Productivity – Page 12

A simple business development productivity system

August 11, 2021 by David M. Ward

You want to bring in new clients and build your practice. You have a list of projects that will help you do that.

You might want to work on your website or start a newsletter, update your social media profiles, consolidate your contact lists, or watch videos about a new note-taking app you’ve heard so much about.

But you’re not doing them.

You scheduled time to work on X this week but when you sit down to do it, you realize you don’t have enough time, you need to do more research, or you just don’t feel like doing it.

So you do nothing.

“I’ll work on that next week,” you tell yourself, but do you?

There’s a simple solution.

Instead of scheduling to do X (today, this week, next), schedule time to work on business development (marketing, operations, systems, etc.), and keep of menu of projects to choose from during that time.

So when you don’t feel like working on X, you can work on Y or Z.

Here’s how you might set this up.

Make a list of 5-10 projects or tasks you are committed to working on soon.
Choose a day of the week to work on “Business Development” for one hour. A Wednesday afternoon, a Saturday morning, or whatever.
Set up a weekly recurring task in your task management system, calendar, or reminder app, or use a free email service like FollowUpThen.com, so that every week you are prompted to work on business development for one hour.
Add your list of 5-10 tasks or projects as sub-tasks, or a link to your list.
Each week, when your system prompts you to work on business development, look at your list and choose something you want to do.

This week, you might write an email or two. Next week, you might outline a new presentation. The following week, you might modify your new client intake form.

You always have several options and it doesn’t matter which one you choose. Each week, you do something related to business development, and that’s better than doing nothing.

Ready to work on a newsletter? Here’s all you need

Filed Under: Law office management, Marketing legal services, Productivity

Does your life need to go on a diet?

August 2, 2021 by David M. Ward

It was just yesterday that you started practicing. Or so it may seem. The days whiz by, don’t they? Another day, another week, another month, another year, come and gone.

Where will you find the time to do everything?

The answer is to let go of things you don’t need to do or want to do but continue to do out of habit.

A good place to start is by reducing physical and digital clutter. Clean out closets and drawers, delete apps, and cut down on subscriptions.

To do your work, you need a calendar, a place for notes, a list of tasks and projects, a tool for writing, and a system for managing and storing documents.

You probably don’t need much more.

If you do, be judicious about what you add to the mix.

You want to reduce the noise around you and simplify your workflow. You want to focus on the “precious few” instead of the “trivial many”.

The goal is to be effective, with as little friction as possible.

To do that, you need to keep things as simple as possible.

The same goes for the information you consume. Be selective about what you read. Buy fewer books and courses, re-read and study the best ones.

You don’t need every idea; you need a few good ones.

Improve your note-taking skills and habits, so you can better use the information you consume.

How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and How to Take Smart Notes by SÃ¶nke Ahrens will show you what to do.

Read broadly but focus on your core skills: your practice area, marketing, writing, speaking, leadership, and productivity.

One thing you should add to your workflow if you’re not already doing it, or doing it consistently, is time for planning.

Spend ten minutes every afternoon planning the following day. Spend an hour each weekend planning the following week.

This habit will help you get the most value out of your limited time.

One more thing.

When you do your planning, make sure you schedule time to enjoy the life you’re building.

Because no matter what you do, the days and weeks will continue to whiz by and you don’t want to look back someday and wonder if it was all worth it.

The only course you need on email marketing

Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Productivity, success, Time Management

Time blocking part deux

July 29, 2021 by David M. Ward

I’m trying time blocking again. I hate it but hear so many people having excellent results with it I have to try again.

But I’m being gentle, lest my perfectionism kick in and kick me in the groin.

I’ve watched videos to see how others do it, and try not to grimace at how easy they make it look. I’ve picked up some good ideas and am trying them as we speak.

If you don’t know anything about time blocking, aka time boxing, calendar blocking, et al., it simply means scheduling time on your calendar dedicated to doing specific activitiesâ€”working on a specific project, for example, or doing a group of related tasks such as making calls, answering emails, writing, or reviewing files.

Time blocking is especially recommended for doing work that requires a lot of focus and concentration, so-called “Deep Work” made popular by Cal Newport in his eponymous book.

When I tried time blocking before, I resisted the idea of scheduling weeks in advance, especially the way some folks (claim they) do itâ€”in five or ten-minute increments.

