Search Results for: getting things done

How to write something when you don’t know where to start

November 1, 2012 by
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It’s November and you know what that means? NaNoWriMo!

What’s that? You don’t know about National Novel Writing Month? I wrote about it last November when I shared some thoughts about “Writers’ Block”.

You may not aspire to be the next John Grisham, but if you’ve ever struggled to write something you’ve never written before, and you don’t know where to start, I have a possible solution.

When I was in high school, my parents had a friend who created several TV shows, wrote screenplays, non-fiction, and music. He also did some acting. Anyway, he didn’t have a musical background, but he wrote some very clever songs. One day, my father asked him how he did it.

He said he took an existing song he liked and used it’s structure as a template. He changed it, note by note, until he had an original piece that was nothing like the one he started with, except maybe in length, key, and tempo. (Since he couldn’t read music, he recorded himself humming his new tune and had someone transcribe it.)

For the lyrics, he took the original words and changed those word by word, or he found another song he liked and changed those words to create a new song to go with his new music. He used the same technique for creating screenplays.

Instead of writing from scratch, he re-wrote something that was already written. He didn’t plagiarize or steal ideas. He took the original, pared it down to it’s skeleton, and added new flesh and sinew to give life to a completely new creation.

Now don’t get me wrong, the guy had talent. Lots of it. He simply used his note/word-changing technique as a starting point. If I ever write a novel, that’s exactly how I will start.

After all, isn’t “getting started” the hardest part of doing something new? Once you have a first draft, you can make it better. But so many aspiring writers never get started so they never have a first draft they can improve.

If you wanted to use this technique to write the first draft of a novel, find one you like (in the appropriate genre and voice, i.e., “first person detective”) and create a “step outline”–a sequential list of the plot points. Note the number of major characters, when they are introduced, and their role (i.e., friend who encourages, villain, love interest, and so on). How many chapters are there? How long are they? When does the crime take place? When do we meet the hero?

Now you have a story skeleton, but of course it’s for someone else’s story. Your job is to change things, point by point, element by element, to write your own.

Your setting will be different. San Antonio instead of San Clemente. Your characters will be different. If the victim in the original was an insurance investigator who is murdered to cover up a fraudulent claim, your victim might be an accountant who knew too much about his crooked client’s business activities.

You write your own novel, using the structure of the original, but nothing else.

Now I didn’t say yours would be a good novel. That’s easier said than done. But your novel will at least be the right length, number of characters, and have the requisite elements in it. You’ll have a workable first draft.

You can use the same technique to write something much less ambitious, like an article or report. Decide on a topic you want to write about and find a model. How many paragraphs? How many main points? How many bullet points? Use this as a template.

Doing something new is much easier when you have a place to start. Fortunately, you don’t have to invent the place the start. You can follow someone who already finished.

Would you like a template for marketing your legal services? Use this

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Filed Under: Communication, Copywriting, Newsletters, Productivity, Writing Tagged With: , , ,

Another lesson from Apple: how to get clients to pay higher legal fees

October 25, 2012 by
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Yesterday, I wrote about Apple’s pricing strategy with the new iPad Mini. Instead of competing with other tablets for the low end of the tablet market, they’re letting other companies duke it out while they target the more profitable high end. The same is true for their entire product line.

Apple fans are willing to pay more for Apple products (and stand in line to get them) because they believe it’s worth it. They believe they get more value for their dollar.

Style is certainly one aspect. So is functionality. But more than anything, I think what appeals to Apple users is ease of use.

Apple’s slogan, “It just works,” is arguably responsible for converting legions of PC users, frustrated with complicated, buggy, and virus prone machines to the Apple brand. True or not, the impression Apple’s marketing team has created is that with Apple products you won’t have continual crashes or blue screens, and you won’t have to take a class to learn how to use it. You just turn it on and it works.

And that’s exactly what Apple’s customers want.

Well guess what? That’s what your clients want, too. At least the clients you should be targeting. They want to know that when they hire you, you’ll get the job done.

