Legal Ease Blog

On Balance Podcast on Productivity

I was privileged to join my How to Do More in Less Time: The Complete Guide to Increasing Your Productivity and Improving Your Bottom Line co-author Daniel J. Siegel on the On Balance Podcast for the State Bar of Michigan.

You can listen to the complete episode here. Make sure you listen soon, because there's a limited-time 20% discount available just for listeners!

We talked about:

• How the book came about
• What the biggest productivity challenges are that face lawyers today
• How to conduct effective virtual meetings
• How lawyers can deal with the changing tech landscape while maximizing the technology they already have
• How new technologies, including AI, will affect lawyers and their productivity and
• Some of our favorite tips from the book.

💡Want more tips? Subscribe to my newsletter. 🎥Or check out my YouTube productivity playlist.

Inspiring Business Podcast with Mark Bullock

It's been quite some time since I posted here since most of my content is being posed on the Lawyer Meltdown website, but I wanted to share this Inspiring Business podcast episode where I was interviewed by Mark Bullock, one of the founders of Videosocials. 

We had a great conversation talking about productivity, marketing, technology, whether we consider ourselves "starters" or "finishers" and more.

We also chatted about Mark's business, Videosocials. I've been a Videosocials member for several years now, and I think it's one of the best things I've done for my business. I encourage everyone to check it out - and let them know I sent you! You can learn about Videosocials here.

We also talked about the brand-new second edition of How to Do More in Less Time, The Complete Guide to Improving Your Productivity and Increasing Your Bottom Line, co-authored with Daniel J. Siegel.

Subscribe to the Inspiring Business Podcast:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/an-introduction-to-inspiring-business-video/id1614686586?i=1000554235472

Subscribe to Inspiring Business Video Series:

https://www.youtube.com/c/MarkBullockpB

Time Management Tip #5: Create a "Don't Do" List

If you’re one of those people with a never-ending to-do list, this tip is for you.

No matter how hard you try to list what you need to accomplish, instead of getting shorter, your list gets longer – new things crop up, unanticipated client problems arise, or a last minute emergency that “must” be handled today gets in the way. It’s frustrating, exhausting and ultimately, completely unproductive.

The answer may be a ‘don’t do’ list.

What’s a ‘don’t do’ list? It’s a list of the things you shouldn't be doing, tasks that could be delegated to someone else or outsourced, and all of the items that can be eliminated entirely (or eliminated for a specified time period).

Law school education trains lawyers to spot issues, but this issue spotting behavior isn’t the most efficient way to run a law practice. Issue spotting can lead to “analysis paralysis” by creating the feeling that every issue must be at least considered, if not addressed. This creates additional distractions.

Narrow Your Options

The ‘don’t do’ list counteracts this by narrowing your options so that you’re not overwhelmed by so many choices every time something new arises.

Having a ‘don’t do’ list lets you identify tasks you don’t want to do or that you shouldn’t be doing because they distract you and prevent you from accomplishing more important tasks; if it’s already on the ‘don’t do’ list, it’s easy to immediately recognize it and move on to more productive endeavors.

Make Your Own Don't Do List

How do you decide what goes on the ‘don’t do’ list? Anything that distracts you from the main goals that you want to accomplish belongs on the list. The ‘don’t do’ list can include day to day activities, specific types of clients or matters or behaviors that don’t serve you.

Think about your strengths and weaknesses when making your ‘don’t do’ list. Are you a great speaker but a poor writer? Maybe writing articles, motions, briefs, etc. should go on your ‘don’t do’ list. You can use a ghostwriter, hire a contract lawyer to do the writing for you, or give the task to someone else in the firm with excellent writing skills. Then you can focus your energies on trying cases, giving seminars or presentations, or other activities where you can showcase your speaking skills.

Which marketing activities belong on your ‘don’t do’ list? Marketing and practice building are very high value activities, but they’re only valuable if they are strategic - if they’re putting you in front of potential clients or leads, or if the groups or events are ones which you’re passionate about.