“How I am supposed to know what I will want to work on for ten minutes three weeks from now?”

I still feel this way, but I’m willing to compromise. So, for now, I’m time blocking one day at a time.

Each evening, I make my schedule for the following day. I know what else I have on tap and this gives me the flexibility I need. I also schedule time for recurring daily tasks, and blocks of time for deep work. I’m writing a book currently, and I make sure I’ve put time to do that on the calendar.

Because I’m new to this, I’ve started with 45 minute blocksâ€”not too long, not too shortâ€”and adjust depending on how much I have to do or want to do each day. If I have a lot of calls, I allow more time for that, for example.

I’m also trying to follow the 1.5 ruleâ€”allowing 50% more time than I think something will takeâ€”because humans are notoriously bad at predicting how long things take, and I’m the poster boy for this.

If I schedule time to “Finish Chapter 7,” for example, and I’m not even close to finishing (see paragraph above), it’s disheartening, so I usually prefer to schedule time to “work on Chapter 7”.

But that’s “creative” work and I allow myself to be a bit of mad scientist in that area. For other tasks like writing my daily email, returning calls, or clearing inboxes, I almost always get everything done in the time allotted.

As for the time of day for each block, well, this is a work in progress. I’d like to be able to get my deepest work done early in the day, but the idea of doing it first thing is a non-starter with me. I get other things done first.

But that may change, too, as I get further along into this dystopian world of blocking my days.

How’s it going? So far, so good, but I still have a long way to go.

My wife just told me she wants me to accompany her to Costco. It’s not on my calendar, I’ve got other things scheduled, but what can I tell youâ€”happy wife, happy life, so we’re off to the store.

Do you time block? Let me know if you have any tips.

Filed Under: Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: time blocking

Todo List Triage

July 28, 2021 by David M. Ward

When you have a big backlog of things to do, when your lists are out of control, when you feel out of control, as mentioned in yesterday’s post, the first step is to do a brain dump.

Get everything out of your head and onto one big list.

The next step is to cut that list down to size and to do that, you have to recognize that not everything on your list has to be done.

Many of the “wounded” on your list need to be left to die.

So, you might start culling your list by first figuring out which of your tasks are “must do”.

Mark them or put them on a separate list.

You don’t need to spend a lot of time figuring this out. Your gut will usually tell you the answer. But if you’re not sure about some tasks, asking yourself a few questions should help you figure things out:

Is this task aligned with my goals and purpose?
Is this a commitment to someone else/Was this assigned to me?
Is this important? What would happen if I didn’t do this?
Is this urgent? What would happen if I postponed this?
What are the benefits for getting this done?
Is there someone who is better suited to do this? Can I delegate all or part of this?
If I could only do three things on this list today, would I choose THIS task?

These questions should help you identify your must-do tasks and leave you with a shorter and more manageable list.

The next step is to schedule your must-do tasks.

Decide what you will do and when, and add them to your calendar and/or task list, alongside your existing commitments.

Once you’ve scheduled all of your must-do tasks, start or continue working on them. When you make some progress on your backlog, go back to your big list and go through it again.

You’ll pick up some must-do’s you might have have missed or things that have become urgent or taken on more importance. You’ll also be able to identify “nice-to-do” or “want-to-do” tasks you want to tackle next.

Because life is more than just getting your must-do’s done.

Take a deep breath and enjoy the feeling of having a list that’s no longer out of control.

Filed Under: Productivity Tagged With: getting things done

Bring a dump truck

July 27, 2021 by David M. Ward

If you have too much to do and don’t know where to start, the first step, according to David Allen’s Getting Things Done method, is to do a brain dump.

Get everything out of your head and onto a listâ€”everything you need to do or want to do, all of your ideas and obligations, everything you can think of that might be in your way of achieving your goals.

If you keep things in your head, they nag at you and confuse you and stop you from taking action because there is always too much to do.

“Your brain is for having ideas, not holding them,” Allen says.

By getting everything onto paper or into an app, you can stand back from the lot, evaluate everything in comparison to everything else, and make decisions about what to do.

If you’ve never done a brain dump before, or it’s been awhile since you did, give it a try. Most people report an enormous sense of relief once they have everything out of their head and onto a list.

There’s no right or wrong way to do it. Some people write in a journal, some use a scratch pad, some type, some dictate.

Pick a tool that feels right to you and start.