They don’t want complications. They don’t want to know the boring details. They want the peace of mind of knowing that when they hire you, they’ll be in good hands. If you can give this to them, they’ll pay you more than what other attorneys charge.

Now I know many attorneys will cynically argue that their clients are very price conscious and won’t pay a penny more if another attorney will do it for less. And that’s true–THEIR clients are price conscious and won’t pay a penny more. But that’s not true of all clients.

Didn’t the PC world say the same thing about Apple when their prices first became known? “Why would anyone pay double for something just because it’s nicer looking?”

The answer was, and still is, because “it just works.”

You can follow in Apple’s footsteps. Target the higher end of the market for your services. Show them that when they hire you, everything is taken care of for them. They won’t have to worry about getting a bill filled with surprises, or an attorney who doesn’t explain things or return their phone calls. Show them that “you just work” and they’ll pay you more. Because it’s worth it to them.

Learn how to earn more than you ever thought possible. Get The Attorney Marketing Formula.

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Filed Under: Attorneys fees, Fees and Billing, Image, Increase your income, Marketing legal services Tagged With: , , , ,

What do you like best about practicing law?

October 12, 2012 by
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“What do you like best about practice law?” I was asked that 1,000 times when I was practicing and I’m still asked that today. I’m sure you are, too. My standard reply is that I liked helping people and I liked making money, and that’s the truth. That’s why I went to law school, after all.

Do I like the title or the prestige of being a professional? Actually, it’s not important to me. When I’m introduced to people and they find out what I do [did], something changes in the dynamic and while sometimes it’s a good change, just as often it’s not. I can’t put my finger on it but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. They look at you like you’re not a regular person. They become guarded, as if you’re going to ask them some tough questions and find out their secrets.

What about the work itself? There were some things I really enjoyed and some things I despised. Most of what I did I found boring.

But that’s me. How about you? What do you like best about what you do?

Make a list of all of things you do as a lawyer, and all of the things that being a lawyer means to you. Write down the big things and the little things, about the work, the people, the challenges and the rewards. Look at your calendar, look at the files on your desk or in your computer, look at how you spend your time.

Write down everything and when you’re done, look at your list and put a star next to the things you like best about what you do. And then, focus on those things.

Do more of what you like. The rest–the things you don’t like or the things you are bored by–don’t matter. Eliminate them, delegate them, or just do them, but focus on the things that you do like.

In my case, I focused on the people. My clients. Much of the work may have been routine and boring, but the people never were. They were unique. Every one of them. I enjoyed meeting them and finding out about their lives. I enjoyed explaining how things were going to get better for them and then helping make that happen. I enjoyed delivering the results and watching them smile and say thank you. And I enjoyed getting calls from their friends who had heard about me and wanted me to help them, too.

That’s what I enjoyed and that’s what I focused on. It made everything else, all of the things I didn’t like, relatively unimportant. It’s also what made my practice grow.

Whatever we focus on grows. By focusing on what you like about your practice, you will create more of it. Focus on your problems and you’ll have more of them. Focus on what frustrates you and you’ll have more to be frustrated about it. Focus on what you love, what gives you meaning, and you will create the life that you want because you will be doing more of what you want.

You don’t have to know how it works, just know that it does work, and do it.

If you want to earn more than you ever thought possible, download The Attorney Marketing Formula

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Client relations, Increase your income, Inspiration, Referrals Tagged With: , ,

My one page productivity system

October 3, 2012 by
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When I was in high school I used a simple system for planning my day: a single piece of paper. I folded it three times so it would fit in my shirt pocket. On the page I would list the things I needed to do that day: tasks, errands, classes, homework. As I completed each one, I crossed it off the list. At the end of the day I would look at my list and feel good about what I had accomplished. I would then write a new list for the following day.

Putting everything on one page forced me to decide what was important for the day. There were many things I could have done each day but I wrote down only the things that I intended to do. Sometimes I numbered them so that I knew what to do first.

There was room on my page for ideas, things to do tomorrow or next week or someday, or to jot down random thoughts about life.

My one page productively system was all I needed for the day. It worked so well, I stopped using it.

