7 ways to write faster

January 30, 2015 by
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My goals this year require me to do more writing. To accomplish this, I plan to write faster.

The faster I write, the more work product I will get out the door producing more income, bringing more traffic, generating more leads, and building my brand.

Here’s how I plan to accomplish this:

(1) Stick with what I know

One of the biggest causes of writers’ block is not knowing what you want to say. When you write about what you know, writing is easier and faster.

You also don’t have to do a lot of research. If I do need to research a particular subject, I’ll either do it before I write, so as to not interrupt the flow, or “write around it,” i.e., leave a blank and come back to the subject later.

(2) Create more detailed outlines

I often find myself going down rabbit holes and off on side roads in my writing because I haven’t done enough advance planning. More detailed outlines will allow me to know what I’m going to say before I say it. That will allow me to not only write faster, but avoid wasting time on topics that are off subject.

(3) Write shorter

I’m working on a book now that will be less than one-third the length of the previous one. Shorter writing means more readers coming into my funnel. It also means I can get onto the next project that much quicker.

To write shorter, I’ll (a) choose narrower topics and (b) leave out some details, explanations, and examples.

(4) Bigger daily word count

I write every day, but I don’t crank out as many words as I know I could. This year, I’m committed to a bigger daily word count. I’ll do that by using the AIC method (“ass in chair”).

(5) Dictate more

I wrote most of the first draft of the book I’m working on now in a few hours. How? By looking at my outline and dictating it. I’ll transcribe it myself and flesh it out as I do so.

I’ll also try working more with Dragon Naturally Speaking, which I haven’t yet been able to master.

(6) More music to tame my inner teenager

After about 15 minutes of writing, I feel the urge to check email or do something else on the Internet. It gets me out of “flow” and takes me longer to get back on track.

Music helps me write for longer periods of time. Classical or new age; nothing with lyrics.

(7) Reward myself

Yes, the work product, and the income it will generate, is its own reward. Nevertheless, I’ve got a couple of new books I’m itching to crack open, digitally speaking. I’m looking forward to finishing my work for the day so I can get my reward.

So, no more time to chat. I’ve got words to write before I rest, and miles to go before I sleep.

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Productivity, Time Management, Web traffic, Writing

What you focus on is what you get

January 27, 2015 by
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You can’t be successful at everything. If you’re smart, you’ll make a big list of everything you’d like to do this year, narrow it down to ten things, and then choose just 3 or 4 goals or objectives to focus on this year.

That’s what Steve Jobs did with Apple.

The key to success is focus. Choose a few things and spend most of your time on those.

I have one major business goal this year. If I accomplish it, it will transform my business and I will be a happy camper. To achieve this goal, I have two big projects I’m working on. Depending on how things go, I might take on a third project, but no more. To achieve exceptional results, I must stay focused.

It’s not a lack of discipline that keeps us from achieving our goals. It’s a lack of focus.

Clarity gives us focus. If you are clear about what you want to accomplish in the next few years, you can focus on the work that will help you get there. If you are unclear about your future, your focus will be fuzzy and your efforts will be scattered and inconsistent.

Clarity gives you focus and focus gives you momentum.

So, what do you want? What are 3 or 4 goals or projects you intend to focus on this year?

You may not need 3 or 4. You may need only one. A major goal that will decidedly advance you towards your long term vision.

Perhaps that one goal is to reach a certain income level. If you achieve this, it will take care of a lot of other goals. If you increase your income enough, you don’t need a separate goal of paying off back taxes, for example.

Now, with goal in hand, you can focus on achievement. What do you need to do to accomplish this goal?

You can accomplish anything you want in life, you just can’t accomplish everything. Get clear about what you really want and focus on that. Because what you focus on is what you get.

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Filed Under: Goal Setting, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: ,

Need more time? What would you do with it?

January 26, 2015 by
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I just upgraded my modem and my download speed has literally doubled. And yes, I can tell. Everything opens faster. Pages scroll faster. Videos are smoother.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Also, the old modem was starting to go down frequently, requiring a re-set. Lately, this had been happening almost every day.

I’m on my computer most of the day and I figure that by swapping out the modem, I’m saving several minutes a day. That got me thinking about what else I might do to save more time.

What if I could consistently “find” 15 minutes a day, by cutting things out and speeding things up? Counting weekdays only, this would give me an extra 5.5 hours of month I could use for other things.

How about you? If you had an extra 5.5 hours per month, how would you use the time?