As you make your list, don’t edit, don’t cross out anything, don’t worry about duplicates, and don’t try to figure out how you’re doing to do any particular task.

For now, just dump.

You’ll probably want to do more than one session because you won’t think of everything the first time. You may also want to use a mind sweep “trigger list” to prompt you to recall things in different areas of your life.

When you can’t think of anything else, go through your calendar and task apps or any other lists you have and add these to your list.

Record everything in one place. A “trusted system,” Allen calls it. And relax, because you’re on your way to clarity and calm.

Give yourself a day or two away from the list and come back to it with fresh eyes.

No doubt you’ll see a lot of things you can immediately eliminate or put on a someday/maybe list. You’ll also see things you want to or need to do that can wait. Finally, you’ll identify things you need to do next and know you haven’t forgotten anything important.

And then you can get to work.

Filed Under: Productivity Tagged With: Brain Dump, getting things done, gtd

The problem with your to do list is it’s a to do list

July 20, 2021 by David M. Ward

I’ve been guilty of this myself. Creating a list of things I need to do each day, a collection of must-do’s and should-do’s and want-to-do’s, and rarely completely everything.

I would get the urgent stuff done but not necessarily get the most important stuff done, or even work on it.

And that was the problem.

I didn’t leave myself enough time to do “deep work” because there is a never-ending line up of other things I needed to do, and new stuff coming in every day.

I never got to the end of my daily list because my list was endless.

Productivity expert Mark Forster, author of Do it Tomorrow, which I’m currently reading, suggests a different approach. He says that instead of using an “open list” where new tasks are added as and when they come in, we use a “closed list,” meaning once we’ve made our list for the day, we add nothing to it.

If you get a call or email or remember something that needs your attention, unless it is a genuine emergency, you add it to your list for tomorrow.

This allows you to plan your day and allocate enough time to everything you have decided you will do.

Not necessarily everything you need to do or should do, everything you WILL do. And that’s an important distinction.

Your closed list is a commitment you make to doing the things on that list. It might seem like a minor difference but making a WILL DO list instead of a TO DO list forces you to decide what’s important and allocate enough time to do it.

If you’re frustrated with too much to do each day, this could be a simple way to gain some control over your day.

Filed Under: Productivity

A different take on Areas of Focus

July 16, 2021 by David M. Ward

Most people who use a task management app or system separate their Areas of Focus (or Areas of Responsibility), so that when they’re working, they only see their list of work-related tasks, and when they’re not working, they see tasks or errands related to their personal life.

Many people use just two top-level categoriesâ€”work and personal. Others break down their responsibilities into narrower categories.

I have 3 businesses and separate my tasks according to which business they belong to. I have a fourth category for personal matters. This works well for me but I’m always looking for different methods, especially since there is a lot of overlap between the things I do.

The other day, I watched a video by someone who separates her tasks not by job or business or other area of her life, but by the activities she performs.

To illustrate, using her activity-based approach, a practicing lawyer might categorize his or her responsibilities into these 7 areas:

CREATE (blog posts, newsletters articles, podcasts, videos, social media posts, books, ads, presentations, etc.)
CONNECT (interviews, networking, joint ventures, social media)
LEARN (marketing, CLE, productivity, personal development, writing, etc.)
MAINTAIN (admin, risk management, IT, client relations, bill paying, investing, etc.)
ROUTINES (planning, processing, calendaring, training; personal routines and chores–exercise, meditation, journaling, self-care, shopping, etc.
LEISURE/SPIRITUAL (rest, fun, family, miscellaneous interests, charitable, etc.)
WORK (cases, client work)

This got me thinking. I’m not yet committed to changing my top-level Areas, but I am looking at using tags or labels to identify my different activities and responsibilities so I remember to schedule and do them.

I thought I’d pass this along to you in case you’d like to do the same.

Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity, Time Management

Implementation intention

June 28, 2021 by David M. Ward

In his book, Atomic Habits, James Clear describes a British study about building better exercise habits. The participants were divided into 3 groups.

The first group (the control) was asked to track how often they exercised. The second group (the “motivation” group) was asked to track their exercise and given information about the benefits of exercise for reducing the risk of heart disease and improving health.

In addition to the above, the third group was asked to form a plan as to when and where they would exercise over the coming weeks. They were asked to write their plan in the following form: “During the next week, I will exercise at least 20 minutes on (DAYS) at (TIME) IN (LOCATION)”.

