When you want to do it but don’t want to do it

November 21, 2022 by
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Have you ever had a project you want to do but you can’t seem to get started because it’s “nice to have” but not that important?

All the time?!

Yeah, me too.

I’ve been meaning to clean up my office for a long time but haven’t started for no better reason than it will take me a lot of time and I’m not sure it’s worth it.

I have a lot of papers and files left over from my pre-digital days. I’ll probably never use most of it, but I can’t be sure unless I go through everything.

Nice to have, but not that important.

I saw a video that suggested a good way to get started. The presenter suggested we take everything out of its “regular home” (cabinets, drawers, etc.) and move it temporally to some other place. Pile it up in a corner of the room, for example.

Things look different when they’re not in their usual home. And there’s something about seeing empty drawers and shelves that makes it easier to decide what you want to keep.

I like it, but it would take hours of tedious sorting and I can think of other things I’d rather do.

So I procrastinated. For months. And would probably still be procrastinating if I hadn’t found another solution.

I scheduled a 15-minute recurring task for every Saturday, dedicated to cleaning one drawer or shelf.

It’s only 15 minutes. It’s only one drawer. I can do this.

And I’ve been doing this for several Saturdays and made a lot of progress. Enjoying it, actually.

If you want to do something but resist starting, figure out a way to make the project easier. . . and it will be easier to start.

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Filed Under: Productivity

The end is nigh

November 18, 2022 by
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Relax, I’m talking about the end of the day, not the end of the world. (That’s for another post.)

Here are a few thoughts about what to do to close out your day to make the following day, and the days after that, as productive as possible.

C’mon, you can’t just close the laptop and call it a day. Well, you can, but your brain will nag you about unfinished business rather than allowing you to have a relaxing evening.

Besides, I recommend reviewing “tomorrow” the night before, rather than the day of, so you don’t have to figure it out in the morning and can get to work.

My “closing down” routine is a lot simpler today than earlier in my life because my life is much simpler.

Yay me.

Okay, here is my evening shut down routine.

The first thing I do before hanging up my stirrups is to wrap up any unfinished business, or at least outline and make notes about what else I need to do.

Next, I review my upcoming schedule and task lists, and update tomorrow’s list and my list for the upcoming week.

Here is the actual “closing down” list I work from at the end of each day:

  1. Choose a topic for tomorrow’s blog
  2. Check my calendar re upcoming appointments, commitments
  3. Review tomorrow’s task list
  4. Review tasks for the following week
  5. Inbox zero (email, voicemail, and notes)
  6. Clean up (File documents, close browser tabs, put away tools, toss the trash)

I do a fair amount of pushing tasks to other days, to make my schedule more inviting and manageable.

And that’s about it.

Your list will depend, of course, on the type of work you do, whether you work from an office, have employees or a team, or have hearings or meetings to prepare for.

Do you have a shutting down routine? If you do, what’s on your list?

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Filed Under: Productivity

What’s not on your list?

November 4, 2022 by
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I do a pretty good job of writing down things I need to or want to do. I’m sure you do, too. But there are always things that don’t make it onto our list.

Things we didn’t think of when planned our week, chores we’ve been putting off and are piling up, things we know we should do but haven’t scheduled like contacting old clients or old friends.

Author Fumio Sasaki in his book Goodbye Things calls this your “silent to-do list”.

The problem is, if you add everything to your list, your list can become overwhelming.

Your days are booked “8-to-faint” cranking out billable work, keeping up with admin, and stoking the marketing fires to make sure everything continues. Which means you don’t have time or energy for other things like bigger projects that can advance your career, learning, or something none of us do enough of—resting.

There’s only one solution. Cut your lists down to the essentials to make room.

When you can see daylight on your calendar, when your lists aren’t crushing you with urgent deadlines, when you look at what’s planned for the day and feel good about getting it all done, you are running your life instead of your schedule running you.

Nice.

For a change, you’re not constantly exhausted and stretched to the limit. You’re getting your priorities done and have time left to do other things.

What other things?

You can do other work if you feel like it, call old friends, or go for a walk. You can sit in the park with a novel you’ve been dying to read, or take a nap.

You’ll have the bandwidth to do things that are important but aren’t on a list. And they might be some of the most important things you do all day.

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Filed Under: Dealing with stress, Productivity

Are you working too much, or too little?

October 14, 2022 by
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No, it’s not just about how much time you put in, it’s about the results you get and how happy you are about them

You may be killing it with a four-day (or four-hour) work-week. Or you may be working like a dog and barely keeping up with inflation.

It’s not just about the amount of time you spend doing what you do. But clearly, time is a factor.

Which is why I suggest you track how you spend it. Not just your work-day or billable hours. All of your time.

For one week, write down everything you do and for how long you do it. How you spend your 24.

You might learn some very useful (and surprising) things about yourself, some of which could be invaluable.

You might learn that you spend a lot of time doing things that contribute little (or nothing) to your income and/or well-being.

I don’t goof off that much, you say? Yeah, that’s what I said.

You might find you spend 90 minutes to do something that shouldn’t take more than an hour. I did that, too.

