Productivity Archives - The Attorney Marketing Center

Why I use four to-do lists, not one

April 17, 2025 by David M. Ward

When I was younger and not as busy as I am today, a simple todo list was all I needed. I could write everything on that list—homework, things to read or look into, things to buy—today, tomorrow, or “soon”.

Today? Not so much.

Today, one big list for everything would be impractical and overwhelming. Yes, we can prioritize the tasks by putting things in the order we need to do them, or with colors or tags or labels or a priority code, e.g., P-1 for today, P-2 for this week, and so on.

I used to do this, and it works. But now, I use a variation of a system created by productivity expert Michael Linenberger.

I now use four lists:

MUST DO TODAY. These are high priority tasks; bad things will happen if I don’t do these today. These include critical calls, letters, or emails, filing deadlines, completing things as promised, and preparation for an upcoming meeting or presentation. I limit this list to 5 items, to make sure I have time and energy to complete them.
SHOULD DO TODAY. Tasks I want to do or should do today. I don’t have to complete them today, but it would be better if I do. If I don’t get to them or finish them, I usually move them to the following day. I also limit this list to 5 tasks.
COULD DO (TODAY). Tasks I’d like to complete (or work on) soon, i.e., in the next week or so. If I finish everything on the first two lists, and I have time, I’ll pull tasks from this list to work on. I limit this list to 20 tasks.
LATER. Everything else. These are low priority tasks for next week or next month, later this year, or someday. This is the biggest list and I don’t limit it.

A key to making this system work is to review the lists regularly. I review my “must do” list several times a day (until all tasks are done), my “Should/Want to do” and my “Could do” list once a day, and my “Later” list once a week during a weekly planning session.

Since adopting this system, I know what to do today, what to do next, and what can safely wait, and I am far more productive.

And now, I can cross this task off my list and move on to the next one.

Filed Under: Productivity

What are you doing today?

March 18, 2025 by David M. Ward

When your day begins, do you dive right in and get to work—going through files, making calls, talking to your staff, dictating letters—whatever’s on your desk, in your email, or demanding your attention?

Or do you work from a plan?

I suggest the latter.

I suggest your plan your day before it begins because a plan gives you clarity about what you need to do and, just as importantly, what not to do.

A plan gives you confidence that you are doing your most important tasks and have enough time to do them well.

A plan allows you to go from task to task without stopping to figure out what’s next, or getting distracted by whatever shows up.

Without a plan, you might become overwhelmed with too much to do and not enough time to do it. Without a plan, you might waste time working on things that don’t need to be done today, or at all, and make mistakes rushing to do things you suddenly remember.

A daily plan allows you to be more productive.

And it takes only 5 minutes.

Review your calendar. Prepare for appointments and meetings and calls. Go through your task list and decide what you will do today and what can wait until tomorrow—or next week.

When should you create your plan? Some like to do it at at night so they can start the next day without delay. Others like to prepare their plan in the morning (with a cup of coffee).

I usually make my plan the night before and review and update it the morning of.

More important than when you do it is that you do it.

And make it a habit.

One more thing. You also need a weekly plan. Take ten minutes on the weekend or Monday morning to review the past week and plan the week ahead.

And yes, make this a habit, too.

Filed Under: Productivity, success

Separate the planning from the doing

December 10, 2024 by David M. Ward

I used to call it a “weekly review” but now I call it “weekly planning” because I don’t just want to look at what I’ve done, I want to figure out what I need to do next.

Whatever we call it, why do we do it once a week instead of more often? Because we need some quiet time to step back from our busy week to reflect on the big picture. During the week, we need to focus on getting the actual work done.

Planning requires a different state of mind from doing.

When we’re planning, we’re relaxed and thinking about the future. When we’re doing the work, we’re focused on making the calls, drafting the documents, and negotiating the cases.

It’s better to break up the planning and the doing into two separate tasks, and do them at different times. It’s more efficient that way and produces better results.

If you’re writing an article, for example, choose the topic a few days or a week before you do the actual writing. This allows your subconscious mind to “think” about the article ahead of time and find better arguments and examples that make your article easier to write and more effective.

Whether writing an article, planning your week, or starting a new project, give yourself some space between the planning and the doing.

Filed Under: Productivity, Writing

How was your day? No, really?

September 19, 2024 by David M. Ward

When it comes to productivity, I usually finish a task, tick the box or cross it off the list and move on to the next one.

Busy, busy, busy.