I still plan my day and sometimes I put it on paper, but most of the time, my plan is in my calendar and in Evernote.

The last few days I’ve been playing around with an app called WorkFlowy. It is a list-making/outlining application that lets you put everything on a single “page”. You can use it for your task list(s) or to outline projects. You can create nested outlines to unlimited depth. I’m using it to outline a book.

I’m also using it to create my daily task list. I add a #Today tag to tasks I want to do today and filter the master list so that it only shows those tasks. On one page is my daily task list, just like I used to use in high school.

But I don’t have to print that page to put it in my pocket. WorkFlowy has a free iPhone app that syncs my lists. (There is an Android app, too.)

Nothing is simpler than a piece of paper. But this comes close.

Do you use Evernote? Check out my ebook, Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide for Getting Organized & Increasing Productivity.

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

The three stages of lawyer marketing (where are you?)

September 17, 2012 by
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The other day I wrote down an idea for a blog post: “The day I decided to get serious about marketing.” I was going to talk about how I came to realize that a law practice is a business and that if I wanted to be successful, I needed to put marketing first.

The truth is, that day never occurred.

I don’t remember waking up, slapping my forehead, and saying, “of course!” No light bulb appeared over my head. The realization that marketing must come first didn’t occur at any particular moment, it was a process, over time.

At first, I didn’t want to believe that marketing was important. I was young and idealistic and I wanted to believe that if I did great work, I would be noticed and rewarded. I knew other attorneys who didn’t seem to do any marketing and they were doing just fine. Why not me?

What I didn’t realize is that the attorneys who seemed to be completely disengaged from marketing, were actually very good at marketing, so good in fact, you couldn’t tell by looking at them.

And it’s true. If marketing is defined as, “everything you do to get and keep clients,” (and it is), then marketing must include all of the little things we do for our clients to keep them happy and sticking with us and sending us referrals. The little things that maintain loyalty and create positive word of mouth aren’t readily apparent to the outside world.

Most marketing, certainly the most valuable marketing, isn’t public, it’s private. It’s done through letters and phone calls and newsletters to our clients. It occurs one-on-one, networking with key people. It’s done by leveraging the relationships you already have with clients and professional contacts, to meet the people they know and show them why they should hire you instead of anyone else.

Advertising, public relations, public speaking, blogging, and other public marketing activities are important when you’re starting out and need to build momentum, or when you are already successful and want to generate additional income. But they are never more important than what you do privately.

As I came to realize these difference, and accept the importance of marketing in building my practice, I went through three stages:

Stage One: Indifference

At first, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I had an opinion about marketing and that was that. Many attorneys are at this stage, although fewer and fewer today, due to (a) the economy and increased competition, and (b) The Internet.

Obviously, if you are reading this post, you aren’t at this stage. You know that marketing is important. But there are attorneys who still don’t care about marketing. Generally, they fall into two categories:

  1. Successful, and don’t realize that they are engaged in marketing (the private kind) or how much more successful they could be if they paid attention to marketing, or
  2. Arrogant, stubborn, and destined to struggle.

I’m sure you know lawyers in both categories.

Stage Two: Acceptance

After months of struggle, I still didn’t get it. I did busy work and told myself things would change. Eventually, I realized that nothing would change unless I did. Necessity (paying rent, eating) became the mother of invention. Once I accepted that what I was doing wasn’t working, I opened the door to change.

Most attorneys in private practice today, at least those who aren’t newly minted, well- financed, or well-connected, understand why marketing is important, and most of them do something that could be called marketing. They want to do more and get better results, but don’t know how. There are two reasons:

  1. They dabble. They don’t do anything long enough to get meaningful results. Or they do things they think they’re supposed to do but their heart isn’t it so they do them poorly and get poor results, and/or
  2. The focus on “public” marketing and ignore “private” marketing. They bring clients in through the front door and lose them through the back door because they don’t take care of them.

Does this describe you? Do you feel like you are spinning your wheels and not getting great results? Are you getting clients on the front end but they don’t come back or you’re not getting enough referrals on the back end? The good news is that you can change your results by making a commitment to marketing.