If you bill five hours a day, or the equivalent in flat fee work, you would be getting an extra billable day per month. Let’s say that’s $1500 to you. What could you do with an additional $1500 of found money?

Hire a part time employee? Buy more ads? Pay down debt? Move to a bigger office?

Perhaps you could use the time to learn a new skill. Catch up on your reading. Or go for a walk after lunch.

How about using that 15 minutes a day for marketing and bring in some new clients each month?

Hey, there’s a thought.

The point is that a few minutes a day, every day, adds up. Over time, it could lead to dramatic results.

Think about where you might find that time, starting with upgrading your technology.

Then, look for other areas where you can cut out wasted time. A different route to work, shorter meetings, learning how to type faster, upgrading your office procedures.

You say you need more time to do what you need to do? This is an easy way to get it.

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Filed Under: Productivity, Technology, Time Management

If the IRS was in charge of your marketing

January 19, 2015 by
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In school, we had deadlines for finishing papers and projects and being ready for exams. If it weren’t for those deadlines, many of us would never have done the work.

Today, we have more deadlines. Statutes of limitations, court dates, appointments, CLE compliance due dates, bills to pay, tax returns to file, and many more. We also have deadlines tied to our promises to other people, e.g., when the work will be done or the papers will be delivered.

Sometimes we miss a deadline and suffer the consequences, but for the most part, the system works. It works not just because we are aware of the penalties for missing deadlines but because there is a specific date reminding us that something is due.

What about all of the other things we want to do, or need to do, that don’t have a deadline? Too often, we don’t get these done. They may relate to our most important goals but because there is no deadline, no due date, they get pushed aside.

Countless studies, which I am too lazy to look up, have shown that scheduling these “open” tasks dramatically increases the odds that we will do them.

Let’s say you set a goal to increase your income this year. Part of your plan is to bring in more clients by adding one blog post or article to your site each week. The weeks are flying by, however, and you haven’t written the first article, or you wrote one or two but aren’t keeping up.

Because there is no deadline, you’re not doing the work.

It’s not that you can’t do it. If you knew that you had to get the work done by a certain date or the IRS would seize your bank accounts, you would get the work done.

So, give yourself a deadline.

Decide when you will write those articles and schedule time on your calendar specifically for that purpose. Make an appointment with yourself and tell your staff not to schedule you for anything during that time.

When Thursday at 4PM rolls around and you see on your calendar that you have an appointment to write your weekly post, you’ll be more likely to write it.

Tell yourself that you can either write it or sit at your desk and stare at the wall for 60 minutes. Your “client” (you) has paid for that time. So no Facebook or reading or anything else.

You can also impose penalties for missing your deadlines. You might authorize your accountant to automatically send $1,000 to a politician you detest if you fail to send the accountant a copy of your completed post by the due date.

You can also reward yourself for making your deadlines. For each post your write, for example, you get to watch another episode of your favorite TV show.

But while penalties and rewards can help, just having a deadline will often be enough.

Try it. Choose something you need to do and put it on your calendar. Give yourself a deadline for getting it done. I’m betting you’ll do it, but just in case, I’ll tell the IRS to keep an eye on you.

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Filed Under: Marketing Plan, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With: , ,

Don’t break the chain

January 9, 2015 by
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You know a lawyer whose practice is rocking. More business than she can handle, lots of money, busy as all hell. Three years ago, she had just opened her doors. No clients, tiny office, nothing happening.

How did she get from a standing start to where she is today?

Many factors could have contributed to her growth, including talent, connections, hard work, and luck. But one factor may be more important than you might think.

Momentum.

When she started her practice, she did some things to bring in business, and then she kept doing them. She got better at them, and did them faster. She got progressively bigger results. Those results compounded and she continued to grow, until her practice reached the tipping point and became the juggernaut it is today.

Momentum is a critical factor in anything we do. Creating it is the hardest part of anything we do.

It’s like pushing a car from a dead stop. It takes a lot of effort to overcome inertia, but once the car starts rolling, it gets easier, and then easier still, until you have to do little more than lean on it to keep it going.

Alrighty then, how do we create momentum?

We do it with consistency.

Whatever it is you need to do, you do it regularly. You don’t “do” some marketing this week and pick it up again in six months. You do a little bit every day or every week.

You get better at it. It becomes easier. You do it faster and get better results.