Sure, I take notes and update the file, but I do this as quickly as possible because there’s so much more to do.

It makes sense to spend a moment or two reflecting on what we’ve done, thinking about how we might do it better.

But I usually don’t.

I just saw a video that is making me reconsider.

Besides a “to do” list, the presenter suggests we keep a “did do” list. Write down what we did, our results, and our thoughts about how we can improve.

Most of us take on too much work each day, are often overwhelmed (and exhausted), and wind up doing our work mechanically and quickly so we can get it done. We focus on quantity rather than quality. We get a lot done, but the more we do, the less satisfied and productive we are.

Maybe it’s better to do fewer tasks, get better results, and feel better about ourselves.

Keeping a “did do” list, reflecting and not just doing, might be a way to accomplish that.

Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity

It’s okay to break the chain

June 28, 2024 by David M. Ward

Don’t break the chain is a mantra about building habits by steadfastly refusing to miss a day or week or whatever schedule you commit to. It was popularized by Jerry Seinfeld who, at the beginning of his career, committed to writing at least one new joke every day, followed by making a big X for his wall calendar. Those check marks formed a chain, giving rise to the statement, “Don’t break the chain”.

Good advice. We build habits by what we repeatedly do and being accountable to doing them makes it more likely we will.

The problem is, Seinfeld has denied saying this or even doing it. No matter, it’s still good advice. When we’re tired or busy and don’t feel like doing the task, reminding yourself to not break the chain can help you maintain the habit.

I do it with my writing. Every week day, I write and post an article. I’ve been doing that now for several years and I’m glad I do.

But I’ve also broken the chain.

When I do, sometimes, I re-post something I wrote and published in the past. Sometimes, I don’t. Because I know that if I miss a day (and break the chain), I can just start again (and I do).

You can, too.

If you miss a day or week of writing, hitting the gym, calling a prospect or client, or depositing money in your precious metals saving account, it’s not the end of the world.

Just start again.

What’s important isn’t having a perfect record. It’s that if you miss, you care enough to start again.

Your intention counts. If you regret missing a day, the habit still exists. If you don’t at least think about missing the day, you weren’t serious about making it a habit.

Don’t beat yourself up when you miss. Just start again.

New day, new chain.

Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity Tagged With: habits

The key to managing your time

April 30, 2024 by David M. Ward

You have a lot of tasks on your list. You know what to do, how, and why, but do you know “when”?

“When” you will do a task is the key to effectively managing your time.

If you know when, and schedule the day (and time), you’re more likely to do it. If you don’t know when, you may not do it at all.

Our days are full. Once we complete our scheduled tasks (appointments, meetings, calls), we might not have enough time or energy to do other things.

Which means we often won’t do them.

I’m not advocating time-blocking our entire day or giving everything a due date. But maybe we should give everything a “do” date.

When you schedule when to do something, you’ve decided it’s important. If you don’t know, everything becomes “someday/maybe” and that often means “never”.

Decide “when” you will do the task and schedule it. Mark the day and time on your calendar or tag it on your list. If you’re not sure of the time, at least schedule the day. If you’re not sure of the day, at least schedule the week.

You can always change the day or week. But to do that, you’ll need to reconsider the importance of the task, and then renew your commitment to doing it or remove it from your list.

Look at it this way: if a task isn’t important enough to schedule, maybe it’s not important at all.

What if you’re not sure when you will do it? Schedule a date and time to review the task and then decide.

Because “when” is the key to managing your time.

Filed Under: Productivity, Time Management

A few thoughts about GTD contexts

April 26, 2024 by David M. Ward

Getting Things Done (GTD) teaches us to identify our tasks by context—location, people, tools, and so on—so we can do things when and where we’re best equipped to do them.

I stopped using most contexts a long time ago, since I can do just about anything from just about anywhere.

Calls, emails, reading, writing—I can do from the office in my pocket.

I still use the @waiting and @errand contexts, but not much else.

I’m going to take another look at my use of contexts, however, based on a short video I saw which makes the case for contexts based on “time plus energy”.

GTD has long recommended contexts for time and energy, but I like the way the presenter combines them:

Short Dashes: Tasks that require more than 2 minutes but less than 15 minutes. Most calls and emails fit here, don’t they?
Full Focus: Tasks requiring maximum energy, no distractions, and longer periods of time; deep work.
Brain Dead: When you can’t do anything that requires a lot of thought.
Routines: Your weekly review, exercise, writing a blog post.
Hanging Around: Tasks that don’t require a lot of time or energy and don’t have a deadline, e.g., light research, organizing notes, buying something online.