Prioritize: evaluate which groups or activities will be the most beneficial to you (or to the people or causes you’re supporting). Limit your participation to the most valuable events or organizations. You can get more value for less time, energy and stress. If the things already on the ‘to do’ list are more important or more valuable, these ‘invitations’ belong on the ‘don’t do’ list.

Although you need to be responsive and accessible to your clients and colleagues, a good ‘don’t do’ list might include particular days or times when you’re ‘off limits.’ Allowing constant interruptions of family or leisure time not only robs you of much-needed recharging and rest, but is a disservice to clients who are only getting part of your attention. The same goes for interruptions of important business or client-related activities. It’s rare that clients have a real emergency that can’t wait an hour or two for you to finish preparing your motion in limine or complete a meal with your family (and don’t try to do both at once – remember Tip #3: Give Up Multi-Tasking).

Practice areas can also be items to add to your ‘don’t do’ list; sometimes turning down work is the best decision you can make. If you aren’t well-versed in the particular area of the law, don’t have the time or resources to learn or don’t have someone to help you, you may be asking for more trouble than the case is worth.

Identifying the ‘don’t dos’ can be an effective tool for managing your time and reducing your stress. Knowing in advance what things you won’t do lets you move on quickly, without wasting additional time analyzing everything that comes to your attention.

The ‘don’t do’ list also reminds you to ask for help in the areas that aren’t your strengths, so you can focus our efforts on what you do best and what brings the most value to your clients and to your life. It allows you to let go of the idea that you can do everything and be everything to everyone. It’s a shorthand way of cutting through all of the clutter of what needs to be done so you can get back to providing great service to your clients.

Check out my other time management tips: 

Time Management Tip #1: Don't Try to Manage Time; Manage Your Activities

Time Management Tip #2: Get Everything Out of Your Head

Time Management Tip #3: Give Up Multi-Tasking

Time Management Tip #4: Prioritize

Time Management Tip #6: Use the Power of Three

Time Management Tip #7: Next Actions

Time Management Tip #8: Cure "I Need to See It" Syndrome

Time Management Tip #9: Do the Worst First

Time Management Tip #11: Create External Deadlines

Time Management Tip #12: The Two-Minute Rule

Time Management Tip #13: Schedule Time to Complete Work

Time Management Tip #14: Create a Daily Plan and Weekly Review

Time Management Tip #15: Eliminate Bad Clients

(This post was originally published on August 23, 2012 and was updated in January 2022. Versions of this post previously appeared on this blog, in Sue magazine, and in Law Practice Today).

Do Something! Inject Some Calm Into 2019 - Try Meditation

This might seem like an odd post for this blog, but it really isn't. I'm all about preventing Lawyer Meltdown, being more productive, increasing your bottom line and making the practice of law more enjoyable. Believe it or not, meditation can help you with all of those things.

I wrote about meditation and mindfulness before in this post, in which I reviewed the book The Anxious Lawyer.  And lawyer health and well-being have been getting a lot of press lately. A post in yesterday's "Your Voice" column of the ABA Journal online, 4 Strategies for Building the Habit of Lasting Resilience in the Legal Profession, highlights the growing importance of resilience and mindfulness for lawyers, referencing the ABA's Working Group to Advance Well Being's pledge for law firms to acknowledge that more needs to be done to improve the health and well-being of lawyers.

The article poses the question, "What are the most effective and efficient strategies for achieving this important goal?" and outlines four essential principles for implementing an effective well-being strategy. One of those principles is to form habits around well-being.

One of the well-being habits attorneys can begin to cultivate is meditation. While I've long been skeptical of meditation (or at least skeptical my own ability to meditate), the increasing deluge of information in today's world has made it incredibly difficult to turn off and 'tune in' to what makes us human and what connects us to other human beings on a deeper level than just scrolling through photos on our social media channels. For other reasons that I will explore in a future post, I think the ability to connect on a human level and to use our intuition will become increasingly important, particularly for lawyers, as technology continues to advance and artificial intelligence becomes more mainstream in the legal world.

