The power of one: getting things done for procrastinators

June 16, 2014 by
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Are you a black-and-white kinda guy or gal? I mean, do you have things you’d like to do but haven’t started because you’re not ready to give them your full attention?

You know what I mean. You either do things full force, or not at all. You don’t want to start a newsletter or blog, write a book, or join a networking group because of the perceived immensity of the task or the ongoing commitment.

You’re a perfectionist. And you aren’t getting things done.

Of course you know that by not doing certain things, you’re losing some great benefits. How many new clients, new cases, and new opportunities are you missing out on by putting off these things?

But what can you do?

I’ll tell you what you can do. You can stop thinking about the big picture (and avoiding it) and just do “one thing” to advance the project.

Instead of writing an entire book, write one page a day.

Instead of becoming a networking ninja, set a goal to meet one new professional this week.

Instead of putting off calling all of your former clients to say hello, make one phone call today.

One is a powerful number. It is the difference between not doing and doing.

You can do one.

One page, one idea, one phone call. Progress, not perfection.

So figure out one thing you can for each of your important projects and do it. One thing a day, one thing a week, one thing a month, or just one thing for now.

If you can do that one thing, even once, you can do it again. Before you know it, the project will be complete or, if it’s an ongoing project, well underway.

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Filed Under: Marketing Plan, Personal development, Productivity Tagged With: , ,

Are you chronically late? Here’s why and what to do about it.

June 9, 2014 by
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Are you chronically late? Late to court. Late for appointments. Late getting home for dinner. If you are, there’s a reason.

You’re late because you want to be.

Being late serves you in some way. You may not be consciously aware of this, but it’s there nevertheless. How do I know? Because showing up on time is completely under your control.

I’m not talking about the things that happen to everyone from time to time. A traffic accident, a judge who keeps you late, an emergency at home. Stuff happens and everyone is occasionally late. But if you are frequently late, it’s because you want to be.

You choose to be late. You can choose to be on time.

You can schedule appointments far enough apart to give you enough time to get from one to the other. You can set alarms and reminders on your devices to let you know when it’s time to leave. You can get apps that provide traffic alerts. You can ask your staff to help you get out the door.

So why don’t you? I don’t know. All I know is that you don’t have to be.

I read an article that offered several “reasons” why people are chronically late. To my eye, they aren’t reasons in the sense that you don’t have control over them, they are excuses. They are HOW you CAUSE yourself to be late.

Sleeping late is the first on the list. You sleep late because you’re not getting to bed early enough. That’s how you cause yourself to be late. The question is why. You have free will. You can decide when to turn off the lights. You don’t because sleeping late serves you in some way. Perhaps it allows you to excuse less than excellent performance at work. Perhaps being late is merely a part of the process, or a byproduct.

In Eighth grade, I had to deliver a report in front of the room. I wasn’t ready and asked the teacher if I could have another day. When I was told I could not, I told him I didn’t feel well. That was true. I felt like crap because I was going to have to deliver a report I wasn’t prepared to give.

The teacher sent me to the nurse. Called my bluff, he did. The nurse did what nurses do, she took my temperature. Surprise–I had a fever. The nurse called my mother and sent me home and I had another day to prepare my presentation.

Our minds are powerful instruments. They can make us sick when we want to be, and they can make us late when we want to be.

You don’t have to be chronically late. Just like you don’t have to smoke, overeat, or watch too much TV. You can change your habits any time you decide to change them. So the next time you’re late, don’t make excuses, and don’t feel bad about it. You’re late because you wanted to be.

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With:

I don’t have enough time. (Yes, you do.)

June 3, 2014 by
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We all know super busy people who seem to get more done in a day than we do in a week. They don’t have any more time than we do. They simply have different beliefs about time.

Most people believe time is scarce. They believe that because time is finite, there’s never enough of it to do what we need to do. But our beliefs create our reality. If you believe you don’t have enough time, then you don’t. If you have an abundant view of time, however, if you believe there is more than enough time to take care of everything that’s important, you will always have more than enough time.