What do you think? Do any of these appeal to you? Do you already use something similar?

I like “Brain Dead” or “Hanging Around,” especially for things I can do after I’ve shut down work for the night. I’ll give this some thought later today.

But first, I have some “Short Dashes” to take care of.

I’m travelling today; this is a (slightly edited) re-post from 2021.

Filed Under: Productivity Tagged With: Contexts, gtd

Not motivated? Try this…

April 23, 2024 by David M. Ward

You don’t want to do it. You might not want to do anything. You’re in a funk.

Action is the cure for what ails you.

The good news is it doesn’t need to have anything to do with the task you’re avoiding. Any meaningful action you take can reset your brain and get you back on track.

Grab a sheet of paper and write down one thing you would feel good about getting done today. It doesn’t matter what it is, or how big it is, only that it’s something you would like to get done.

It could be sending an email to someone who’s asked you a question, jotting down bullet points for an article or letter or brief you need to write, or reviewing a file and thinking about what’s next.

Once you choose something, do it. A small win is a win. Enjoy it. It might be all you need to snap out of it and get back to work.

If you’re still resisting, set a timer for 25 minutes (Pomodoro), or if you’re not up to that, set a timer for 5 minutes, and work on the task. When you’re done, you should feel a bit better. Energized, maybe. Feeling a hit of dopamine from completing a task on your list.

You can also reward yourself by doing something fun. Watch a short video or play your favorite game for a few minutes. More dopamine.

By now, you may feel ready to tackle the thing you’ve been avoiding. If not, do something else meaningful, continue doing that, building momentum, until you are ready.

If that doesn’t happen, if you’re still not up to it, take the rest of the day off and start over tomorrow. New day, new you.

Filed Under: Productivity

Who, not how

March 26, 2024 by David M. Ward

When you have a task to do, before you start, ask yourself ‘Who can do this for me?” Delegating or outsourcing work saves you time, leverages other peoples’ skills, and lets you focus on what you do best.

This philosophy and practice has been game changing for me.

In fact, in my practice, my motto was to “Only do what ONLY I can do (and delegate everything else).”

You might want to follow suit.

It’s not always easy to do. We resist delegating things because we believe we do them better, but that’s not always true. I’ve had employees who did things I could never do as quickly, efficiently, or as well.

We also resist because it’s risky to entrust certain tasks to other people. If they make a mistake, we pay the price or we have to spend more of our time fixing their mistake. But while that is generally true, crunch the numbers and you’ll see, in the long run, you come out ahead.

“It’s quicker and easier for me to do it myself.”

Also not true. Yes, we have to invest time training and supervising others; the question is, is that investment worth it? For me, it is almost always more than worth it.

So, that leaves our egos. We don’t like the idea of turning over our work, our important clients, to other people. But you get used to that. Especially when you see how much more profitable and satisfying your work is. And, did I mention how much more profitable it is?

Will it be as profitable for you?

Make a list of the things you do that ONLY you can do and imagine what it would be like if you could spend almost all your time doing just those things.

Yeah. . . it’s worth it.

Filed Under: Law office management, Productivity Tagged With: delegation, outsourcing

Your hobby can make you rich

March 12, 2024 by David M. Ward

We hear stories about the entrepreneur who turned their love for classic cars or cooking or tinkering with computers—their hobby—into a successful business. But that’s not the only way a hobby can make you rich.

The other way, the way most of us will do it, is to use our hobby or outside interest as something we do solely because we enjoy it. It’s fun. Interesting. A way to relax and get away from the pressures and demands of our work and responsibilities.

You work harder or smarter when you give your body and brain that break.

You like watching videos about your favorite sport or app or indulging in another so-called guilty pressure. When you’re stuck in traffic or a boring meeting, you want to take a mental vacation for a few minutes and think about something you’re looking forward to doing later.

Do it. Without guilt. For no other reason than you enjoy it.

If you don’t, if you continually deny yourself because you have more work to do, more responsibilities to take care of, you might eventually come to resent your work. A brief respite can help you recharge and take the next lap.

But don’t go in the other direction. You still have work to do.

Give yourself a few minutes at lunch or after work to read a chapter in your current novel or the sports page. Play a word game or shoot some bad guys after you’ve finished your research or made one more call.

Your hobbies may not literally make you rich, but if they make you happy, your life will be infinitely richer.

Filed Under: Dealing with stress, Productivity, Wealth