Over the past several months, I've been working on meditating more frequently. It certainly isn't always easy and I admit that I  completely got away from my meditation practice (and it does take practice) over the holidays. Part of that was because my usual routine was to meditate immediately after working out. But I was hit with not one but two nasty colds and threw my back out all during the holidays, so, working out wasn't even on the radar.

None of that should have kept me from meditating.  Thinking about the power of habit and developing habits around well-being makes me realize that when the habit of working out went away, the habit of meditating did also because the two were linked. Perhaps that is something to keep in mind when developing habits - linking them is great for reinforcement, but the loss of one habit could create a domino effect with unintended consequences.

But I digress, so I'll do what I do when my thoughts start taking over in meditation - simply recognize it and return to the practice. Back to meditation.

As we begin this new year of 2019, I'm re-committing to make meditation a part of my regular routine, if not daily, then at least several times a week. I find that by giving myself permission to slow down and let go of everything - even for a few minutes - I can be more productive with the rest of my day. And ironically, the days in which I have the most to do or the most pressure are the days when meditation seems to help the most - if I make the decision to carve out the time to do it. It helps me clarify my thinking and makes it easier to let go of things that aren't important or that create unnecessary stress.

As a beginner at meditation, I'm not yet comfortable just meditating on my own, so I've tried out a few meditation apps. The one I like best at the moment is Insight Timer - a free app available on iOS and Android. Insight Timer categorizes meditations into 7 categories: Mindfulness, Visualization, Gentle Repetition, Movement, Sound, Concentration, and Self-Observation. There are literally thousands of meditations available from all over the world - some guided, others just with music, ambient sounds or bells, or you can just use the app to set a timer for your desired length of meditation. 

One of the things I like about the app is that it keeps track of your meditation time and the milestones you reach when meditating, which helps you keep the momentum going once you start meditating. Habits require reinforcement, after all. And apparently I'm not the only one who enjoys using Insight Timer - according to this article, 63% of those who use meditation apps in the U.S. are using Insight Timer - that's three times more than any other meditation app.

If Insight Timer isn't for you, there are many other meditation apps available. For a calmer and more productive 2019, why not give one a try? Even 5 or 10 minutes can make a big difference. Just don't give up too soon - the more you practice, the better you'll get at it, and doing it "badly" or letting your thoughts intrude on your meditation practice is just part of the process.

Let me know in the comments if you already meditate and why, or if you decide to give it a try, let me know and tell me what you experience as a result of employing this new well-being habit.

 

 

How to Run a More Efficient & Profitable Small or Solo Law Practice with Virtual Receptionists

Guest post by Maddy Martin of Smith.ai.

 

When you’re running a law firm on your own or with just a couple partners, you’re shouldering more than just lawyering work. Responsibilities for administrative, marketing, and operational tasks fall on your shoulders, and there’s only so much time in a day. Finding ways to take work off your plate that don’t require your unique skill set as a lawyer means more time for profitable (read: billable) work.

Virtual receptionists have been a popular choice for small-firm and solo lawyers for over a decade, to help them minimize distractions and gain efficiency. But many attorneys are still reluctant to take the leap and hand-off tasks that take up precious time. The most common reasons related to a lack of comfort, trust, attention to detail, comprehensiveness of services, and personal touch.

To be sure, not every virtual receptionist service delivers enough value to warrant their payment, setup, and coordination. An answering service that only answers calls and takes messages will provide limited value. But, having a remote receptionist service that does that, plus schedule appointments, qualify leads, intake new clients, return calls, and other significant and valuable tasks is wholly worthwhile.

If you’re not yet using a virtual receptionist service, here are 5 major ways it can help you streamline your law firm’s operations to maximize efficiency and profit.

 1. Lead Capture & Qualification (Plus, Monetize “Bad” Leads)

 New leads come from referrals, Facebook, Google, Avvo, and many other sources. You might even be paying for ads or premium placements on these sites. When a potential client sees your law practice and calls with a need for services, if you don’t pick up, they’re off to call the next firm. Chances are, it doesn’t matter whether or not they left a voicemail; they’re not waiting for a call back. If they completed a form on your website, then it’s just a matter of how quickly you respond. A receptionist service that offers lead qualification can ensure you’re capturing and assessing new leads as soon as they come in, whether they’re reaching you by phone or email.

