Feeling
overwhelmed? You may be so overloaded, busy and stressed that you do not even
have five minutes to read this article! The catch-22
is that you are the only person who
can lessen feelings of being overwhelmed, both for yourself and your team.
1. Make Time to Meet with Yourself -
Consider forcing yourself to schedule
a 15- to 30-minute appointment with yourself (alone at first) to take a step
back to assess yourself and your workload to determine what is necessary and
what can be culled from the to-do list or done differently. You may need to wake
up an hour earlier one day this week to get this done (waking up one hour early
each day is a proven productivity
booster). During this time, find a quiet place where you
will not be distracted by computers, mobile devices, interruptions, or anything
else. Then reflect on the tips below. While doing so, write any notes, thoughts
or to-dos on an (old school) piece of paper so that you can take appropriate
action in the future.
2. Assess Yourself (for Yourself) – Self-reflection
and self-awareness are hard but necessary skills to master. It is never easy to
admit one’s shortcomings to oneself, but effective leaders make conscious
efforts to do so regularly by identifying ways to better themselves and improve
their team’s productivity. The only way to self-reflect and subjectively assess
is to be still to focus only on your thoughts and what is on your mind. Thoughts
race through the mind, which often naturally overemphasizes the negative —
what’s wrong, complaints, criticisms, stress, upsetting things, etc. — and then
the person reacts.
So
a conscious and proactive effort must be made to control the thoughts that race
through the mind and remain mindful and in the present moment. As a human being and a
professional, work to become aware of what is on your mind, because your thoughts
largely dictate what you communicate and how you act or react. Work to separate your reaction from your response. Learn to have the patience
to respond strategically, rather than to simply react.
3. Analyze Your Use of Time –
Knowing precisely how you and your team members spend and invest their time is
critical to an objective assessment. As
a recent
article in Harvard Business Review
points out, without knowing exactly how time is currently
spent, it is difficult to accurately know or assess the current workload. Measurable
data is often meaningful and helpful. Most in-house law firm marketers and
business developers ironically do not formally keep track of their professional
time, while all the firm’s lawyers (the in-house marketers’ clients) do! Most time
and billing systems can be tailored to track time by staff member, lead lawyer,
project, practice group and in 10, 15 or 30-minute increments (among other
factors that can be tracked). To conduct an accurate assessment of the current
workload, at a minimum, consider tracking time for a three-month period to get
a realistic snapshot of how time is currently spent. Doing so will also help
identify projects that take more time that anticipated and possible areas of
inefficiency or waste.
4. Assess Your Self-Discipline & Use of Time –
Do you proactively manage your time each day? Do you plan ahead or mainly
react? Do you have any personal time management rules you live by? If not,
consider adopting some proven
ones. The same goes for each member of your team. Other time
management tricks include, among
others:
a .Waking up a half-hour or an hour earlier than normal
each day to exercise, plan and prepare. A secret to maintain work-life balance
is to do this every day, and on one or more weekend
days, especially on Sundays to review, plan, organize
and prepare to get a jump start on the week.
b. Planning for and scheduling specific time that
realistically works best for you to get important, non-urgent things done.
Without any distractions, i.e. close the door and turn off your cell. For
example, to get my book
written (an important but not urgent project), I planned
and scheduled 2 to 4 hours each Saturday or Sunday in the early morning and I
committed to myself to work 3 total hours per week on my book on one of those
days. It took approximately five months of persistently dedicating time to it,
but I got it done.
c. Scheduling specific email review time. Those who check email compulsorily throughout the day get distracted from accomplishing more important work and goals. Instead, schedule, or plan to look at, read and respond to email only during specific blocks of time each day - maybe early in the morning, right after lunch, late in the afternoon or while at the airport on a travel day. During the rest of the day, do not look at emails and instead do other work. Better yet, if possible, allow your assistant access to your email account and train the assistant to handle and respond to your email as appropriate, alerting you as needed.
d. Not accepting a meeting unless a specific purpose
and objective for the meeting have been established and agenda items circulated
(preferably in writing). If no specific objective or agenda has been circulated
for the meeting, initiate the drafting of one or ask what the agenda/objectives
for the meeting are (in the interests of making the best use of everyone’s
valuable time).
