Evernote helps lawyers get organized and get things done

July 21, 2011 by
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Thirty years ago, if you asked lawyers what they thought about all the information they had to manage in their practice, I’m pretty sure you would hear words like “swimming,” “drowning,” and “SOS!”. I know that’s what I would have said.

Our files and file cabinets (and desks, and floors, and side chairs. . .) were bursting with information: client data, research, pleadings, discovery, notes, correspondence, memos, briefs, inventories, photos, receipts, transcripts. . . It was a constant challenge to keep up with everything.

Then, we’d come into the office on Monday morning to a pile of mail, phone messages, and a new stack of files, on top of all the unfinished work from the week before. We had to keep up with our reading–case summaries, newsletters, magazines, memos–and we had to make sure our library was current. Law books were updated monthly or quarterly with inserts (remember “pocket parts”?) or loose leaf pages and sometimes, we’d get the latest updates only to find the previous updates unopened in a box on the floor. We had to insert the previous update first, even though many of those new pages were themselves replaced by the most recent update.

The amount of information in our lives was daunting and we often felt overwhelmed.

Wimps! Yes, wimps, I say!

Seriously, look at our lives today. Not only do we have so much more information, it’s everywhere. In our files, on our computers at home, in our email, and on our phones. It follows us, mocking us as we attempt to keep up with the never-ending flow. Just when you think you might be close to ALMOST catching up, another thirty “must read” articles, emails and Google alerts appear and you know there will be another thirty before lunch. Oh, and let’s not forget text, instant messages, tweets and status updates.

Technology has damned us. And technology will save us.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all of the information in your life, relax, take a deep breath, exhale, and repeat after me: “I will never get caught up and I don’t have to.”

Because you don’t have to, even if you could. What you do have to do is become a better librarian.

Librarians manage vast amounts of information. They read a lot but they don’t read everything. Instead, they know what they have and where to find it, and if you want to gain control over the tsunami of information that washes over you every day, you need to do the same.

Librarians have a system for processing, storing, and retrieving information. They

  • Collect,
  • Categorize,
  • File, and
  • Find.

They had a system for doing this in the non-digital days (remember card files?) and today, they use technology. You can, too.

. . .if you took away every piece of software I own and left me with Evernote (and an Internet browser) I could run my two businesses, blogs, and personal life without missing a beat.

I don’t practice any more but I still have an immense amount of information I need to manage. After many attempts at other software solutions, today I use Evernote for everything. In fact, if you took away every piece of software I own and left me with Evernote (and an Internet browser) I could run my two businesses, blogs, and personal life without missing a beat. (Actually, I could be 100% cloud-based and use only the Evernote web app instead of the desktop client.)

Evernote allows me to collect, organize, label, and access information (notes, docs, task lists, audios, photos, etc.) at any time from anywhere. My Evernote account syncs my laptop (windows), my iPhone, and “the cloud” (web app). I enter information via my desktop application, via email, and via a web clipper that allows me to capture entire web pages or any portion thereof. With my iPhone (Android and other platforms are also supported) I record audio notes, take photos of a whiteboard or paper notes (or anything else), and enter text notes, and send them directly to my EN account.

Notes are organized via notebooks and tags. I can quickly find whatever I need by browsing or by searching tags and/or key words. I can also share notes and notebooks with my wife or business partners and I can make designated notes (or notebooks) public.

I store everything in Evernote: notes, web clippings, ideas, checklists, pdfs, photos, my copy writing “swipe” list. I’m moving all of “My Documents” into Evernote. Then, I’ll start scanning the mountain of paper notes I have collected over the years and go 100% paperless. In addition to having ubiquitous access to my information, Evernote provides an extra layer of back-up protection. If my computer goes down, my information won’t go down with it. (I also back-up my local EN database via an external drive and via Mozy.)

But I don’t just use Evernote for storage and retrieval, I also use Evernote every day as part of my work flow. I write everything in Evernote (this post started out there) and I use it all day long as (part of) my task management system. (I’ll share my gtd system in a later post.)