How do these services qualify your leads? They do it based on your custom criteria. Do their needs align with your practice area? Are they in the right county? Are they willing to pay your fees? These are just a few of the questions your receptionists can use to filter out the great leads from those that won’t convert to real clients. Provide the essential questions you need your receptionists to ask leads, and they’ll capture the “good” ones.

As for the “bad” leads, a receptionist service can also help you monetize those, so the call isn’t a wash. Many attorneys earn referral fees by passing clients to attorneys in other practice areas, in other counties, and with lower fees. Just provide the list of your referrals and any instructions for the correct types of clients to pass to each one, and your receptionists can refer “bad” leads to them. If they end up working with that recommended attorney, you’ll earn your referral fee.

 2. New Client Intake

For the good leads, the process doesn’t stop at qualification. Remote receptionists can also complete new client intake. Just provide your public intake form link that you created in your CRM to your receptionists, and they’ll complete it on the new lead’s behalf during their first call. Contact information, as well as basic details of their need for an attorney, will be captured and passed directly into your CRM, taking away the need for a follow-up call or the work of taking notes from the call and copying and pasting it into your CRM.

3. Appointment Scheduling & Reminders

Once the new client intake is complete, the next step in the process is often to schedule a call-back or in-person new client appointment with you or another attorney at your firm. Your receptionist service can handle this for you, too. All you need to do it is provide access to your calendar so the receptionist can see when you’re available. They won’t be able to change or edit existing events -- they’ll only create new ones -- so there’s no risk of them changing anything on your agenda. (Note: If you use Google Calendar, Outlook, Office 365, or iCloud Calendar, a free service like Calendly makes securely sharing your calendar with a receptionist service easy.)

Before a new lead’s or existing client’s appointment, you can also request that your receptionists call leads and clients to remind them, which prevents no-shows and cancellations that waste precious time.

4. Follow-Up: Case Updates & Payments

 Hunting down clients to provide case updates and capture payment is a royal pain and can be time-consuming. Maybe a court date was changed, another document needs to be signed, or a payment installment is past due. Whatever follow-up is needed, your receptionists can take care of it for you.

You can even go the extra mile and have your receptionists reach out proactively to clients who haven’t heard an update on their case in a while or who have recently completed work with you. For example, a receptionist can call recent clients and capture information on their satisfaction with the work you completed for them. If they express positive sentiments, the receptionist can use the call as an opportunity to request a positive review on one of those sites that generate leads for your business, which builds your online reputation.

 5. Automated Workflows

Tasking your receptionist with the duties mentioned above needn’t require ongoing, hands-on maintenance and oversight. When you first get started with a receptionist service, they can capture all the required FAQs, lead-qualification criteria, new client intake questions, appointment scheduling directions, and payment processes, so calls are handled seamlessly without the need for your receptionists to bother you with “How do I…” questions. Your receptionists follow your unique workflow, so administrative and operational tasks that they’re handling on your behalf become automatic.

You can even set up certain processes to gain even greater efficiency. For example, if you have a lead form on your website that captures information from potential clients looking to hire you, every time someone completes that form, you probably receive an email with the same “New Lead” subject line. In your email settings, you can auto-forward these emails to your receptionist service and they’ll call them back quickly, increasing the chance you reach them before they’ve contacted another attorney.

Whether you’re busy or just looking to reduce interruptions in your day, these automatic call-backs by your receptionists can increase efficiency and result in more leads converting to clients, both of which improve your bottom line.

Choosing the Right Virtual Receptionist Service

It’s important to note that not every live, remote receptionist service offers lead qualification, new client intake, and outbound calls. Make sure you ask about these features when shopping around.

 Maddy Martin is the head of marketing for Smith.ai Virtual Receptionists, which offers all of the above services and more. If you’d like to sign up for Smith.ai or simply test it out with a 30-day/10-call free trial, you may do so online at https://smith.ai, by phone at (650) 727-6484, or by email at [email protected].  