Stage Three: Commitment.

Once I accepted the importance of marketing, I began studying it and trying different things. I didn’t get good results, however,because I was dabbling. It was a start and it allowed me to see which direction I might eventually go, but it wasn’t until I committed to marketing that things really began to change.

How did I make that commitment? I found something that worked and I got excited.

“More, please!”

I did more and worked harder and eventually, I fell in love with marketing and what it could do.

And that’s when my practice really took off.

I think a lot of attorneys are afraid to commit to marketing because they are afraid of what it means. Being committed to marketing doesn’t mean compromising your values or spending time or money doing things you don’t want to do.

Commitment to marketing means two things:

  1. Mindset. You must believe that a law practice is a business and that you (the professional) work for that business (practice), and that without clients, you are out of business. You must believe that marketing isn’t beneath you and that it is benevolent because the more successful you become, the more people you can help. You must believe in the primacy of “private” marketing and understand that if you can’t start there (because you don’t yet have enough clients), that this is where you can eventually go. And you need to get excited about marketing and what it can do.
  2. Consistency. You don’t have to spend a lot of time on marketing. You can make a lot of progress in just 15 minutes a day. The key is to do something every day. If you don’t, you are a dabbler. If you do, your efforts compound and your results accelerate.

So, what stage are you in? Are you a dabbler or are you committed to marketing? Do you have the right mindset and are you prepared to do something every day?

If you are committed to marketing, The Attorney Marketing Formula is required reading.

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Filed Under: Career satisfaction, Client loyalty, Client relations, Increase your income, Marketing legal services, Personal development Tagged With: ,
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How to Earn More Than You Ever Thought Possible

If you want to get more clients and dramatically increase your income, you need The Attorney Marketing Formula.  

The Attorney Marketing Formula

They don’t teach marketing in law school, but there is nothing more important to a law practice than marketing. You may have excellent legal skills but those skills by themselves won’t bring in clients. 

When I started practicing law more than thirty years ago, I didn’t know anything about marketing. I certainly wasn’t “working smart”. I had no idea how to build a law practice and I nearly starved to death.

I worked hard and did a good job for my clients, but those first few years were incredibly tough. Every day was a struggle to make overhead. It wasn’t until I learned how to market my services that things changed for me. And when they did. . . I EARNED A FORTUNE.

In The Attorney Marketing Formula, you’ll learn a six-part formula for building your practice without working harder, or doing anything you don’t want to do. You’ll be able to attract better clients and bigger cases, earn higher fees, and get more referrals.

These marketing strategies will help you earn more than you ever thought possible.

 The secret to earning more and working less

After more than twenty years of practice, I wrote and published one of the first marketing courses for attorneys. Thousands of attorneys in over a dozen countries enrolled in that course, making it the best selling marketing course for lawyers in the world.

Today the rules have changed. There are too many attorneys and not enough (good) clients. Everyone is fighting over the same turf.

If you want to dramatically increase your income, you can’t keep doing what you’ve always done. You have to do something different.

I wrote The Attorney Marketing Formula to show you how. You’ll learn:

  • How to develop a unique marketing message that tells clients why they should choose you
  • How to identify the most lucrative markets for your practice
  • How to create a profile of your ideal client
  • Simple steps to cutting work hours without losing income
  • How to get higher fees than most attorneys in your market
  • How to get more referrals from your clients, from other lawyers and other professionals
  • The easiest way to get new referral sources
  • How to build a big list and convert more prospects into clients
  • How to dominate your target market and attract the best clients and biggest cases
  • A step-by-step approach to setting up strategic marketing alliances with other professionals
  • And much more

The Attorney Marketing Formula is comprised of six key marketing strategies that work together and compound. Implement one strategy and you will increase your income. Implement all six and the results will be staggering.

The course is 200+ pages of marketing strategies and techniques for attorneys in any practice area. It comes in pdf form and is available for immediate download.

