Nearly everyone experiences some form of daily lethargy. For some, it occurs at 3 p.m. on the dot and sugar and/or caffeine seem more appealing than usual. For non-morning people, anything before noon might be considered “wake up” time. veryone is different, and people consider themselves most productive at varying times. Once you figure out your peaks and valleys, however, plan your schedule accordingly.

High productivity time periods. Schedule client meetings during one of your more productive time periods. Appearance is everything to clients, and you do not want to look you like you are either: (1) still waking up, or (2) watching the clock to go home. I prefer client meetings late morning, after I have had my morning coffee, gotten into my work flow, and handled my inbox for the morning. I try and avoid client meetings after 4 p.m., when my attention tends to wander, and I am trying to plan for the next day.

Low productivity times. Yes, you can get things done during these periods. For the most part, focus on tasks that do not require as much energy. Clear out your inbox and return those emails that have been sitting there. Spend some time on your marketing efforts. When you are dragging a bit, doing something different, like blogging, can help rebound your energy level.

The key is not trying to overachieve all day, but designing your workday around when you work best.

(photo: GDS Digital)

Schedule Around Your Productivity is a post from: Lawyerist

The worst days are the ones where you run around like a madman, going from one meeting to another with no breaks. Although it may look nice on your calendar to have no “empty spaces” in between events, buffers can help make life a lot less stressful.

Client meetings

I am guilty of trying to schedule back-back-back client meetings in the morning just to make sure my afternoon is empty. Great in theory, bad in reality. Sometimes clients are late, or meetings take longer than expected, which overlaps into the next meeting. There is nothing fun about feeling rushed or behind all day. Scheduling 30 minute buffers in between meetings has done wonders for my productivity.

Returning from vacation

Scheduling a meeting the morning you return from a prolonged absence is not fun. Your mind is probably not back in work mode and likely focused on your undoubtedly overflowing inbox. Blocking off the morning or even first full day you are back will allow you catch up and put things in order so you do not feel overwhelmed.

The beginning and of the week

Blocking off early Monday morning and late Friday afternoon to prepare for the upcoming week is a great idea. Friday afternoons are perfect for winding down and eliminating little tasks. Monday mornings are great for revving up and creating a task list for the upcoming week.

(photo: Joe Lanman)

Buffers in Your Schedule Make Life Easier is a post from: Lawyerist

As you begin to hit the books for the new law school term, taking a few minutes to organize your calendar can save you precious time down the road.

You might be one of those people who have succeeded thus far by keeping important dates and deadlines in your head, or perhaps on notebook or even a wall calendar. I am not one of those people. Most of the time management in my life is organized by reminders and appointments, even for tasks that needn’t necessarily occur at a scheduled time. Here are some tips for effective time management:

• Put your classes into your calendar. Once you have memorized your schedule, this step might seem pointless. But being able to visualize class time and see it relation to breaks and other tasks as you begin each week is valuable.
• Set specific blocks of time for reading and research outside of class time. This will help you pace yourself throughout the semester so you don’t get behind, and will help you keep up consistent study habits. Prepping for class should be part of your routine, not something squeezed in haphazardly between classes.
• Schedule time off for dates and nights out (or at home) with family and friends. Blocking off certain hours away from studying gives you some stress-free time to look forward to, and hopefully provides incentive for working harder during your study or work times. If you are planning a short trip or have other reason to take more than a day or two off, organizing your calendar with that in mind enables you to get ahead with any school work and ease the stress of being away from the books.
• Set recurring appointments, even for menial tasks. This way you won’t be tempted to squander “free” time when you know you should be working on something else. I set aside time for blogging and consulting work, even if I don’t yet know what I will be working on.
• Use reminders if you find them helpful. Whatever calendar application you use will probably let you set up email or pop-up reminders. These can be life-savers, but beware of becoming overly dependent (a lesson I have learned the hard way), since there will probably still be times when you are away from whatever device sends you the reminders.

These are simple steps, and are extremely easy to put in place with a simple calendar app. I recommend Google Calendar, which I use synced with MS Outlook. For added functionality, layer in a more robust task-management tool, like Remember the Milk or HiTask (or just used the built-in tasks list of Google Calendar). Of course, none of these suggestions are effective unless you make checking your calendar part of your daily routine.

Use a Calendar App to Manage Time in Law School is a post from: Lawyerist

Whether you are scheduling an appointment with a client, a networking group meeting, a trial strategy conference with an associate, or a weekly review with your assistant, the combination of schedule changes, telephone tag, and endless emails makes scheduling any meeting almost impossible. More time is wasted scheduling most meetings than is actually spent in the meeting itself.

One new tool to remove some of the hassle from the scheduling process is Tungle, a free, web-based scheduling service that will allow you to schedule meetings via email with one or more participants at a time.

Sync with your productivity software

Tungle syncs with popular calendar programs including Outlook, Google, iCal, and Entourage, and there is even an application for the iPhone. Choose the meeting times and invite as many participants as you want. Participants do n0t even need a Tungle account. Instead, they will get a link to your meeting on Tungle and can choose the times when they are available. You can choose to receive an email to approve the final meeting time or just allow Tungle to schedule the meeting and put it on your calendar for you.

One of the best features of Tungle is that it will automatically update your meeting availability; if you add a new appointment to your calendar while a meeting invitation is pending (but not booked) for a conflicting time, Tungle will mark that time as unavailable.

If you schedule appointments with participants in different time zones, Tungle will automatically adjust the time zone for you. Each person will receive an email with the time in the correct time zone and Tungle will display the calendar based on the time zone of the participant viewing it.