Legal Ease Blog readers get $50 off your first month with code LEGALEASE. This code can be used in combination with your free trial, for a total savings of $110. I may receive a small commission if you use this link, but it's a huge savings for you!

 If you have questions about virtual receptionists and how they can help your firm be more efficient and profitable, Smith.ai support is available Monday through Friday between 6 AM and 6 PM PST at (650) 727-6484 or [email protected].

Productivity Tips

The April 2017 Expert Roundtable post on Law Technology Today is a survey of productivity tips. A group of lawyers (including me) were asked to answer five questions about productivity.

Here's a quick list of the tips I shared on the post:

Write everything down

Develop systems for storing the information you save so you can find it easily when you need it

Don't multi-task!

Use your calendar effectively- schedule time to complete work

Use an editorial calendar to schedule marketing and writing projects

Invest in resources, technology and/or people to improve your productivity

Although we were asked to provide only one or two tips in response to each question, it was hard for me to narrow down my responses. 

One of my favorite productivity tips that didn't get mentioned was breaking large projects down into bite-sized pieces; looking at an entire project can be overwhelming, but tackling only one small piece at a time can help build momentum and confidence. And the project is likely to get done much faster.

Some of my other favorite productivity tips were covered by my colleagues in the roundtable. These tips include:

• Never use your email inbox as your to-do list
• Don't use your email inbox as a place to store communications - file or delete messages
• Set a schedule and stick to it
• Know your "power hours"
• Create workflow checklists
• Do the worst first
• Use automation tools available in programs you already use
• Don't check email constantly!

You can get all of the tips in more detail here, and the post also contains a great list of productivity resources.

 

Need Help Choosing Law Practice Management Software?

Practice management software provides advantages for firms of all sizes, whether the firm is a solo practice or a larger firm with employees at all levels: partners, associates, paralegals, legal assistants and others. In this post, I talked about some of the advantages lawyers can expect when using practice management software.

More recently, in this interview with Law Firm Suites, I mentioned practice management software as one of the tools that lawyers can use to make their jobs easier, saying:

Practice management software can help organize each client’s documents and data, and some even include client-facing portals to allow clients to access some of their documents and information on their own. It can also include timers to help with hourly billing and built-in reminders to help calculate deadlines and statutes of limitations.

But knowing your firm needs to employ practice management software is only the first step. Choosing the right platform or program can be a difficult and daunting decision, particularly with new vendors entering the marketplace.

Luckily, the folks at Lawyerist have done some of the work for you. They have put together a directory of 24 law practice management software programs at lawyerist.com.  And if you're really new to practice management software, scroll to the end of the page to see the definitions of the features discussed in the directory.

The directory not only provides information about each program, including Lawyerist's "best fit" judgment for each program, but there is also a downloadable comparison chart showing the key features of each of the programs included in the directory, which can help you to narrow down your choices to those within your budget that have the features you require. Then you can return to the directory for more detailed information by visiting the product page on Lawyerist for each of the programs on your list (by clicking on the name of the program in the alphabetical directory).

 

Related articles

Top 10 Law Practice Management Software Systems - Financesonline.com

Productivity Tool Trello Being Acquired - Will It Become Even More Useful?

In my Simple Steps column in the January/February 2017 issue of Law Practice magazine, "Get Your To-Do Lists Under Control with These Productivity Tools," I talk about Trello. Launched five years ago, Trello has already acquired over 19 million users.

Trello is a basic online project management app which is more visual than a traditional to-do list. It uses Boards for projects or categories of information. Within Boards, Lists show the progress of tasks, represented by Cards, within the project. Labels, color-coding, images, checklists and notes can all be added to Cards to help organize information. Trello can be used as an individual productivity tool, but it can also be used by teams of people to easily collaborate, see the progress of projects, and assign tasks (Read my article for more information about how you might use Trello in your practice.)