Tracking your time will help you prioritize that time and focus on what’s important and aligned with your goals.

You might see how much time you spend looking over the shoulders of your employees or outside vendors, time you could use doing other things. Or you might see how much time you spend doing things yourself that could be delegated to someone else.

Track your time for a week. You might not like what you find, or believe some of it. But the numbers don’t lie.

And admitting the truth is the first step towards change.

Even if this exercise allows you to “only” reclaim ten minutes a day, that’s an extra hour per week you can spend as you see fit.

Which is why you should consider doing this exercise regularly, perhaps once or twice a year.

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Filed Under: Productivity, Time Management

Prioritizing your task list

September 27, 2022 by
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You have a list. On that list are things you must do, things you should do, and things you want to do.

You want to do your most important tasks—the ones that put food on the table and help you achieve your personal and professional goals. And you want to have some time to do the things you enjoy. Because all work and no play isn’t good for your health.

How do you choose? How do you prioritize your list?

Start by dividing the list into three parts:

  1. Things that provide you with the most value. The “20% activities that produce 80% of your results”. Activities that have the largest impact on your goals and overall happiness. Your “most important tasks (MITs).”
  2. Tasks you just need to get done. They might not contribute much to the mix, but they keep the wheels greased and the machine running. These are your routines and recurring tasks; the boring stuff.
  3. Everything else.

You want to spend more time on the first list and less time on the other two.

If you can, do the tasks on the first list before you do the others. Do them early in the day, when you have the most energy.

To give you even more time and energy to do them, cut down on the tasks on the second and third lists.

Delegate, automate, eliminate, or postpone.

Because your most important tasks are more important.

On my list, each workday I usually have 1 to 3 MITs. These are my top priority for the day and I almost always get them done.

I have 3-5 other tasks I want to do today but it’s okay if I do them tomorrow or later this week or next.

And I have 5 or 6 routine tasks, usually small and easy to do, and I usually do all of them.

If I get everything done early enough, I look at my list for tomorrow or later in the week and pick something else to do.

But only if I want to.

But I rarely want to because all work and no play isn’t good for my health.

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Filed Under: Productivity

Time blocking for thee and me

September 23, 2022 by
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I’ve struggled with time blocking, aka time boxing or calendar blocking, at least the way I’ve seen others do it. I don’t want to schedule my entire day down to the minute, as some studs do, but even when I mentally block out time for writing or other projects, I still resist putting this on my calendar.

I informally dedicate my mornings (after doing email, some admin stuff and waking up my brain) to “deep work” — writing and other things that require focus and concentration. But I don’t schedule it.

When I’m ready, I go to work. When I’m not, I don’t.

This works for me, but there’s something appealing about the idea of looking at the calendar and seeing my day organized and tidy.

So I will try again.

In my quest to learn how others do it, I’ve watched some videos and picked up some suggestions. I thought I’d pass along a few of the best.

  • Time block email and admin so you can stay on top of it, and not be distracted when you’re doing other things and remember you forgot to reply to your email.
  • For “deep work”—anything that requires concentration—be specific about what you will work on (the case, file, project), and for how long, so you know exactly what to do during your time block. Specifics create clarity, clarity creates focus, and focus is how you get things done.
  • If you’re trying to block your entire day, for each block, (a) give yourself enough time to do the work; (most of us grossly underestimate how long things will take), and, (b) build in buffer time between blocks for breaks, travel, interruptions, and things that need more time than you have allowed.

If you have other suggestions, or would like to share how time blocking works for you, please let me know.

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Filed Under: Productivity, Time Management, Writing

When your task management system isn’t working for you

September 21, 2022 by
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It’s not the app, it’s the system. If you have the right system, you can make it work in just about any app.

Or so we’re told.

I don’t think that’s literally true but there’s enough to it that if your system isn’t working, changing apps, as I did recently, might be the solution. At the very least, it gives you a chance to re-examine your system.

A few thoughts about apps and systems.

First, your system (and app) should serve you and make your life easier. It shouldn’t make you do a dance to keep up with it. It should sit by your side and tell you what to do next (because you decided that earlier) and give you the satisfaction of checking things off as you do them.

If it doesn’t, before you switch apps or radically change your system, consider looking for ways to simplify that system.

If possible, see if you can consolidate all of your task management functions into one tool.

You can have multiple lists or tags or labels but put all your work and personal stuff in one app.

In keeping with that, you should have one inbox. One place for all of your incoming tasks and ideas.

Because it’s simpler.

If one app/one inbox isn’t possible, because of partners or staff or whatever reasons, consider using two iterations of the same app, one for you and one for the team.
Less to learn and update.

Be realistic about the number of tasks and projects you can do each day, or at one time. Most of us take on too much, which leads to overwhelm and falling behind.

Keyword: a few at a time.

Then, make sure every task has a next action and a date when you’re going to do it, review it, or start it. Add a due date if there is one, but having a start date allows you to forget about the task until the start date, which allows you to give your full attention to what’s important today.