How do you change your beliefs about time?

One way is to treat it like money.

If you believe you will always have enough money, you probably will. People who are generous with their money, tend to have plenty of it. People who tithe, for example, often report that money comes to them faster than they can give it away.

If you want to change your beliefs about time, give it away. That’s one idea that caught my attention in a post about re-framing our attitude about time.

“I have enough time to be generous with it”–is a surprisingly effective antidote to the time-scarcity mindset. Simply giving your time away to others, even as little as ten minutes, creates a sense of “time affluence.”

I can hear what you’re thinking: “You can always earn more money, but you can never get back your time.”

This is true, but too literal. We’re not keeping score, here. We’re trying to change beliefs.

I think giving away time as an attitude adjustment mechanism would be very effective for lawyers who often equate time with money. (They shouldn’t, in my opinion; but they do). “What? Give away billable time? Like, for free?”

Yes, for free.

“I don’t know, that doesn’t make any sense. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with that.”

I understand. But maybe that’s exactly why you should try it. You might be surprised to find that like money, the more you give away, the more you have.

I use Evernote to manage my tasks and projects. Click here to learn more.

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity, Time Management

Scrivener, oh how I love thee

May 30, 2014 by
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I’m just putting the finishing touches on a new book. I wouldn’t be able to say that had it not been for Scrivener, a writing app that has changed my entire work flow. If it hadn’t been for Scrivener, I’m sure I would still be struggling to cobble together hundreds of pages I’ve written into something anyone would want to read.

Scrivener’s genius is that it allows you to break up your writing into shorter parts (chapters, scenes, snippets), and then arrange and re-arrange those parts to your heart’s content. Compare this to MS Word where you either have to open multiple documents or have one very long document. Cumbersome, at best.

Scrivener provides a huge number of features for outlining, writing, organizing, editing, and outputting your work. You can outline with note cards on a cork board, and re-arrange the cards to suit. You can use a traditional outline if you prefer. You can organize your work in folders and text documents, add labels and meta data, and link notes and research materials (text, pdfs, web pages), internally (i.e., within the project) or externally (i.e., on the web, on your hard drive, etc.)

When you’re done, you can export the finished product (”compile” in Scrivener parlance) to just about any format—pdf, .doc(x), .rtf, .epub, .mobi, and more).

Scrivener isn’t only for books. In fact, I’m writing this post in Scrivener, using Full Screen Mode that allows for distraction free writing—just me and a blank piece of digital paper.

I bought Scrivener more than two years ago. The first time I opened it, I was overwhelmed. There is so much to see, and so many ways to use it, and I told myself I didn’t have time to learn everything. At the time, I didn’t realize I didn’t need to learn everything to start using it. For two years, it sat on my hard drive, unused. I opened it a couple of times, and updated it when prompted, but nothing more.

Last fall, I decided to give it another try, and I’m glad I did. Today, I’m fully on board with Scrivener as my primary writing tool.

You can use Scrivener for any kind of writing. Books, articles, papers, reports, or blog posts. You can write legal documents in it, (but you’ll need to expert them to a word processor for formatting).

The bottom line is that Scrivener allows you to write more, write faster, and write better. I know, that’s a big claim, but I’ve found this to be true. I encourage you to give it a try and see for yourself.

Download Scrivener for a thirty-day free trial. Note, this is thirty days of use, not thirty calendar days, so there’s plenty of time to give it a whirl.

The Windows and Mac versions are marginally different. The Windows version, which has just been updated, lags behind the Mac version, but I have not found it to be lacking. By the end of this year, the company says they hope to achieve feature parity between the two versions. They also hope to release an iOS version.

Once you have download the program and opened a new project, you will be prompted to go through the tutorial and read the detailed user guide. I found these to be only somewhat helpful for a first time user. Instead, I would recommend watching some of the youtube videos provided by the company and by users.