Free Bonus

If you’ve ever struggled to come up with an effective marketing plan, you’ll be happy to know the course comes with a free bonus module:

“How to Create a Marketing Plan That Really Works.” Answer five key questions and you’ll have a workable plan you can start using immediately.

The Attorney Marketing Formula is only $79 $59 for a limited time

Order Now

 Recommendations

Here’s what attorneys say about my programs:

As an update about the success I have had with [this technique], the 2nd client (and the one I thought would not use that approach) agreed to the plan. As a result of using this approach, I deposited over $60,000.00 since purchasing the cash flow for attorneys program. Wow!!”

A few days later: “Went 3 for 3. Last one agreed today and paid me. I put $75,000.00 in the bank in 2 weeks. I love it!” —Jack Robinson, Texas

“I think your materials are great. I got a lot out of them. I started using one of your techniques but I got so many responses, my secretary was going crazy and made me stop! I’m going to hire a young lawyer to handle the extra work, so I can spend more time marketing.” –Bernard H., MA

“I am one of your original subscribers. Last year was my biggest year ever. I moved about $2 million in PI cases across my desk. Most of those clients were retained using techniques you taught me. Not bad for a sole practitioner.

Your internet advice over the phone already saved me the price of your course and will make me a fortune in the future. As you know, there is a gold rush going on in the internet. Lawyers who hesitate will be left behind and broke. —John J. Schalter, MI

David, you were kind enough to offer a detailed, five-page critique of the networks I had been forming among other lawyers. You had asked me to keep you informed of my progress. I am happy to report that my first case resulted in a $10,000 fee within the first month! Much of what you said in your five-page letter proved prophetic. So far I have received 6 cases that I would not have otherwise had.–David Wright

I’m finding your program extremely helpful. In the first week of business on a part time basis, I have 3 new clients. –Jane K., LA

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There are six lessons in The Attorney Marketing Formula. Each one shows you how to leverage your existing assets and strengths so that you stand out in the marketplace and make clients see you as the best choice:

  1. Focus: Without focus, you are spread too thin, going in too many directions, trying to do too much. Focus allows you to achieve mastery, bypass your competition, and maximize your results. 
  2. Value: You earn more by delivering more value. You do that by providing clients with a unique bundle of benefits they truly desire. This allows you to distinguish yourself from other attorneys so that clients clearly see why they should choose you.
  3. Trust: No matter how much value you deliver, without trust, the best clients won’t hire you, come back again, or refer others. When you know how to get people to trust you before they meet you, marketing is much easier and much more effective.
  4. Money: Getting more clients is only one way to earn more. This lesson shows you how to get clients to hire you more often and pay you more each time they do.
  5. People: The most effective and profitable way to grow your practice is to leverage your relationships with people who already know, like, and trust you. This is the basis for creating a referral-based practice.
  6. Time: We all have 168 hours in a week. If you want to earn more, especially if you want to earn more without working more, you need to get the most out of every hour. This lesson shows you how.

More recommendations

Your materials are unbelievably good! I should know. I used to be the marketing director of a 100,000 member association headquartered in Kansas City. We had a large marketing department and did all of our own creative, production, copywriting  etc. I ran the whole show so my expertise has been in the marketing arena.

Having said that, let me tell you, your course taught me more about marketing legal services than the entire sum total of all the marketing research and reading I’ve done over the last decade. There’s something there for every attorney.

I project that your guidance will add an additional 2 to 3 clients a week. . . and at an average of fee of $1500 per client. . . well you do the math.

I thank you. . . my wife thanks you and my kids thank you. Oh yeah, like the commercial says. . . we’re going to Disneyworld. . .thanks to you.” —Bill H., KS

I have never seen such a collection of relevant secrets and pragmatic ideas on how to build a law practice. I had always assumed that successful lawyers either: (1) never gave away their secrets; or (2) did something unethical to obtain their clients. The fact that you would even consider sharing the secrets of your success says a lot about your character.

