss published “The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich,” which made many bestseller lists.
All time-management theories have much in common at their core: The strategy should allow one to identify and focus on the highest priorities; listing tasks is required to both organize the work and free the mind from trying to recall too many things; incoming items such as mail, email or assignments within the workplace should be quickly categorized; distractions should be minimized; taking the time to plan and build simple systems to avoid time-wasters should result in some immediate benefits.
Those are all good concepts, and consciously or unconsciously successful people use them.
Email management, for one, is now a big part of daily time management. The folks at inboxzero.com say you should process all email with one of five actions: delete, delegate, respond, defer or do.
I like the Inbox Zero mantra: “It’s not how many messages are in your inbox — it’s how much of your own brain is in that inbox.” Lifehacker columnist Gina Trapani has put forward a concept called the “trusted trio.” After her negative experience with setting up too many email folders, she has decided that every email you open that cannot be handled within two minutes or deleted immediately should be moved to one of three folders: Follow Up, Archive or Hold.
The lessons on email management apply to all office or knowledge workers. Moving an email from your inbox to another folder clears your inbox, but it also clears your mind, because you know you have filed the item where it will not be forgotten. And when you open the folder, what do you have? A list of all of the emails by subject line. The only drawback is they will be in chronological order by date of email (it takes a few email ninja tricks to sort them roughly by priority, but it can be done).
Buckets and lists
If I were to attempt to distill time management into two words, they would be buckets and lists.
You handle inflow with a few buckets. Those are the places where you stash items so they will not be forgotten — and not occupy your mind. Both of these results are important.
The number and kind of buckets depends on your inflow of information and tasks. Folders work great for email because they serve as both folder and list (even if they are imperfect lists). An actual desk tray or organizer may be best if your assignments mainly come in via paper.
And sometimes the best bucket is to add an item to a to-do list. If you have returned from a meeting with a handwritten list of 10 new tasks on your legal pad, the best way to preserve them and clear your head is to put them on your task list or delegate them to another’s task list.
All lawyers — indeed, all successful people — use to-do lists or task lists to one extent or another. Some people live by them on a daily or hourly basis. Others use them only intermittently. But everyone understands that, on a busy day, when many things must be accomplished, the way to begin is to record the tasks in a list.
Several popular software programs can be used to facilitate task management. Some of the most popular include Remember the Milk, Things, Toodledo and Trello. Microsoft Outlook also contains powerful task management tools, which is a great option for many people, given the time they already spend in Outlook.
To-do lists can be kept on paper or on digital devices. For most lawyers, a blended approach may be best. I’ve discussed time management with Paul Unger of Affinity Consulting, and he’s come up with a most appealing, structured approach to to-do lists that combines modern technology with old-school methods:
1) Outside of the office, he uses the iPhone/iPad app TaskTask to enter tasks, which synchronizes in real time to Microsoft Outlook.
2) Tasks are organized and grouped using Outlook categories (Client, Admin, Research, Personal, etc.).
3) He uses the client name as a prefix in the naming, so when sorted, he can see them all grouped together by client.
4) Every task, including bucket list items, is placed on Paul’s list.
5) Emails are converted to tasks in Outlook using drag-and-drop. Then emails are saved into Worldox, his document management system of choice.
6) He begins each day with a review of tasks and makes minor edits, if needed.
7) He always looks for tasks to delegate.
8) He shares his task list in Outlook with his team members, so they can review and help him during their downtime.
9) If in the office, he selects today’s five to 15 tasks in Outlook using Control + left click and prints a short daily task list. That list is essential to him because working from a master task list that is too long proved to be distracting and made it difficult to focus.
10) During the workday, he crosses off tasks on the printout or checks them as completed directly on his iPhone or in Outlook.
11) He adds all new tasks directly into Outlook or from TaskTask on the iPhone.
12) He leaves work knowing his tasks are organized, and if clients call at night, he can add new tasks via his phone.
Note that TaskTask only synchronizes with Outlook if you are using Microsoft Exchange Server, which is another good reason for solos or smaller firms to look at a hosted exchange service solution.
There are two shortcomings to all of these ideas, however.
First, we are fallible human beings, not machines, and there will be days (or periods) when we simply will not behave as efficiently as possible, try as we might. In those instances, don’t waste more time beating yourself up for falling short of perfection. Strive to do better next time.
Second, time flows on and on, and our ability to alter it exists only in science fiction. Time management, in the end, is really time organization. We cannot truly manage time, so don’t endeavor to accomplish the impossible. Enjoy the ride.
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Jim Calloway is the director of the Oklahoma Bar Association Management Assistance Program. He publishes the weblog Jim Calloway’s Law Practice Tips at http://jimcalloway.typepad.com.
