POST BY JAY HARRINGTON & HARRINGTON COMMUNICATIONS
Most of us started out the year… the month… the week, with great intentions to focus on our goals and stick to the habits we know boost lawyer productivity.
And then we got smacked in the face by the unceasing demands and stressors that pummel modern-day professionals.
Good intentions succumbed to urgency.
The problem with goal setting, resolutions, intentions — whatever you want to call the trigger for behavioural change — is that we typically focus on adding some new layer of complexity into our days.
We zero in on efficiency gains, which involve getting more things done in less time, rather than effectiveness gains, which involve getting the right things done.
The downside of focusing on efficiency rather than effectiveness is that, even if you squeeze more time out of your day, you’re merely cracking the window open for more nonessential work to flow your way.
For example, the better you get at processing email, the more email you’ll end up processing because every sent email almost always generates a reply that needs to be processed. And so on.
The Key to Real, Meaningful Lawyer Productivity
Almost every lawyer I’ve worked with has struggled with time management. The solution to this problem does not lie in trying to find more hours in the day.
The key to real, meaningful productivity is identifying the most important, essential tasks that drive success, and working to de-prioritize or eliminate the rest.
Here are 10 things lawyers should stop doing.