I also suggest that you dive in and use the program. Write something, import something, and play around with it. Take the thing for a test drive. I learned how to use Scrivener by using it, and it was a lot easier than I imagined.

True, I’m still learning. I use only a fraction of the features that are available. But I haven’t needed more.

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Filed Under: Productivity, Technology, Writing Tagged With:

Grow your law practice by training your creative muscles

May 29, 2014 by
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If you’re like me, you don’t finish every project you start. Not even close.

On your hard drive or in a box in your closet lie countless half-written articles, outlines for seminars that have never seen the light of day, and volumes of clippings related to things you thought you might do someday.

It’s okay. You don’t have to do everything you think of, or finish everything you start.

At some point, though, you have to finish something. Not just because it might be useful to you in your work or another aspect of your life, but because finishing things is the cutting edge of growth.

I know you finish things every day. You settle cases, you draft documents, you produce. But most of what you do in your work is routine and unlikely to lead to anything more than incremental growth.

If we want to take a quantum gigantic leap in our personal and professional life, we need to do things we’ve never done before. We need to create.

Creating strengthens your creative muscles. The more you do, the more you will be able to do. In time, you’ll be able to take on bigger projects, the kind that can create fortunes.

You will also train your subconscious mind to find new ideas to tackle. The more you say “yes” to the ideas your mind serves up, the more ideas it will bring you.

Eventually, you will have an abundance of big ideas, and the capacity to bring them to life.

Go through your electronic notes and physical repositories and find something you can finish. Start with something small, something you can finish today. Then, do something bigger.

It doesn’t matter if what you create is any good, or even whether you use it. What’s important is that you get in the habit of taking on new creative tasks and finishing them.

If you want to grow your law practice, start by growing yourself.

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How to be more productive every day

May 23, 2014 by
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“We often assume that productivity means getting more things done each day. Wrong. Productivity is getting important things done consistently. And no matter what you are working on, there are only a few things that are truly important.” So says James Clear in his blog post, The Only Productivity Tip You’ll Ever Need.

His advice: “Do the most important thing first every day”.

It works because our energy is higher, our willpower is stronger, and because human nature compels us to finish what we start (so start something important). When you do the most important thing first, other things that come up during the day won’t keep you from doing what’s most important because, well, you’ve already done them.

If you are a night owl, if you aren’t at full throttle until some time after the morning, start there. Whenever you start working, work on the most important task first.

Clear acknowledges that most people don’t do this. We are conditioned from an early age to respond to the stimuli around us, and we do. We answer emails, return phone calls, and take care of whatever might be in front of us, even if it’s a low priority. We also have work assigned to us by others, or by our duties as parents, and we are conditioned to take care of these things first, even if they aren’t the most important tasks in our day.

Clear doesn’t suggest shirking our responsibilities, but to make room in our life for the things that best serve our agenda, not necessarily someone else’s.

I’m guilty of this myself. I write a daily blog post. I don’t do it first thing in the morning, but I do it before working on other projects which are more important. I write the blog post “first” to get it done, so I can spend the rest of the day working on other things. I get the post done every day but I don’t always get as much work done on my most important projects. In fact, some days, I don’t get anything done on them at all.

I like the idea of starting the day with my most important task which right now means finishing a new book. My fear is that I will get engrossed in working on the book and leave no time to write a blog post, or other things I need to get done during the day.

I think the answer might lie in time blocking. That is, starting the day committed to a block of time for the most important task(s). Give it an hour, or two, and then work on other things. If there’s time left over, I can go back to the most important tasks.

I’ll try it and let you know how it goes.

I use Evernote to be more productive. See how in my ebook, Evernote for Lawyers.

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , , ,

How to tackle big projects

May 22, 2014 by
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I’ve done a lot of writing in my life but I’ve never written fiction. I want to. Writing novels has been a lifelong dream. It sounds like such an immense project, doesn’t it? How do you do it? Where do you start?