[T]here are a lot of struggling lawyers that I have attempted to help over the years. So many drop out of the profession and change careers because they can’t make a living practicing law. You may never hear about all the careers you have saved. You will never know all the good you have done.” –David W.,TX

“[My three partners and I] were very happy with what we received. A lot of thought and energy appears to have gone into the program. It was good to see more subtle approaches that appear to fit our firm’s nature. We expect to quadruple our income by the end of the year! Seriously, we are quite busy and have for the first time hired an associate.” —Robb K., Chicago, IL

“The marketing approach is a very practical one. [You] provide concrete suggestions suitable for a wide variety of legal practices.” –Vera B., FL

How refreshing to finally find marketing advice from someone who understands the legal profession. I had become frustrated with my current marketing advisor’s more generic approach and it is already apparent that your advice will be much more helpful.” –Alice K., CA

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Start where you are with what you have

August 13, 2012 by
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I think we can agree that most attorneys are analytical. We wouldn’t be much use to our clients if we weren’t.

But many attorneys are overly analytical. They get caught up in crunching the numbers and sifting through the facts. They can’t stop saying “what if” and “on the other hand”.

At some point, decisions must be made and advice must be given. And ultimately, it is. The attorney delivers their recommendations.

They are able to do this because they are accountable to their clients or employer. They are paid for their advice so advice they must deliver.

But what happens when an overly analytical attorney has to make decisions about marketing or the management of their practice? When there is no client to answer to, very often they can’t decide.

They procrastinate. They defer. They make no decision and take no action.

This is one reason why many attorneys stagnate and struggle to find success.

There have many times in my business and professional life where I have found myself fighting this very tendency. Most of my bigger projects would still be on the drawing board had I not found some solutions.

If you find yourself holding back because you’re uncomfortable with moving forward, here are three things that can help:

  1. Give yourself permission to do it badly.You’re the only one who will see it for now. You’ll have time to make it better. You can edit a bad first draft, and turn it into something great, but only if you have a first draft. When I wrote my first marketing course, I was afraid it wouldn’t be any good. Instead of fighting my fears and trying to talk myself out of them, I acknowledged those fears. “Yep, it’s gonna be bad, but I’ll make it better,” I told myself. Of course when I read the first draft it wasn’t bad, it was actually quite good. My fears and doubts had lied to me.
  2. Focus on activity, not outcome.You can’t control your results, only your activities. If you do the activities, you are successful. The results will come. If you focus on results, however, your ego gets in the way. If the results aren’t what you want, you may become discouraged and give up too soon. “Progress, not perfection,” is the byword. I wrote about this in this post about how to stop procrastinating.
  3. Start with easy. Mark Zuckerberg said in an interview, “I think a simple rule of business is, if you do the things that are easier first, then you can actually make a lot of progress.” I wrote about this before:

Many people who start a business project, myself included, tend to focus on the hardest parts first. My thinking has been, “I can always do the easy things, I need to conquer the toughest challenges first because if I can’t lick those, this project will never get off the ground.”

How about you? Do you start with the easy things or, like me, do you first jump into the deep end of the pool?

Perhaps we equate “easy” with “having less value,” but in the practical sense, that isn’t true. The things we can do without a lot of thought or effort are often of greater value because they allow us to get started and getting started is the most important part.

Most business projects never see completion because they never get started.

When you start with the easy things, you have started. You’re on your way.

I think these three tips for moving forward are effectively summed up by something Theodore Roosevelt once said: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”

Do you find yourself procrastinating on projects? What have you done to move forward?

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity Tagged With: ,

The Rule of 3 in Writing, Speaking, and Productivity

June 15, 2012 by
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Last week I did a training for a group of business partners. I created a series of slides and each one began with, “3 Things. . .”, “3 Ways. . .”, or “3 Reasons. . .”. I did it that way because it’s an effective way to convey information in writing and public speaking.

3 things are easy to follow and easy to remember.

If I gave you 142 tips for writing better blog posts, you would read or listen to the first few, perhaps nine or ten, and then you would begin to tune out. It’s too much information to process, absorb, or remember. Yes, you can go back later, but you may never do so. You can handle 3 tips, however, and later, I can give you more.

