In yesterday’s post, I told you how I was able to organize my work flow and do a better job of following up with prospective clients. Today I want to talk about what to do when you find yourself not following up on your tasks and projects.
Actually, there are a lot of things you could do to improve your “completion ratio.” The simplest strategy, however, is to take on only one thing at a time.
One goal. One project. One task.
Start. Finish. Next.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed when there are too many things on your plate. It’s a lot easier when you only have one.
When you focus on just “one thing,” you aren’t distracted by everything else. You’re better able to complete that task or achieve the goal when it’s the only one in front of you.
Of course you will still have many tasks and projects on your list and many will need to be done today or this week. That will never change. You’ve got five files you need to work up, two hearings to prepare for, and three documents to draft. But while they all need to get done, they don’t need to get done simultaneously.
Do one thing at a time. Finish it. Or take it as far as you can right now and then move it out of the way. Now, what’s next?
I remember a time when I got way behind in my work. I had several stacks of files on my desk and I wasn’t working on any of them. There must have been 40 files and I didn’t know where to start. I had put off working on them for so long I think I was afraid of what I might find. Deadlines missed, responses long overdue, problems I had ignored and made worse.
I was overwhelmed and feeling sorry for myself. If I had a blanket in the office, I probably would have crawled under it.
My wife was in the office that day and offered to help. Not with work itself but to help me get through it. She sat across the desk from me and asked me what I needed to do with the file on the top of one of the stacks. I opened it and could quickly see what to do. It wasn’t so bad. I either did it on the spot or made notes for myself or my secretary.
“Great, what about the next file?” my wife asked.
And so it went. In about two hours, I had gone through all of the files on my desk. My wife sat with me the entire time. My Consigliori.
.
When I was done, I still had files I needed to work on but I had a handle on it. I had notes about what to do, I knew which ones I needed to work on first, and I was able to move forward. There weren’t any major problems.
How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. How do you get more work done? One file at a time.
If you don’t know what to do next, I suggest you read The Attorney Marketing Formula.