The results were remarkable. In the first and second group, roughly 35% exercised at least once per week. In the third group, 91% exercised at least once per week.

What explains the dramatic difference? The third group had a plan.

A plan about what they will do, when and where they will do it. Scientists call this an “implementation intention”.

Clear says that hundreds of studies show that “people who make a specific plan for when and where they would perform a new habit are more likely to follow through.”

“When situation X arises, I will perform response Y,” he says.

Trigger and response.

He says that time and location are keys to using an implementation intention to create a new habit, ostensibly because time and location are effective triggers.

Your mind recognizes, for example, that when it’s 6am and you’re in your den, it is your intention to meditate for 15 minutes, and so you do.

An implementation intention can help you achieve other goals besides starting a new habit.

You want to bring in more clients? What’s your plan? What will do, when and where will you do it?

Write down your plan and look at it often.

“Each weekday at 1pm, I will email 3 clients or professional contacts”. “Every Tuesday, when I’m at my desk, I will write for 30 minutes.” “Each time I close a case, I will call the client the next day to see if they have additional questions and ask them to sign up for my newsletter.”

What do you want? What will you do to get it? When and where will you do it?

How to create a simple marketing plan for your law practice

Filed Under: Marketing Plan, Productivity, success

If it’s important enough, you’ll find the time

June 25, 2021 by David M. Ward

You want to improve your marketing, but you don’t have the time.

You want to start a side project, but you don’t have the time.

You want to write a book, learn how to invest in precious metals, or take an exercise class, but you don’t have the time.

But is that really true?

You have as much time as anyone else on the planet, and you get to decide how to spend it.

If something is important to you, you’ll find a way to do it. If it’s not, you’ll find an excuse.

You have time to eat, don’t you? Because staying alive is a top priority. What else do you do that’s important to you?

That’s what you need to figure out.

Make a list of everything you do in the course of a day or a week, and a list of everything you would like to do but don’t (because you don’t think you have the time).

Then, go through your lists and add a flag or tag or label next to each activity, to designate its level of importance.

Which are your top priorities? Which aren’t?

If you have trouble deciding, slowly think about each task, make no assumptions about its importance, and ask yourself why you do it (or want to). What’s the value? How do you benefit? What would you give up if you didn’t do it?

Write this down next to each task or activity.

In fact, you might get into the habit of doing that each time you add a new task to your list or schedule. Write “Because. . .” or “So that. . .” next to each task, to remind yourself why it’s important.

You can’t do everything. You have to make choices. Not everything has the same priority.

By consciously reviewing how you currently spend your time, you might discover you have more time than you thought. Or find some low-priority activities you can cut down or eliminate, to make room for others.

If something is important enough, you’ll find the time to do it.

The best way to improve your marketing is to get better at getting referrals

Filed Under: Law office management, Productivity, Time Management

Busy, busy, and more busy

June 22, 2021 by David M. Ward

I’ll make this brief, in case you’re one of those perpetually busy folks who don’t have time to read an article about the perils of unbridled busyness.

A thought or two to chew on, and then you can get back to work.

Being busy with things that “move the needle,” that is, things that help you make significant progress towards your goals, is not a bad thing. Neither is being busy doing things that make you happy or give your life meaning.

Everything elseâ€”low value tasks, not-too-important projects, admin work, should not take up a lot of your time. You need that time to do important things.

Examine the things that are keeping you busy and make them earn their place on your calendar, task list, and in your mind. If something doesn’t make the grade, off with its head.

What about things that don’t contribute a lot of value, but still need to be done?

Maybe there’s something you can do about those, too.

For each “mandatory” task, take a minute and ask yourself:

Does it really have to be done? It might cost you something to not do it but it might be worth the price.
Does it have to be done by me? If not, delegate it.
Does it have to be done now? If not, postpone it and examine it at a later date. It might no longer be necessary, or you might have found a better way to do it.
Can I get some help so I don’t have to do everything myself?
Can I automate it, now or for next time?
Is there a way to do this more quickly?
Is there a way to make this easier?
How can I get more value out of this?

Being busy may be something you want clients and others to see, because busyness is often associated with success. But if you’re busy all the time and not getting the results you want, something has to change.

I suggest you start by making everything that’s keeping you busy earn its keep. Hopefully, you’re not too busy to do that.