There’s too much information coming at us today. To protect ourselves, we have learned to tune out most of it. If you want to get someone’s attention and deliver an effective message, if you want them to act on your message, put that message in a smaller package.

The same is true of our task and project lists.

If your list has too many things on it, it’s overwhelming. You look at that list and wonder how you can possibly make a dent in it, let alone finish everything. It’s daunting and depressing.

In addition, when you have too many projects and tasks, there is a tendency to choose the easiest or most urgent ones, instead of the most important.

I have long lists of tasks and projects, but I don’t let them overwhelm me. I use The Rule of 3 to help me sort out the most important things and keep those in front of me until they are done. The rest, I keep out of sight until it’s time to go back and get some more.

To adopt the Rule of 3 to your tasks and project lists, choose (no more than)

  • 3 tasks for the day.
  • 3 outcomes for the week.
  • 3 goals for the year.

I’ve written before about the concept of MITs (most important tasks). Every day, I choose one to three MITs for that day. If I get those done, I can go back for more, but if I only get those done, I know I have had a productive day. I also wrote about how I use MITs in my Evernote for Lawyers eBook.

The 80/20 rule (Pareto Principle) says that in most situations 80% of results (income, clients, happiness, etc.) come from 20% of causes (efforts, clients, tasks, etc.) That means that most things aren’t important and can be safely eliminated.

Focus on the few things that are important and valuable and likely to advance you towards your most important objectives. Don’t worry about anything else.

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Filed Under: Communication, Personal development, Productivity, Public Speaking, Time Management, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Save time, reduce anxiety with a DON’T do list

April 2, 2012 by
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It is said that successful people make up their minds quickly and change their minds slowly, if at all. As someone who often spends waaaay too much time thinking about things, that’s not what I wanted to hear.

But when you’re intelligent, you can see many possible outcomes. Things are rarely black and white and we should never decide anything important without taking time to reflect.

At least that’s what I tell myself.

Actually, what I think happens is that we often do decide quickly, but as human beings with ingrained self-doubts, and as lawyers trained to see both sides, we go back and forth challenging our decisions in an effort to justify them. We’ll go through the motions of trying to find fault, but usually, we’ve already made up our minds.

I don’t think we can’t change the way this works. We can, however, eliminate much of the anxiety and time wasting that occurs by re-thinking and second-guessing our decisions.

One way to do that is with a “don’t do” list.

If you’re married or otherwise monogomous, there are certain things you don’t do. You don’t go to single’s bars for example. In fact, you don’t spend any time thinking about single’s bars. It’s on your mental “don’t do” list. Why not create a similar list for other areas of your life?

For example, as you read this blog, you are presented with many ideas for marketing your legal services. Some ideas you like. Other ideas you have considered and rejected. They’re not for you. And yet you continue thinking about some of those ideas. Even though you have rejected them, you continue reading about them, you download apps, and you talk to other lawyers to see what they think.

I suggest you make a decision and be done with it. Put it on a “don’t do” list.

Open a text file or an Evernote note and start recording a list of things you’re not going to do. Once something is on the list, don’t read about it, don’t think about it, and by all means, don’t worry about it. You considered it and made your decision. Move on.

Your list might include advertising, for example. Your practice area might be one where many attorneys advertise and you’ve thought about it. Make a decision–will you or won’t you?

Maybe “advertising” is too broad. It might be something you can see yourself doing at some point. No problem. It doesn’t go on your list. But perhaps you’ve decided that yellow pages advertising is something you aren’t going to do (or no longer do) and you can put that on your don’t do list.

Maybe you don’t like social media and have decided you’re not going to have anything to do with it. Fine. Think of all the time you’ll save by not reading about it, exploring the different platforms, or actually engaging in it. You should feel good about your decision.

You see an article about lawyers getting clients through Pinterest. Tempting, eh? But you’ve already explored it and put it on your don’t do list. Not for you. So you don’t read the article or ponder the issue (“maybe there’s a new angle to this. . .”). Next subject. . .