Earlier this week, Trello announced that it is being acquired by Atlassian, a company who reportedly places a premium on research and development, and whose mission is to develop software to help teams get work done. As a result, additional improvements in the Trello platform are expected. Trello will continue to be operated as a stand-alone product, so existing Trello users will be able to maintain their accounts and Boards.

If you aren't already using Trello, you can learn about all of its features here, or check out the Trello blog for great articles to help boost your productivity in 2017.

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Can Mindfulness and Meditation Make You A Better Lawyer? [Book Review]

The Anxious Lawyer, An 8-Week Guide to a Joyful and Satisfying Law Practice Through Mindfulness and Meditation is a straightforward book which incorporates personal stories, basic introductory information and mindfulness and meditation exercises written specifically for lawyers. *(Full disclosure: I received a free copy of the book from author Jeena Cho in exchange for providing my honest review of the book.)

The authors, Jeena Cho and Karen Gifford, both lawyers themselves, share their experiences with meditation, the different reasons they were each separately drawn to the practice, and how it has helped them in their personal and professional lives, making their lives as lawyers – and as people – more rewarding. Cho is a bankruptcy practitioner in California while Gifford was a litigator and enforcement attorney for the Federal Reserve and is now an investor and advisor on policy and regulatory issues in the financial technology fields.

The legal profession is stressful, and more and more lawyers are suffering. It’s one of the reasons I started my consulting practice, Legal Ease Consulting, Inc., and its corresponding website, Lawyer Meltdown. The phrase, “lawyer meltdown,” resonates with far too many lawyers, who are stricken with the disease of “busyness,” whether it helps themselves, their clients or their firms, or not. (Although this problem is not limited to lawyers—our whole society suffers from busyness—and the lessons and concepts in this book could easily be applied to other professionals).

Meditation and mindfulness are not easy for many lawyers to wrap their heads around, and Cho and Gifford spend time talking about why that might be and how lawyers can challenge the assumptions that may lead to negative or uncomfortable feelings about the practice. I became interested in the book as a way to learn about another set of tools that might be helpful not only to my clients (the majority of whom are lawyers), but to gain a deeper understanding of lawyer meltdown and whether these techniques could help those who occasionally—or often—feel overwhelmed by the stresses of practicing law.

Even if you’ve never considered meditation or mindfulness before, this book is a helpful guide, introducing you to those concepts and taking you through a progression of meditation practices. The authors are adamant that the practice does not need to be long or complicated, particularly for beginners.

Over an eight-week period, the authors explain different meditation and mindfulness types and exercises, including a range of practices, from sitting quietly 10 minutes a day, focusing on the breath, to doing a body scan, or using mantra repetition to spend “less time unconsciously at the mercy of your thoughts and more time in a settled and quieter state.”

Using these practices can help you to connect to the deeper meaning or closely held values in the work you do every day and the reasons you chose the practice of law, rather than listening unconsciously to external forces and judgments which may not reflect your values. Guided meditations can be found on the book’s companion website, theanxiouslawyer.com. The book also provides tips on what the authors call “off the cushion” exercises that anyone can do while going about the business of their daily life and law practice. These tips and strategies may be particularly attractive to lawyers who seek to learn how to cope with everyday stressors of the practice as they arise.

The book is worth reading even if you’re skeptical about mindfulness and meditation in general, or are reasonably certain that you ‘can’t’ do it. The authors dispel some myths about meditation and what meditation really means. For example, it doesn’t mean clearing your mind of all thoughts. And the book cites several studies that show that regular meditation practice is good for your physical, as well as your mental, health. But the parts of the book that may be even more useful to many lawyers than those about “typical” mediation are those that discuss how to translate these practices into your daily life.

One example is recognizing the “moment of choice” – the moment when you become consciously aware of something and have a choice as to how you’re going to react to it. The moment of choice in meditation is the moment when you notice that your mind has wandered or that you’ve gotten caught up in your thoughts; at that moment, you have an opportunity to simply return to your meditation practice and to focus on your breathing. Alternatively, you could choose to beat yourself up for allowing your mind to wander in the first place. Which is more productive?