Like any big project, you start at the beginning. As Mark Twain said, “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and starting on the first one.”

Novelist, E.L. Doctorow, when asked about the immensity of writing a novel put it this way: “It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

Big projects are collections of smaller tasks. You don’t sit down and write a 100,000 word novel, you write 1,000 words, or 500, and you repeat this process until you are done.

But don’t you have to know the destination? You can’t just get in your car and drive and expect to get where you want to go, can you?

Some people do. Some people know they want to write a book or start a business or travel to foreign lands and they just do it. They begin the journey, with little more than a general idea of where they want to go, and eventually, they get there. They’ll probably tell you that not planning everything makes the journey that much more enjoyable.

In the world of fiction writing, they are called “pantsers”. They write by the seat of their pants. They start with an idea or a character and see where it takes them. The few times I’ve tried writing a story, I did it this way. I quickly found myself asking, “What happens next?” and I didn’t know, so I stopped writing.

At the other end of the spectrum are plotters. They plan out the entire story, from start to finish, deciding in advance “what happens next” before they begin the actual writing.

And then there are those who fall somewhere in the middle. They know the major plot points or beats they will use to advance their story, but they don’t know all the details. They are prepared to let their characters take them in different directions, but they keep their eye on the destination.

In the business world, I think the latter is the right model. A business plan that is loaded with specifics and details is impractical to follow in view of the vagaries of the real world where, unlike a novel, you aren’t omnipotent. On the other hand, starting with no plan whatsoever could find you wandering, if not foundering.

A business plan, or the plan for any big project, should address the big picture and general direction of the venture. You need to know where you are going and how you will start; you don’t need to know everything.

Do you have a big project you’ve been putting off because you don’t know how to do everything? Now you know you don’t have to. You need to know what you want to accomplish, have a basic understanding of the issues you will need to address, and then you need to start.

You don’t need turn-by-turn navigation helping you get to your destination. You can stop along the way and look at the map or ask for directions. But you’ll never get where you want to go unless you get in the car, turn on the engine, and drive.

The Attorney Marketing Formula comes with a simple marketing plan that really works.

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Filed Under: Marketing Plan, Personal development, Productivity

How to get your work done on time

April 18, 2014 by
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The statute runs on the ninth, so we get the complaint filed by the eighth. We have to, so we do.

What about things that don’t have a deadline? We put them off. We procrastinate. Especially if it’s something we don’t want to do.

But we know this is a bad habit and we want to overcome it. So we make up a deadline. A firm date when we will have the work done. We put it on our calendar. It’s in writing. We see the due date coming up. We’re determined to beat the deadline.

But we don’t.

The day comes and goes and we don’t do the work. We were probably busy doing things that had a real deadline.

I read about a study that confirms what we already know: self-imposed deadlines don’t work. At least for things we really don’t want to do. We procrastinate for a reason, and writing down a deadline doesn’t eliminate that reason.

There is a solution. A way to make a self-imposed deadline work.

You need a deadline AND a penalty for missing it.

When you set a deadline, tell someone. Someone who will hold you accountable.

Tell your client when the work will be done. Promise to deliver it on that day. Put that in writing. You don’t want an unhappy client. Or a client who thinks you are incompetent. Or a client who sues. So you get the work done. Because you have to.

If you really have a problem with procrastination, put in your retainer agreement that the work will be delivered on the date promised or there will be no fee. Or, 10% reduction for every day it is late. Or some other costly consequence.

You’ll get the work done on time, won’t you? Yeah, you will.

You can do something similar with non-billable work or projects. Have you been procrastinating on your website? Tell your boss, partner, or spouse when the work will be done and ask them to hold you accountable.

If you have difficulty estimating when you can finish a big project, break it down into components and set a deadline for the first one. If you want to write a book, for example, set a deadline for completing the first chapter or the first draft. After that, set another deadline for the next component.