On the other hand, social media marketing can produce a lot of business and just because you don’t have time for it right now or you don’t want to do it right now, you might not want to write it off completely. Don’t put it on your list. But if you’re camera shy and you know you don’t want to make youtube videos, put that on your list.

This doesn’t mean you never re-consider your decisions. I do many things today I never saw myself doing a few years ago. People change, technology changes, circumstances change. So, periodically, perhaps every six months or once a year, re-visit your don’t do list and see if there’s anything you want to remove.

Every day we are confronted with issues that require a decision. The less time we spend deciding, and the less time we spend re-considering our decisions, the more time we will have to do the things we’ve decided we want to do. A don’t do list can help.

So, what’s on your “don’t do” list? I know, I know, you want more time to think about it.

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Filed Under: Dealing with stress, Personal development, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How I collect and organize articles and documents to read later

March 9, 2012 by
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I read a lot. I know you do, too. I also know that the volume of articles and documents that cross our paths every day is overwhelming.

We can’t stop the river of information. It would be foolish to ignore it. All we can do is manage the information that comes at us every day, and I want to share with you how I do that.

Here’s what I do to collect, organize, and read the articles and documents in my life:

  1. I subscribe to (over 100) blogs with Google Reader. I can read them later, on my laptop or on my iPhone (I use Mobile RSS).
  2. On my iPhone, I also use Zite, an intuitive app that learns what you like to read and serves up similar content. This brings posts from a wide spectrum of blogs I would never know about. I also use Flipboard and Twitter.
  3. I use Instapaper as a web app (Chrome) and their app on my iPhone. This is where I send posts I can’t read at the moment. I send them from my RSS reader, from Zite, Flipboard, by forwarding emails and via a web clipper.
  4. Every morning I go through my RSS feeds and Zite and Flipboard, scanning the headlines of the posts. I delete 98% of them. A few, I read on the spot. I may send five or ten to Instapaper. If it’s something I know I want to save, I send it to Evernote. If I’m reading it on the web, I’ll open it first with Evernote Clearly, to remove ads, etc. (Evernote is my go to app for saving everything I need to save (for reference or a project) or do. (If you haven’t tried Evernote, go check it out (it’s free). If you have Evernote and have not been using it much, get my ebook, “Evernote for Lawyers: A Guide to Getting Organized & Increasing Productivity”. You’ll be amazed at what you can do with Evernote.
  5. For blog post ideas, I go through Instapaper and when I find a post that catches my eye, I’ll read it. I may use the article as the basis for a post or it may give me other ideas. I also go through Evernote. I have a tag, “blog-post-ideas,” and with one click I can call up hundreds of notes with complete articles or one line ideas.
  6. I save documents (pdfs, Powerpoint, Word, etc.) in Evernote. I usually add a few key words to the body of the note and assign tags. Most of these documents are saved for reference purposes, or to use in connection with projects I am working on or plan to work on. However, I also use a couple of tags to identify notes for later reading. One is “Read/Review,” which is assigned to notes I know I want to read at some point. I will also assign a “When” tag (i.e., Now, Next, Someday, etc.) if I know when I want to read it. The other tag I use is “ebooks” for pdf ebooks I’ve saved. I can browse this tag to find things to read or for ideas.
  7. If there are emails I need to read or save or take action on, I forward them to my Evernote account. I now maintain “inbox zero”.
  8. Every day I focus on getting my work done, not on how much I can read. This is key. If I don’t read articles I’ve saved for later reading, I don’t worry about it. We’re talking about electrons here, so there is no problem with running out of storage space. The articles I’ve saved in Evernote are searchable and thus a repository of reference materials I may use in the future. So again, I do the best I can and I don’t worry about what I don’t get to.

So that’s my routine. I know there are many other methods and apps available for collecting, organizing, and reading. I’ve tried many of them and continue to try new ones when they come out. I like keeping things simple, however, and that means using as few apps as possible. Evernote is my “information hub” because everything is synced and available to me wherever I am, and because there are so many ways to get information into it.

How about you? What do you do to collect, organize, and read articles and documents? Please share in the comments.

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Filed Under: Productivity, Technology, Time Management, Writing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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