Evernote won’t let you jettison your time/billing or document assembly applications and it won’t let you edit videos. It doesn’t create spreadsheets or Powerpoint slides. But for managing large amounts of information, I’ve found nothing better. I’ve used OneNote (and loved it) and before that, InfoSelect (and loved that, too) but Evernote stands in a class by itself.

Evernote is free and there is a paid version with additional capacity and features. Download it and fall in love with it today.

—

Read Part 2 of this series.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Productivity, Technology, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Register for this free goal setting webinar and achieve your goals in 2011

January 12, 2011 by
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“Most people fail to achieve the goals they set,” my mentor and personal coach David Byrd told a group of 2000 entrepreneurs over the weekend. You probably already knew that. But do you know why?

The first part of the answer is that they don’t know how to set goals in the first place.

Should you choose goals that are so easy you know you will accomplish them? Well, if you do that, you’ll feel good about accomplishing a lot of goals but you won’t see much growth. So how about choosing huge, lofty goals you will probably never accomplish? Is that the answer?

I used to think so. For years, I set goals I never came close to achieving. Year after year I would set the same goals and year after year, fail to accomplish them. It was discouraging and eventually, I lost interest in goal setting.

Now, things are different. I know how to set goals that are both inspiring and achievable and I am achieving them. But not just because I know how to set them properly. You also need a system for goal achievement.

On Wednesday, January 19, I’m hosting a webinar featuring David Byrd who will teach you how to set goals and achieve goals. You’ll learn a system he has used for more than thirty years working with professionals, executives, and business owners, as an executive leadership coach.

The webinar is 100% free and I promise you will learn a lot that you can use to achieve more in 2011.

Click here for details and to register.

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Filed Under: Goal Setting, Mentors & Coaches, Personal development, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

You wouldn’t be reading this if I didn’t have a blog

May 19, 2010 by
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I talk to a lot of lawyers who tell me they don’t have time for blogging or marketing on the Internet (or any marketing, for that matter). You’ve heard me say it before, marketing is the most important part of building a law practice.

I don’t care how good you are at practicing law, if you don’t have (enough) clients, you’re going to starve. And while your reputation and the natural referrals that flow to you as a result of doing a good job for your clients cannot be discounted, if you aren’t regularly engaging in marketing-related activities, you’re making a big mistake.

Marketing will bring you

  • More clients
  • Better clients
  • Better paying clients
  • More time (by hiring and/or outsourcing more lawyers and staff)
  • Writing and speaking assignments (that further build your reputation and bring you more clients, better clients, etc.)
  • Do I need to go on?

In the online world, you need (a) quality content, in (b) sufficient quantity, to attract (c) more traffic to your web site. People come, they see you as an authority who offers value (good content), and they (a) hire you, (b) refer clients, and/or (c) opt-in to your newsletter or other lists whereby you can stay in touch with them until they are ready to (a) hire you, or (b) refer clients.

But that’s just for starters. The traffic you generate to your blog who like what you have to say will tell others about you and your blog and those others will, in turn, (a) hire you, (b) refer clients to you, and (c) opt-in to your lists whereby you can stay in touch with them until they are ready. . .

And (and this is the big point) those visitors do the same. On the Internet, the growth of your web site and your practice is geometric, as this recent article explains. More begets more and if you’re not leveraging this opportunity for growth, you are missing out.

And so instead of saying, “I don’t have time. . .” you should be asking, “How can I find the time. . .”, because once you’ve made that transition, you will find the time. We all have 25 hours a day (God gave lawyers one extra hour) and we cannot manage time, all we can do is manage our priorities. When your priorities change, so will your schedule.

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Filed Under: Blogging, Increase your income, List building, Online Marketing, Referrals, Time Management, Web traffic

What is your highest and best use?

November 5, 2007 by
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As a lawyer, you do a lot of activities throughout the week, but what do you do best?

Take the time to answer this question because if you want to have the maximum success of which you are capable, what you do best is what you should do most of the time.

You may be good at a lot of things but you will achieve
more by becoming BRILLIANT at just a few.