You can use penalties to finish any project or achieve any goal. I know a vegetarian who publicly promised that if she didn’t meet a certain goal, she would eat a McDonald’s hamburger every day for a month. Her goal was a big one, but yeah, she made it.

Get serious about marketing. Here’s help.

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Filed Under: Goal Setting, Law office management, Personal development, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With:

Evernote vs OneNote for Lawyers

March 26, 2014 by
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Several years ago, I used OneNote for note taking and organizing information. I loved the digital notebook concept. I loved having nested notebooks and pages and sub-pages where I could organize everything.

Ironically, one thing I wasn’t crazy about was something OneNote is known for: the ability to place notes and graphics anywhere on the page. I was used to a more linear approach to organizing things. I tried to get used to this free-form method of displaying content, but never did.

Another thing I didn’t like is that each page was itself a big graphic (I think) and each element on it was a graphic. I may have the tech wrong but it always felt a bit weird. Maybe I’m just a plain text kinda guy.

As my notes grew, I found that keeping them organized wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. I had so many notebooks and pages and sub-pages, things got confusing. Tags and search weren’t terribly reliable in the version I was using and I started looking at what others were doing to organize their notes.

I read lots of blogs about OneNote and kept hearing it compared to Evernote. I had Evernote on my hard drive, but used it only on occasion. I saw that many OneNote users had switched to EverNote because of some of the same frustrations I had experienced, so I started using Evernote more and liked it. I made the switch and haven’t looked back.

Evernote is my virtual filing cabinet, my GTD platform, and my universal note taking system. I use it all day, every day, on all my devices and in every part of my work flow. If you’re a lawyer, you can see how I use it in my Evernote for Lawyers ebook.

Microsoft just made OneNote free for PC and Mac users so I thought I would give it another look. I read an excellent article comparing OneNote vs Evernote. It concluded that Evernote takes the gold, but it also showed how far OneNote has come since I last used it.

I just downloaded OneNote and will take it for a test drive. At first blush, I can see how I might use it for certain projects, but I can’t see making my primary note taking system.

How about you? How do you weigh in on the Evernote vs OneNote for lawyers debate?

Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide to Getting Organized and Increasing Productivity is available here

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Filed Under: Productivity, Technology Tagged With: , , , ,

7-minute attorney marketing workout

March 14, 2014 by
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Have you seen those 7-minute workout apps? You set them up with your workout schedule, the app reminds you what to do and when, and as you do your workouts, you record it in the app. It’s like having a workout coach in your pocket.

If you miss a day, it shows. Some apps nag you about it. You are motivated to keep up your workouts and not “break the chain” and so, even with just a few minutes a day, you get in shape.

What if you had something like this to track your marketing? Do you think you would get more marketing done on a regular basis? Do you think it would be easier to develop the marketing habit?

I think so, too.

And trust me, doing something every day, even for a few minutes, is easier than trying to book an hour or two once a week.

I don’t think there are any attorney marketing apps, but you could accomplish something similar with just about any calendar or reminder app. You need a list of activities (exercises), and a schedule. Set up recurring tasks or appointments, with reminders.

You might also want to have someone in your office, or a workout partner, hold you accountable. At the end of the day, they ask you if you did your workout. If you do this with a workout partner, you do the same for them.

I suggest 15 minutes per day, five days a week, but if you can only do 7-minutes, do that. Consistently is more important than quantity.

You can do a lot in a few minutes. You can make calls, write, work on your website, read and take notes, learn a new software program, or share ideas with your workout partner. You can plan a new seminar or webinar, outline a report, or work on a speech. You can research new networking groups, write and post blurbs on social media, or add new contacts on LinkedIn.

A few minutes a day and you can get your practice in shape. Without breaking a sweat.

Want ideas for marketing online? Get this.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Personal development, Productivity
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