This concept of the moment of choice can be extended into other areas and other parts of your life outside of meditation. When you recognize that something isn’t going right in your practice, that you’ve taken on a bad client, or that something needs to change, rather than focusing on the negative of where you are, you can choose instead to celebrate the fact that you’ve recognized a problem. This can help free you to focus on finding a solution or determining how best to minimize the damage moving forward, rather than beating yourself up over getting into the situation in the first place. You can choose to dwell on the negative or you can choose to refocus and move forward.

A related concept from the book that sounds simple but is much more difficult in practice is the idea that there are limitations on what lawyers can fix. Accepting that there are aspects of what you do that are out of your control can free you to focus on what you can do to improve a situation, rather than dwelling on the fact that it isn’t how you might like to be. Instead of trying to fix everything, acknowledging that many clients are in crisis and many aspects of their crisis cannot be solved by their legal issue, but might not be so easily separated from it, may result in a better relationship with your clients. Simply allowing them to vent or to tell their story may free them to turn their attention to what is important for the legal case.

Mindfulness and meditation are a form of self-care, which may lawyers are sorely lacking because so much of their focus is on others’ problems and how to solve them. The idea of practicing compassion toward yourself as well as others may be a good solution for constant busyness which may actually reduce productivity. Self-care allows you to refuel your own tank so you are available to give to others.

You may think you don’t have time to meditate – or to read this book – but the authors have broken it down into bite-sized pieces; you only need to read one chapter a week and then follow a daily meditation practice using the techniques or concepts outlined in that chapter. As the holidays approach and another season of hectic, “busy,” activity approaches, it’s an ideal time to start a new habit that will not only help to reduce the stress and anxiety of the holidays, but stand you in good stead in the New Year, possibly offering a new perspective of yourself and your practice. Give meditation – and this book – a try.

 

New Productivity Tool Just for Solos

I recently heard about a new productivity tool built specifically for solo service providers that I thought might be of interest to solo lawyers, although I haven't tried it myself yet. Built by an international team of designers and developers, 17 hats is a business management app that seeks to streamline business processes for solo business people.

17hats is a cloud-based tool that combines basic CRM (customer relationship management, including contacts), project management, calendaring, quotes, contracts, invoicing, time tracking and bookkeeping all into one integrated program, eliminating the need to subscribe to several software services and purchase different apps and programs.

Some features lawyers might be interested in include:

Workflows lets you automate many repetitive tasks, and to create workflows so you don't skip an essential step in a client's representation. For those who like checklists, these workflows should work well.

Contracts isn't just for contracts, per se - it's a feature that  lets you create documents, send them and get them signed digitally. You can create questionnaires to send to clients or potential clients in advance of a meeting or to obtain client feedback after a matter has been completed. Clients fill out the questionnaires directly online. Quotes is what you'd use to send a client an estimate or explanation of your fees. You might use either quotes or contracts for a retainer agreement for example.

Templates helps you to create re-usable templates so you don't need to reinvent the wheel. You can create templates for questionnaires, contracts, quotes, email messages and more.

Incorporated into the invoicing feature is the ability to send online invoices and receive credit card payments. A time-tracking tool will help if you need to bill by the hour or just want to keep track of your time.

There is also an email sync feature, but reviews at this early stage have been lukewarm at best on this particular feature.

17hats is a relatively new program which was launched in October 2014, but the Pasadena, CA based company reportedly received additional seed funding this month from Wavemaker Partners, a company that focuses on technnology based startup companies. This could mean good things for the future of the program.

The company offers a two week free trial, followed by pricing that, if the program delivers the functionality it advertises, is eminently affordable: if you sign on for two years, you pay just $13/month. Shorter terms are available at $29/month for the monthly plan or $17/month for the annual plan.

While not built specifically for lawyers, 17hats does say that lawyers are among the solo business owners it had in mind when creating the program. As with any cloud-based program, you'll want to see what security and confidentiality measures 17hats uses to safeguard data you enter into the program, but for solos who want to stay organized, this may be an interesting option.

If you decide to try out 17hats, let me know what you think!

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