Your results affect other areas of your life. If you build momentum with an exercise program, you get more energy to do other things. You might finally be able to read that book you’ve been wanting to read, or start that new website project.

When you write a blog post or newsletter article each week, you become a better writer, of course, but you may also become a better speaker. You may get better at networking, too, as you reach out to other professionals to invite them to do a guest post for you and as they do the same for you.

When Jerry Seinfeld was starting out, he promised himself that he would write one new joke every day. Every day he did it, he made a mark on his calendar. As the marks piled up, he kept going because he didn’t want to “break the chain”.

In any area you want to improve, find something you can do and do it. Walk for ten minutes three times a week. Write two paragraphs every morning. Invite one professional to lunch every week.

Get started and don’t break the chain. Consistency breeds momentum, and momentum breeds results.

If you need a marketing plan that really works, get this. 

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Filed Under: Increase your income, Law office management, Marketing legal services, Marketing Plan, Personal development, Productivity, Time Management Tagged With:

The perfect time management system

December 11, 2014 by
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If you ever find yourself emotionally caught up in the need to get organized, if you continually try new techniques or apps only to abandon them in favor of something else, if you are on a never ending quest to find the perfect time management system, stop.

Just stop.

The perfect time management system doesn’t exist.

There are many productive, happy people in the world who use almost no system at all.

The have a calendar. They make a list of what they need to do for the day. They have files they can turn to when they need something. And. . . that’s about it.

The don’t make elaborate lists, with tags and contexts for every task. A post it note is usually enough.

They don’t obsess over goal setting. They might not set any goals at all.

But their system works. They don’t forget things. And they never worry about having too much to do.

Their system works because they trust their subconscious mind. They know that it knows what’s important and will tell them what to do next.

Don’t hate on them. Learn from them. They’re right, you know. Your subconscious mind knows what you need to do.

I know, you’re life is complicated and you need more. You can still use your favorite tools and techniques. Just don’t obsess over them, or spend so much time tweaking them that you don’t have time for anything else.

The new year is almost upon us. That’s a good time to re-think your system. Get rid of things that aren’t serving you and simplify everything else.

You might want to mentally start over. Pretend you have no system. One by one, add back things that work.

No system is right for everyone. Find the one that works for you.

What me worry? Nah, I use Evernote to organize everything.

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Filed Under: Law office management, Personal development, Productivity, Time Management

Would you like to get started today or is next week better for you?

November 11, 2014 by
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In sales, the “alternative choice close” is a well known technique for getting the client to buy something, rather than nothing. You ask them if they want “A” or “B” and no matter which one they choose, they’re buying something.

“Credit card or check?” “Deluxe package or basic package?” “Would you like to come in at noon or 4:30?”

Clients want you to help them make a decision. They know they might procrastinate and never get the work done. When you help them take action and get the benefits they want and need, you’re acting in their best interest.

And did I mention you’ll also get more clients?

Anyway, you can also use the “alternative choice” concept to improve your own decision making and productivity. It can help you reduce procrastination.

The idea is to always have more than one project you’re working on, or could be.

Writer Geoff Dyer put it this way:

Have more than one idea on the go at any one time. If it’s a choice between writing a book and doing nothing I will always choose the latter. It’s only if I have an idea for two books that I choose one rather than the other.

If you find yourself procrastinating on Project A, you can turn to Project B. Or Project C. When you find yourself resisting something, work on something else.

You probably do this now with client files. When you are frustrated or bored or unsure of what to do next on a given file, you put it aside and work another.

I do this with blog post and other writing projects. I’ve got lots of irons in the fire and when I run out of steam on something, I’ve always got something else I can work on.

I also do this with reading books. I have thousands of books in my Kindle and I usually read two or three of them at a time. When I find myself losing interest with one, I turn to another.

You can use the “alternative choice” concept for anything you’re working on, or should be. Calls, letters, documents (drafting or reviewing), even errands. Always have something else lined up, because doing “A” or “B” will always be better than doing nothing.

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Filed Under: Closing the sale, Law office management, Personal development, Productivity, Salesmanship, Time Management Tagged With:

Another example of how to write a blog post quickly

November 4, 2014 by
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Yesterday, I showed you how to write a blog post quickly, in about 15 minutes. Today, I’m showing you another kind of blog post that’s quick to write.

It’s based on the notion of serving your readers by providing them with valuable or interesting information, including information that was written by someone else. You’re like a librarian or bookseller: “Here’s something I think you might like to read”.