Worldwide, the most
successful and productive professionals are constantly on the lookout for ways
to streamline the work day and to reduce time-sucks, which leaves more time to
work on the tasks that generate results.
5. Distinguish between –
a. What’s Urgent & What’s Important: As
world-renowned author Stephen R. Covey wrote in his international best seller, The 7 Habits of Highly
Effective People®, any one day, week, month or year for the vast
majority of professionals is overwhelmed by things that are urgent but not
necessarily important — which often leaves no meaningful time to invest in what
is not urgent but important (like nonbillable marketing and business and client
development). Another way to identify what is important but not necessarily
urgent is to consider the 80/20 rule. This rule postulates that only
approximately 20 percent of what a person does each day produces 80 percent of
the results. So define that 20 percent in writing, because that is what is most
important.
b. Activity & Productivity: Many lawyers and other
professionals mistake activity for productivity. For example, doing ten
seminars or presentations is a common activity and measurable metric, but if
the seminars and presentations were done with a goal of developing new
business, the more meaningful metric that measure productivity would be how
much revenue was generated by how many clients as a direct result of the seminars
and presentations.
c. Laziness & Productivity: A recent
study by Harvard
Business Review found that sheer laziness is the No. 1 contributor to lost
productivity. In fact, common supposedly timesavers like many meetings or
emails are often just ways to get out of doing real work. 2019 is the year of
getting things done. So focus on doing the important things that matter most to
drive results as efficiently and effectively as possible.
6. Determine Highest & Best Use –
What is your highest and best use at work? What are the most important results
you/your firm want to attain, and what do you personally do best to help get
them accomplished? These are the areas of your highest and best use and what
you should be spending at least 50
percent of your time doing (ideally 80 percent or more). The same goes for all members
of your team. What is their highest and best use? Do you know whether they are
each spending at least 50 percent of their professional time directly on activities
that produce results aligned with their highest and best use? If not, consider
recalibrating.
7. Create & Use a System for Yourself & Your
Team – Consider assessing the above for your team also.
For example, if you and your team do not have and use an organization, prioritization,
project management, tracking and reporting system and routine, consider
creating or using one, either through old-fashioned spreadsheets or lists, or
the much more sophisticated, collaborative and efficient online resources such as
Asana, Airtable, Basecamp, Smartsheet or others. For other tips, see my recent post on my blog
or on LinkedIn
Pulse titled: Practical
Ways to Track and Measure Marketing, Business Development and Sales Results in
Law Firms.
8. Prioritize – Review your responsibilities and each team
member’s individual
responsibilities. Is most of the time spent on highest and best use(s)? Is most
time spent on the projects and initiatives that generate the most results? List
the activities or tasks that should be prioritized. Not all projects and tasks
deserve the same importance and not everything has to be done today. By creating
and using a consistent, teamwide prioritization method and reporting procedure,
you help everyone make the best use of time and focus on what is most
important.
9. Plan & Hold
Weekly Meetings – Schedule, plan and hold
weekly meetings with your team, as necessary. Create and follow an agenda, perhaps to discuss
and decide on one to three goals that you will focus on for that week and then
ask all team members to identify
what steps they’ll need to take in order to achieve each goal. For important
topics and issues that fall outside of the day-to-day demands of the current
workload, consider scheduling and planning an off-site meeting or retreat to discuss, brainstorm and plan for other important
but not urgent items (such as some of the issues described in this article).