Society pays top dollar for mastery. Your strategy should be to focus on your strengths and make them even stronger. Too often, we focus on improving our weaknesses. We realize that we don’t know how to build a web site, for example, and so we set out to learn. But learning how to build a web site is not going to make us more valuable to our clients. It is not the “highest and best use” of our time.

The 80/20 princple says that the majority of our results, probably in the neighborhood of 80%, come from a minority of our efforts (probably 20%). Conversely, only 20% of our results are derived from 80% of our activities. We can multiply our effectiveness, therefore, by spending more time on those high payoff, 20% activities that bring 80% of our results.

What are your 20% activities? What do you do best? What is it that if you could only do more of, it would add tremendous value to your practice? What brings you more income? What makes you more valuable to your clients? More attractive to referral sources?

When I set out to answer this question myself, I did an exercise that was a real eye-opener.The idea is to track all of your activities for a full week (in a spiral notebook or legal pad), noting everything you do, minute by minute, from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed. (If you want, you can limit this exercise to just your work hours, but if you’re like me, the line between work time and personal time is usually blurry.) Record everything you do, even if it takes just a minute or two, and how much time you spend doing it.

When you’re done, you should have a list of at least 50 activities you do throughout the week and the amount of time spent on each. Now, go through the list and put a star next to those things you believe are high payoff activities. They produce work product, generate revenue, or otherwise have a material role in your job description.

Now comes the hard part. Look again at the starred list and identify the THREE most important activities you do, the ones that give you the very highest payoff. What three things constitue "20% activities that produce 80% of results"? What if you come up with five things, or seven, or ten? Keep looking. Most of the time, you will be able to zero in on three things that contribute 80% of your results. You may have to combine items or describe them differently, but keep looking until you find those three.

The next step is to add up the amount of time you spent on these three activities. Based on the number of hours you work each week, what percentage of your time was spent on these three activities?

If you’re like most people, you probably spend less than 30% of your time on high payoff activities. Imagine what would happen if you could double the time you spend on those activities.

YOUR RESULTS WOULD GO UP 160%!

That’s because you would be investing two blocks of time on activities that now produce 80% of your results, so you would get two blocks of 80% results. A corollary is that by spending more time on high payoff activities, you would get more accomplished in less time. If you are satisfied with the results you are getting but want to cut your work hours, this is the way.

Where do you find the time to do more high payoff activities? By eliminating as much of your low payoff activities as possible. Look at your list. What can you eliminate completely? Be ruthless. Remember, every hour of time you reclaim will be worth much more than an hour to you when you reinvest it in high payoff activities.

Next, for anything on the list that cannot be eliminated completely, look for ways to delegate or outsource them.

Your objective is to do only what you do best and delegate the rest.

You will find a number of activities that aren’t high payoff (your list of three) but cannot be eliminated or delegated. You are the one who must do them. First ask, "Is that really true?" We often fool ourselves into believing that nobody can do what we do, when in fact, there are many who can do it as well, or almost as well, and sometimes, better! Again, if it’s not one of your high payoff activities, find someone else to do it.

For those things that you and only you can do do, look for ways to do them less often. Do you really have to do them every week? And, what can you do more quickly? Are their any tools you could use? Can you get some training on how to do it more efficiently?

Finally, give yourself permission to relinquish perfectionism. Some things just aren’t as important as others, and while we still need to do them, "good enough" might just be good enough.

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Filed Under: Productivity, Time Management Tagged With:

Marketing legal services in 15 minutes a day

October 15, 2007 by
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Marketing your law practice is like exercising–it works best when you do a little bit every day.

I started walking recently, about thirty minutes, five days a week. In the couple of months since I started, I’ve lost weight, cut my appetite, and gained energy. I feel better, too. I’m exercising a few minutes every day and I’m getting results. And because it’s only a few minutes a day (and because I’m getting results) I can and will continue.

The results didn’t happen overnight, however. I didn’t see any changes the first day or the second or third. It took weeks of continued effort before I saw appreciable improvements. Marketing is like that, too. You do a little bit every day, and over time, the compounding effect of your efforts kicks in.