So, you find an article or post that would be appropriate to share with your list and link to it. Add a few comments to add interest and value. You could say what you like about the article, or what you agree with, and what you don’t like or don’t agree with.

You might also add something the author didn’t mention, or add a story about how you or someone you know have used the information or concept in the article.

To illustrate, here’s an article I thought was interesting for anyone who has a boss or is a boss. It’s called, “10 Traits of a Bad Boss”.

Can you see yourself or your employer in any of these 10 traits?

  1. Speaks offensively and seldom communicates with the team.
  2. Fear is his/her form of motivation.
  3. Wants complete control over your job.
  4. Blames the team for failures.
  5. Does not consider suggestions other than his own.
  6. Does not do his/her job properly and you work harder than him/her.
  7. Does not provide guidance.
  8. Does not have a firm goal or vision.
  9. Ignores the importance of team-building activities.
  10. Your boss makes you work hard but the compensation is low.

My favorite is number 3 since I see so many attorneys having difficulty delegating work to their employees. Learning how to delegate much of the work in my office was one of the keys to multiplying my income. It allowed me to earn more and work less. It freed up time so I could do more marketing which further grew my income.

I take issue with number 10. Compensation is a two way street. If you don’t like what you’re being paid, improve your skills and ask for more, or simply go work somewhere else.

Offering low compensation doesn’t make you a bad boss. It could hurt your profits, however. Offering higher compensation generally allows you to hire better employees who usually earn you far more than the increased salary you pay them. You also have lower costs for turnover and training.

So there you have it. Another type of post that you can write quickly.

Did you write a blog post yesterday? Will you write one today?

For lots of ideas for writing blog posts and marketing your legal services online, get this

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Filed Under: Blogging, Newsletters, Productivity, Time Management, Writing

Maybe we’re not using our calendars enough

October 14, 2014 by
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Most people use their calendar to record appointments and deadlines and little else. Followers of David Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology see the calendar as a place to record the “hard landscape” of their life, meaning only those things that need to get done on specific days and times.

We might want to start using our calendars more liberally.

In an interview, Stanford professor, Jennifer Aaker, author of The Dragonfly Effect, said that, “people who spend more time on projects that energize them and with people who energize them tend to be happier. However, what is interesting is that there is often a gap between where people say they want to spend their time and how they actually spend their time.”

Those gaps, she says, occur primarily because we don’t write down those activities. Adding them to a to do list is good; scheduling them on a calendar is even better:

“When you put something on a calendar, you’re more likely to actually do that activity–partly because you’re less likely to have to make an active decision whether you should do it — because it’s already on your calendar.”

If you want to get in shape, for example, instead of merely planning to exercise after work, put it on your calendar.

I have long recommended scheduling marketing time (even 15 minutes a day) on your calendar as an appointment. If you do this, you know it makes it much more likely that you will do it. Of course you have to treat it like a real appointment, a “must do,” and not a “would be nice to do”.

In a nutshell, using our calendars to schedule time for people and projects that energize us and are consistent with our goals can make us happier and more productive.

What might you add to your calendar?

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity, success, Time Management Tagged With: , ,

Do you have time for sex?

October 13, 2014 by
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In consultations with lawyers, after I’ve recommended a course of action, they sometimes say, “I don’t have time for that,” when in truth, they just don’t want to do it.

“Do you have time for sex?” I’ve been known to respond. Of course they do, because sex is important to them. “Then you have time to do what you want to do, don’t you?”

There is no shortage of time. We are awash in it. We choose to allocate our time based on our priorities. So when someone says, “I don’t have time for that,” they’re really saying, “That’s not a priority”.

Be honest with yourself. It will empower you to make better choices. Instead of telling yourself you don’t have time for something, say, “I have the time, but this isn’t one of my priorities right now”.

When you receive advice you don’t want to follow, don’t hide behind a glib lack of time, admit that you don’t want to do it. It will help you achieve clarity about what direction to take. If you make a bad decision, you’ll find out soon enough and can correct course.

When someone asks for your help with something that doesn’t support your priorities, you should be tactful about declining, but decline you must. Of course if maintaining a relationship with the person who is asking for help is a priority for you, then giving them some of your time is part of the equation.

In short, you have enough time to do what’s important. Being honest with yourself and others will not only help you decide what’s important, it will help you stay focused on doing what’s important.

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Filed Under: Personal development, Productivity, Time Management
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