Then, update your lists “in the moment” rather than once a week or on some other schedule. When you complete something, tick it off. When you think of something, add it in. You can also do a weekly review, but that will be a lot easier to do if you’ve kept up with your lists in real time. 

Finally, if you switch to another app, don’t get bogged down learning and using a bunch of new features. Instead, consider turning off or not using most of the functions initially, and start with just an inbox and a place for today’s tasks.

This gives you time to think about what you’re doing and if there’s something you should change.

As you get more comfortable with the app and your new system, add back some of the other functions and see how it feels. If those work, you can add more.

That’s my take, and I’m sticking to it. Time to tick this off my list and see what’s next.

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Filed Under: Productivity, Time Management Tagged With:

Monomaniac on a mission

September 12, 2022 by
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I have a friend, a successful businessperson, who describes himself as a ‘monomaniac on a mission’. He’s focused and passionate and lets nothing distract him from his goals.

Many people say something similar, but he actually does it.

He does it by eliminating most things that aren’t ‘it’.

Other businesses, people who drain his energy or distract him, things that require too much time.

As I say, he’s focused.

But he isn’t a workaholic.

He doesn’t get up early, put in impossibly long hours, and have no free time. He does his work, makes lots of time for his family, takes vacations, watches sports, exercises, and reads.

If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was well-rounded. But he’s not. He’s a monomaniac on a mission.

He’s focused on growing his business.

And yet he works fewer hours than most people. He’s more successful than most people because he gets more out of the hours he works.

How? He knows what he wants and how to get it and he just does the work.

Over and over.

He doesn’t get creative. He keeps turning the wheel. Many people would find what he does boring, but he’s long past that. He knows what works and he keeps his eye on the prize.

He doesn’t get bogged down with decisions or trying out new ideas. He doesn’t make a lot of mistakes and have to spend time fixing them.

He has a huge sense of urgency and doesn’t let anything (or anyone) get in his way.

Which means he works faster than others, and make more progress in an hour than some people make in a week.

Is this what it takes to make it big in business? In the beginning, when you’re trying to learn your business, meet people, and generate momentum, I’d say it is for many people. That’s what I did when I started practicing.

But when I got to a certain level of success, I took my foot off the accelerator a bit and did some other things.

Because I was not a monomaniac on a mission.

My friend has made many millions of dollars and reached the pinnacle of success in his industry. And while he’s branched out, too, he’s still very much focused on growing his business.

Just something to think about as you plan your week. And career.

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Filed Under: Productivity, success Tagged With:

What you do is more important than how you do it

August 30, 2022 by
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I’m good at a few things. Most things I’m just average. Better than some, not as good as others. Some things, I’m bad at but do them because they have to be done (by me) and don’t take a lot of time.

How about you? Pretty much the same story?

The thing is, somewhere we got it into our heads that we should work at getting better at everything we do. But that’s not true.

Excellence in a few things is much more important. Besides those few, our core competencies, everything else takes a back seat.

But. . . having them in our back seat matters.

Let’s take our old friend marketing for example.

It may not be your thing. You may not be good at it, you have to force yourself to do it, spend too much and accomplish too little. But at least you’re doing it.

Which means you’re getting better results than the lawyer who does no marketing.

Because what you do is more important than how you do it.

How you do things speaks to your efficiency. What you do is far more important because doing it at all contributes to your effectiveness.

Want to write a book but not sure you can? “Write two crappy pages a day,“ Tim Ferriss recommends. Want to grow your practice but don’t have enough time or skills? “15 minutes a day (doing anything marketing related)” says I.

Over time, you can accomplish a lot by writing two crappy pages a day or doing anything marketing related 15 minutes daily.

Much more than you would if you didn’t.

The converse is also true. You may be a brilliant writer or consummate marketer, but if you do no writing or marketing, you can’t expect much to happen.

Because what you do, and don’t do, is more important than how you do it (or could).

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Filed Under: Productivity, success

What are you working on?

August 8, 2022 by
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Every lawyer should be able to answer this question quickly, and they can if they make a simple list of their current projects, cases or clients.

You probably know this, but are you doing it? Is your list up to date? If not, have a seat and start writing. You’ll thank me later.

Your list should be brief. No more than perhaps 5 or 10 current projects or cases, because you can’t do your best work if you’re juggling dozens of projects at the same time. Everything else should go on another list.

Your list should be available on all of your devices, or in a journal or notebook you keep with you, or even a page you keep in your pocket, so you can continually remind yourself of your priorities and not overlook anything.

And your list should identify the “next action” for each project, case, or client, so you always know what to do, ahem, next.

Your list will help you plan your day and your week, help you avoid taking on too much work at the same time, prevent you from falling behind or feeling the need to rush anything, and help you be more proactive about your work (and life).

One more thing.

Besides your list, you also need support material that you link to or can easily access.

You may have extensive documents, notes, and other materials in a case file or project file, but you shouldn’t have to go digging every time you need to know something.

So, for each project, case, or client, create a one- or two-page summary of notes, resources, and upcoming tasks.

Now you have a system for getting and staying productive. You’re welcome.

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Filed Under: Productivity Tagged With: ,
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