Lawyers often feel about marketing like they do about getting in shape: there’s too much to do, no time to do it, and it will take too long before you see results. And so, like an exercise program, they never start. Or they start, but because they are trying to do too much, too quickly, they don’t stick with it. It doesn’t have to be that way. You can be successful in marketing your practice in as little as 15 minutes a day. Here are a few "rules":

  • Do something every day. 15 minutes a day is better than an hour, once a week. Consistency, over time (persistency) is key.
  • Do it yourself. You can delegate some aspects of your marketing, but it’s important that you are involved in the process, learning, making mistakes, taking responsibility, and developing your marketing muscles. And don’t even think of delegating relationship building.
  • Don’t trust your memory–calendar it. Block out 15 minutes a day or 30 minutes a day, five days a week on your calendar, like an appointment, and KEEP THAT APPOINTMENT! Don’t schedule clients during that time, don’t take calls during that time, and don’t re-schedule that time. Trust me, if you don’t do this, in a week, you’ll be completely off schedule. (C’mon, you know I’m right!)
  • Focus on the activity, not the results. Marketing professional services takes time, especially since so much of it is relationship building. If you look at the results you’re getting, you can get frustrated and miss the big picuture. If you focus on doing the activities consistently, every day is a success. In time, the results will come, but only if you do enough activity over a long enough period of time.

So, what do you do in that 15 minutes? Plenty. Here are some ideas to get you started:

  1. Read this blog and others, like this, this, or this, and write down marketing ideas
  2. Call a client and say hello (Yes, that’s marketing and you will be amazed at how well it works)
  3. Invite a referral source or client to lunch
  4. Send a client an article you clipped from a trade journal
  5. Send a note: thank you, congratulations, happy birthday, thinking of you (also amazingly powerful)
  6. Brainstorm ideas/chapters for a speech, article, report, book, ebook, etc.
  7. Research local organizations that might need speakers
  8. Call a client and ask him to introduce you to his CPA or insurance agent
  9. Write a brief "needs" survey to send to old clients
  10. Call or surf for information about joining your local chamber of commerce, Rotary, or BNI
  11. Register to take a public speaking class at community college or Toastmasters
  12. Write an article: "The top ten things everyone needs to know about [your practice area]"
  13. Browse through amazon.com to find (a) books for you to read, (b) gifts for clients, (c) ideas for books/articles you can write, (d) books you have read and can comment on (and link to your web site)
  14. Look at a competitor’s web site for ideas for yours
  15. Send an email to "friends of the firm" updating them on new hires, successful cases, additions to your web site
  16. Research services for hosting your online newsletter or website
  17. Research blog platforms to see which one is best for your new blog
  18. Read an article from a magazine read by decision makers in your target market
  19. Send an article to someone in your target market
  20. Research venues, costs, dates for a seminar
  21. Email and recommend online resources to some of your clients
  22. Research professionals with whom you might co-market or network
  23. Write or revise your "elevator speech"
  24. Read books, web pages, ebooks, blogs, on marketing, advertising, publicity, search engines
  25. Buy a domain name for your future web site and branded email
  26. Brainstorm questions to ask fellow professionals you can interview for your newsletter
  27. Post comments on a blog, link to your web site/blog
  28. Post on your blog, or brainstorm ideas for subjects for future articles
  29. Browse www.infousa.com for ideas for target markets, possible referral sources
  30. Update your lists: contacts, clients, prospects, newsletter, etc.
  31. Create a postcard you can mail to inexpensively "clean" your mailing list
  32. Research online/offline publications where you can submit articles
  33. Read other lawyers’ blawgs for ideas, information, networking opportunities
  34. Read about and implement legal technology to "find" more time for marketing
  35. Find a "work out" partner, to share marketing ideas, accountability
  36. Research networking groups in your area and forums where you can network online
  37. Create a marketing calendar and list projects to undertake throughout the year
  38. Start a marketing "journal" where you record ideas, resources, questions, progress
  39. Go to classmates.com or martindale.com to find old friends you can contact
  40. Brainstorm possible niche markets, their problems/needs, publications, groups, advisors
  41. Write a press release to announce your new report, web site, offer, award, verdict, etc.
  42. Research online press release distribution services
  43. Set up an account with Google Adwords and experiment with  pay per click advertising
  44. Find online marketing gurus and subscribe to their mailing lists
  45. Set up Google Analytics to track traffic to your web site
  46. Go through your local yellow pages to find professionals you can contact
  47. Draft a "phone survey" for contacting professionals (publish the results in your newsletter)
  48. Draft questions someone should ask when they interview you
  49. Write or re-write your bio
  50. Examine your brochure or other marketing piece for revision
  51. Investigate "music on hold" advertising messages for your phone system

