Pilots use pre-flight checklists. Juries follow jury instructions. You use a checklist (or program) each time you open a new client file.

In my practice, I had forms (and form letters) for everything. They helped me get new hires up to speed quickly. They helped us run a tight ship because everyone knew what to do.

Systems make our work easier and more likely to get good results. They make sure we don’t miss steps and we do the work efficiently.

Systems (workflows, checklists, forms, methods, etc.) document best practices for recurring tasks. It takes time to create them but it’s time well spent because you can use them over and over again.

I encourage you to take inventory of the systems you currently use and look for ways to improve them.

What can you cut? What could you add? How could you make it better?

Then, consider systems you don’t use but should.

Talk to colleagues and see what they do. Talk to your staff and see what they suggest.

Consider creating some simple scripts or checklists for how the phone should be answered, how a client should be greeted at the front desk, how to get more prospects to make an appointment, and how to talk to clients about referrals.

To start, schedule one hour a week to work on this. Involve your team. Do this for 30 days and then schedule one hour each month to do the same.

If improving your systems allows you to save just one hour per week, every week, how much would that work out to in a year?

Enough to buy pizza for everyone at your next meeting?

Don’t forget to document your systems for marketing

Gary Vaynerchuk famously schedules his entire day, down to the minute. In between meetings, which can be as short as 3 minutes, he makes calls, fires off posts on social networks, and records short videos.

The dude is busy.

Cal Newport, computer science professor and author, also plans his entire work day. He says we should all do the same.

Although I’m on board with the idea of “time blocking” and do it to some extent, as I’ve written before, the idea of scheduling my entire day, down to the minute, makes me want to scream.

I schedule meetings and appointments. I block out 30 minutes or an hour for certain activities (returning calls, catching up on email), and longer blocks of time for what Newport calls “deep work”–when I’m working on a big writing project, for example.

Scheduling everything just doesn’t work for me.

Or, maybe I just tell myself that. Maybe I should try it, before saying “it’s not for me”.

Nah.

Anyway, a new study says that if we want to be happy, one thing we shouldn’t schedule is our leisure activities.

“When a leisure activity is planned rather than spontaneous, we enjoy it less,” say the authors of the study. The reason? When it’s planned, “it becomes a part of our to-do list”.

I don’t know about this one. Since when is going to a movie a chore?

I know that when Cal Newport’s work is done for the day he has lots of free time for his family and fun. I’m not sure if he schedules specific leisure activities, however.

Gary Vee? I don’t think he ever stops working, but if he does, whatever he does for fun is probably on his damn calendar.

Getting referrals is fun, right? Here’s how to get more

Let me look at my calendar. . . this morning, as soon as I get back from court, I have an appointment with a new client. That’s all I have scheduled so the rest of the day, I’ll review files, do dictation, and catch up on calls and email.

Sound familiar?

It’s nice. We like having a flexible schedule, don’t we? And a little variety keeps things interesting.

But is it the most efficient way to work?

Some people say no. They group their tasks together into clumps or bundles or blocks of time. They’ll make calls for one hour, for example, and then turn to something else.

If you look at their calendar, you’ll see blocks of time throughout the day and week: one hour mid-morning for email, two hours in the afternoon for client meetings, and so on.

They say there are advantages to “time blocking”:

• You know in advance what you’re going to work on so you’re ready for it
• You avoid the loss of momentum associated with “context switching”
• You can schedule time for “deep work”–research or writing, for example, without distractions or feeling like you should be doing something else
• You are in charge of your schedule; you can pace yourself and your energy
• You don’t fall down the rabbit hole by checking email all day

Some take this a step further. They dedicate certain days of the week (or half-days) for specific tasks. For example, they might schedule Mondays and Wednesday afternoons for working on files, Tuesdays and Thursdays for seeing clients, Fridays for admin.

Some people schedule entire weeks for specific projects. The second week of each month might be dedicated to all things marketing, for example.

Is time blocking more efficient? Yes. Clearly. But that doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone.

You may have limited control over your schedule. Your work may naturally have periods of feast and famine–signing up clients every day for a week and then no new clients for the next three weeks, or a two-week trial followed by no court for a month. Or you might simply enjoy a more free-floating approach.

I prefer a less rigid schedule, but I often work in bunches. After I send this, I’ll go through all my email before moving onto something else.

Do what works best for you, even if it’s not “best practices”.

Some people use todo lists, some put everything on their calendar, and some (most?) use both.

But there are outliers who don’t use either one.

They must spend a fortune on sticky-notes.