Apparently, there’s an art to creating a to-do list. And because most of us aren’t practitioners of that art, we fail to do the things we put on our lists. So says blogger Janet Choi, who shares some telling statistics from her company’s internal survey in, “How to Master the Art of To-do Lists by Understanding Why They Fail”:
- 41% of toÂ-do items were never completed.
- 50% of completed to-Âdo items are done within a day.
- 18% of completed toÂ-do items are done within an hour.
- 10% of completed toÂ-do items are done within a minute.
- 15% of dones started as to-do items.
“In other words,” she says, “people aren’t that great at completing their to-do tasks; tasks that do get completed are done quickly; and tasks that are reported as done don’t correlate with planned to-do tasks.”
Choi says one of the reasons we aren’t good at getting things done is that we have too many to-do’s on our lists. She might have something there. On my list (in Evernote) I currently have 14 notes tagged “Now” and 385 tagged “Next”. This doesn’t include “Someday” (177) or items tagged “Read/Review” (583). A lot, but I’m not concerned. As long as I get my three or four “MITs” (“Most Important Tasks”) for the day done, I’m good. Choi agrees. She suggests looking at that big list of tasks and choosing, “the most important, pressing or interesting ones to work on, big and small.”
As for why only “15% of dones started as to-do items,” Choi attributes this to our lack of skill (discipline?) in creating task lists, and because of the unpredictability of our daily lives. Stuff happens, emails and phone calls cry out for our attention, things don’t turn out the way we expected. Those may be the reasons, but in my opinion, they aren’t good reasons for not doing important tasks, and those are always planned.
Yes, the unpredictable happens, and we must allow for that in our daily planning. But it should not dominate our day. No more than 25-30% of our time should be left open for the “unplanned,” not 85%. Most of our day should be spent getting important things done, the ones that move us towards our vision of the future we want to create. If you don’t plan your future, you can’t expect to wind up where you want to go.
Choi says we should be more specific in our planning, and I agree. It’s easier to know when something is done if it is well defined from the beginning. This is especially important to remember for those of us who do anything relatively open-ended like research or writing. I remember pulling all-nighters in school and also as a lawyer, writing briefs and preparing for trial, and not knowing when I was done because you can always do more.
Which leads me to my favorite reference in the post, dealing with deadlines. Choi references a behavioral study most of us will recognize as the basis for Parkinson’s Law: “The study found that students who had longer to finish three papers performed worse than those who had externally-imposed or self-imposed deadlines that were evenly spaced and earlier. . . The more time you give yourself to finish something, the less likely it is that you will finish in that time frame.”
How do you know that brief you’re working on is done? When it’s 4:00 pm and it has to filed today by 5.
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Poor follow-up: another symptom of underearning attorneys
Yesterday’s post was about the price you pay for under-valuing and under-pricing your services. It is one of the 12 “Symptoms of underearning” on the Underearners Antonymous web site.
Today’s post is about another symptom of underearning common to attorneys. It’s number 11 on the list, “Not Following Up”. This includes failing to follow up on “opportunities, leads, or jobs” or beginning many projects and tasks and not completing them.
“Not following up” may be caused by psychological issues (i.e., low self-esteem, fear of failure), but it’s often just a matter of poor organization.
There was a period in my career when I had a large number of people I needed to follow up with every day. These were prospective clients I had spoken to but who weren’t ready to sign up. I needed to follow-up with them in 30 to 90 days. If they still weren’t ready, I would schedule another follow-up.
Every day, I spoke to prospects at various stages of readiness. Some I’d spoken to once, others I’d spoken to several times. Every day, new prospects were added to the list and before long, I started to fall behind. Out of necessity, I developed a system for tracking follow-ups. It allowed me to efficiently manage hundreds of prospects who were in my “funnel” at any given time.
You may not call prospects like I was doing, but the concepts behind this system may help you stay on top of other follow-ups you need to do.
The first thing I did was make a prospect tracking form. It was a single page with space for their contact information, notes of our discussions, and a place to record the next follow-up date. Everything I needed was in one place. (I do everything electronically today, but the principles are the same.)
Next, I developed a set of rules for when follow-ups would take place. As I recall, I had criteria for two week follow-ups, 30 days, 60 days, and 90 days, depending on their level of interest and stated reasons for not going forward.
The key to making this work was to decide when to follow-up, and record it, before moving onto the next prospect. There were four choices for follow-up and all I had to do was choose one. Prior to this, I would put the day’s tracking forms in a pile and go through them at the end of the day, deciding when to follow up. This wasted time and was unnecessary. With my new rule, I looked at the page just once and not again until the follow-up date arrived.
What did I do with the tracking form? I filed it in a manual “Tickler” file, a metal file box with hanging folders. I used a variation of the system described at 43 folders–twelve monthly folders and 31 daily folders. As I scheduled follow-ups, I filed them in the appropriate folder (well, on the closest weekday).
Every day, I would empty that day’s folder and move the empty folder to the back of the group. At the end of the month, I would do the same thing with that month’s folder. This way, “today’s” folder was always in the front of the box.
Every day, I knew exactly who to call. When I was done with those calls, if they still weren’t ready to sign up, I put the prospect form back in the tickler box at the appropriate future date.
Why not use the calendar? Because the calendar should be reserved for tasks that are due on a given day, like an appointment. If you want to follow up with someone in 30 days, this is approximate. If you don’t call them on that day, they won’t know it. So if you aren’t able to do some of your follow-up calls on a given day, you can move them to the following day.
There were times when I scheduled a follow-up for a specific day and I did put those on the calendar. If the prospect and I had a phone appointment (which I encouraged), the date and time were scheduled on my calendar. If the time was not specified but I was asked to call on a certain date, I would calendar it for that day but not at a specific time.
This system made me a champion at follow-up. I signed up many new clients that I am sure would have otherwise fallen through the cracks.
You may be wondering how many times I followed-up with a prospect. Well, some of my prospects didn’t sign up until I had followed-up six or seven times. Some, after ten or more. So, I my rule for how many follow-ups: Follow-up until they “buy or die”.
It kept things simple. And profitable.
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