Where do you start? It doesn’t matter. Just start.

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Filed Under: Marketing legal services, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: ,

Do only what you do best; delegate the rest

October 1, 2007 by
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You can’t do everything, nor should you try. You should do only what you do best and delegate everything else.

Consultant and trainer, Brian Tracy, advises to find out what you love to do and design your career around it. "If you could only perform one task all day long, from morning to night, what one activity at work would you select?" ["Create Your Own Future", 2002, p.86]

Leadership expert John Maxwell Maxwell agrees. "I strive for excellence in a few things rather than a good performance in many."

When he delegates tasks, Maxwell uses the 10-80-10 principle: "I help with the first 10 percent by casting vision, laying down parameters, providing resources, and giving encouragement. Then, once they’ve done the middle 80 percent, I come alongside them again and help them take whatever it is the rest of the way, if I can. I call it putting the cherry on top." ["Thinking for a change," 2003, page 91.]

What do you do best? THAT’S what you should do. Let others do the rest.

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Filed Under: Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: ,

How do you find time for marketing?

September 4, 2007 by
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Where do you find the time for marketing? Some projects require several hours to several days, but many tasks you need to do can be done in minutes. 15 minutes today, 15 minutes tomorrow, and you can achieve amazing results.

Yes, 15 minutes a day is enough, but you must do it every day. It is consistency of effort more than quanity of time that counts. It is the little things you do, in the aggregate, that compound, over time, to create meaningful results.

I recommend that you schedule that time, in advance, and put it on your calendar. Make an appointment with yourself, record it, and KEEP THAT APPOINTMENT!

If you set up a 15 minute appointment for next Thursday at 2 pm, then next Thursday at 2 pm, you do the activity scheduled on your calendar. If a client calls and wants to schedule an appointment on Thursday at 2 pm, your secretary needs to tell the client that you already have an appointment and move the client to 2:15.

You may not yet know what it is that you will do on these appointments, but schedule them anyway. Set aside 15 minutes a day, every day, for marketing. If you don’t have a specific task to do, use that time to read marketing books or make lists of ideas to be explored in the future.

Anyone can invest 15 minutes a day in marketing.

Will you?

Sadly, most of the attorneys who read this won’t. I urge you to give it a try for 30 days. You will be pleasantly surprised at the results.

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Filed Under: Time Management

How I (finally) got organized

August 27, 2007 by
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I‘m in love!

Well, okay, when you’re talking about a piece of software, that might be a bit strong. But, I can’t help it…

I really am IN LOVE!

The software I’m talking about is Info Select. It’s been around for twenty years and I can’t believe I just found out about it.

Info Select is an information management system that allows you to organize EVERYTHING: notes, contact info, ideas, emails, phone logs, client data, calendars, presentations, research…

EVERYTHING!

I don’t use Outlook anymore. I use Word only occasionally. I’m getting rid of mounds of loose scraps, notes, reminders, post-its that have adorned my office for years. I can see my desk again!

I can now find anything I’m looking for by using Info Select’s robust search capability.

Here’s what one lawyer says about a previous version:
http://www.stepup.com.au/product/isw6/lawyer.htm

More info:
http://www.innovationtools.com/Tools/SoftwareDetails.asp?a=68

Here’s the company web site: http://miclog.com. They offer a thirty-day free trial. Careful, it’s addicting!

If you use Info Select, please share your experiences. If you haven’t, check it out!

David Ward
“Be a mentor with a servant’s heart!”

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