10. Eliminate – Many things done during a workday have
minimal effect on productivity and results. Many tasks and things are
repeatedly done, and often more than once, by more than one person each day,
week or month. Redundancy, overlap and errors are frequent and usually everywhere,
which is why Six Sigma was born. Assess
and consider what can be eliminated, streamlined or consolidated. If you and
your department do not engage or have not engaged in project improvement,
consider starting small and do so for one project only — let’s say for the next
conference or seminar your department is producing. Work as a team to break the
project down into steps (in writing) and then systematically review and discuss
what can be eliminated, combined, consolidated, streamlined and/or outsourced
until your team ends up focusing most of their time on the 20 percent of the
project that gets the 80 percent of results. By dissecting a big project, your team will feel more focused, and their
task lists will become more manageable.
11. Minimize Other Distractions for Yourself & Your
Team – These days, by far the No. 1 greatest distraction
and time-suck for all professionals is personal smartphones and mobile devices.
Given that the
average person checks theirs between 80 to over 150 times a day, and to refocus on what they were doing before takes up 10 to 30
minutes, the amount of time and productivity lost is astronomical (and
growing). Does your firm or department have a policy
on the use of personal mobile devices at work?
If not, consider creating one and perhaps also consider testing or purchasing Yonder pouches
for your team. Remember, in actual emergencies, family members can always contact
the employee or the employee’s supervisor by phone (as was the practice for
over a hundred years plus before the invention of cell phones). Other common distractions
at work include interruptions, some types of meetings and some types of phone calls,
which time management techniques can help minimize.
13.Schedule Breaks – Model best behavior for your
team by personally scheduling and taking short breaks, by yourself or with one
or more team members. A five- to 15-minute break at least twice a day to take a
quick stroll, have quiet time or grab a coffee does wonders. If no one on your
team has the time to take breaks (other than to eat lunch), at least schedule
“standing” or “walking” meetings, arrange to meet at a coffee shop or initiate other
creative ways to get professionals away from their desks and mix up the daily routine.
A Staples
study
found that 66 percent of employees do not take a break other than lunch, even
though it is proven
that taking breaks keeps us fresh and more productive and helps avoid burnout.
14. Find Other Ways to Get
the Work Done – To handle the never-ending workload,
regularly search for other ways to get the work done and think outside of the box.
Ask members of your team for their ideas of possible ways to get the work done
more efficiently. Or schedule a team brainstorming
session to generate the best ways to simplify projects and processes
or eliminate certain projects or tasks altogether. Regularly addressing this
issue as a team generates the best volume and variety of ideas and options, and
fosters a professional “teamwork makes the dream work” environment.
Examples of other ways to get work done more efficiently (and often more cost-effectively) include:
- Asking internally about and utilizing firm staff not on your team or in your department (as available).
- Hiring temps or interns from local colleges to get specific tasks done.
- Hiring qualified outside resources on a fixed or flat fee basis to get specific projects or tasks done, such as: media coverage, attorney bio updates, content drafting, client interviews, market and industry research, training programs, coaching sessions, etc.
15.
Just Say “No” –
This efficiency euphemism is much easier said than done for any
marketer/business developer who works for a law firm or other professional
service firm. Being of service, accessible and responsive is very important,
and saying no to the wrong partner can be a death knell. But more firm leaders
are allowing the marketing/business development leader and staff to say no
to certain requests that leadership has determined do not generate results that
are as strong as others. There are also other, creative ways to say no, such as
asking the lawyer or professional to provide additional information or to do
something to show a commitment to personally following up or through, or asking
questions such as “Would you prefer I use my time to find the contact number
for you, or could your assistant do that instead?”
Other Sources & Additional Resources:
About the Author:
Julie Savarino holds an MBA, a JD, and is a licensed
attorney. She assists law firms, lawyers and marketing departments to get work
done and project completed. She has successfully served in-house in client and
business development positions for the law firms of Dickinson Wright and Butzel
Long and for the accounting firm Grant Thornton. Contact Julie at +1 (734)
668-7008, Julie@BusDevInc.com,
@JulieSavarino.