Let others see your availability

Tungle will also provide you with your own personal link to allow others to see when you are free and to schedule an appointment with you directly online. The details of your calendar will not be displayed to others; the calendar will merely reflect when you are free and when you are busy. Provide your ‘tungle.me’ link in an email or even on LinkedIn, Facebook or your blog and let your clients or others schedule an appointment online directly with you.

Tungle’s features are particularly helpful for solos or small firm practitioners. Instead of going back and forth trying to find a time, allow clients to schedule appointments directly or let a virtual assistant schedule appointments using your ‘tungle me’ link. Your calendar details will be secure, the appointments will appear on your calendar automatically and you can stop wasting time scheduling and focus on providing excellent service to your clients.

(Thanks, Andrea Cannavina!)

Scheduling Made Simple is a post from: Lawyerist

Google Calendar is very user-friendly, and very good at helping you manage your days. If you already use another calendar, consider switching over. If you do not already use a calendar—start using GCal immediately—it is that good.

5 Reasons Why GCal Rocks

1. You can invite people to events or allow them to view your entire calendar with the click of a button. You can also easily make certain events private.
2. It syncs easily with most popular smartphones.
3. Even if GCal is not on your phone, you can tell it to send you SMS reminders of events.
4. The quick add feature lets you add events as easy as “lunch with Randall Ryder at noon on September 23, 2009.” GCal will interpret your language and add it to the right day and time.
5. It is free.

HOW TO: Stay Organized With Google Calendar | Mashable

Google Calendar Rocks is a post from: Lawyerist

There are few things more aggravating than asking a client or opposing counsel for their availability and getting back something like “next Tuesday afternoon.” Part of my solution has been posting a free/busy calendar on my website, but I like the looks of Meet-O-Matic.

Like the best webapps, Meet-O-Matic is dead simple. No signup necessary. Just pick some dates, get the unique link, and email it to the people you need to meet with. They drop the dates they are not available, and you can check back to see what dates and times work for everyone.

Meet-O-Matic is a Simple Meeting Date Picker | Lifehacker

Meet-O-Matic: another helpful tool for scheduling appointments is a post from: Lawyerist

A few weeks ago, I started using Google Calendar to publish a free/busy version of my calendar on my website. I am so glad I did.

Scheduling—especially for busy attorneys—can be a royal pain. It often involves several phone calls or e-mails, at least, and it can be much worse when you are trying to schedule something with an attorney who sends scheduling information like “I am free at 2:00 on the 3rd” and nothing else. As if it is inconceivable that you would have anything on your calendar at that date and time. All that back-and-forth is a big waste of time.

Now, I just point opposing counsel, potential clients, and others to my public calendar and ask them to give me a couple of options when I am free.

It generally takes only two calls or e-mails to get something scheduled. It was especially useful recently when I hired an interpreter to set up a meeting with a Spanish-speaking client. I pointed the interpreter to my calendar, and she was able to call the client with her calendar and mine to set up the appointment.

To publish a Google Calendar, go to Settings > Calendars > Sharing. Check the boxes next to “Make this calendar public” and “Share only my free/busy information (Hide details).” Then, under Calendar Details, you will find an option to embed the calendar in your website. You can copy and paste the default code, or change the options by clicking on “Customize the color, size, and other options.”

I made a special page on my website where it is easy to find my calendar. There is a link to it in my sidebar, but if you want to be more discrete, just make the address something easy to tell people over the phone and share it only with the people you want to.

Make scheduling easy by publishing your calendar is a post from: Lawyerist

As I was waiting for my calendar to load on my Treo this morning to check my availability for an appointment, I had a moment of longing for the paper planner I used to use. No waiting for my Treo to crash, reboot, and connect. No tedious flipping through screens. Just open to the right page, check availability, and scribble a note.

On the other hand, it is awfully hard to back up paper, which is why I will not go back. And if you don’t have the paper calendar with you, you cannot use it. I am famous for leaving things lying around, so I need to be able to pick up where I left off with as little downtime as possible. And I love being able to access my calendar from any computer or phone anywhere in the world. Makes the waiting worthwhile, in the end.

Sometimes I long for paper (but not for long) is a post from: Lawyerist

Note new post: What I use to manage my practice (update), February 6, 2009

As most readers of this blog know, I am in a constant search to find the “best” way to manage my practice. As everyone knows, there is no “best” way to manage a solo or small law practice, but there is always improvement. So here are the bits of technology and old-school hardware I am using to manage my practice.

As you may also know, I use Linux for my operating system more than half the time. But since I still use Windows at the office, all the software I use is available for both Linux and Windows. There are two exceptions: Outlook, which I don’t really use any longer, and Acrobat.

• Calendar: Google Calendar, Plaxo, and Outlook. While I used Outlook for a long time, Outlook is Windows-only, slow, and bloated. I love that Gcal send SMS reminders to my phone so that I don’t have to be at my computer to get my reminders. It also syncs with Outlook, so I still boot up Outlook once a day or so to back up my calendar. And I also sync my Gcal with with Plaxo, for double-secret extra backup. I don’t worry about security, as there is really no attorney-client privileged information contained in my calendar. (Reading this, I realize I don’t really need Outlook at all any more.)
• Tasks/to-dos: Remember the Milk, paper and pen. I just started using RTM for deadlines (scheduling order deadlines, due dates, etc.). Google Calendar is missing this vital feature, and RTM has much easier keyboard shortcuts than Outlook. RTM integrates well into Google Calendar, and will also send SMS reminders before a task is due. For things without due dates, I use a work planning grid. It just works better.
• Contacts: Plaxo, Outlook, and Mozilla Thunderbird. The address book in Outlook is better than most, but it ties me to Windows, which I don’t like. But Plaxo syncs with Outlook beautifully, and also with Thunderbird, Gmail, and it automatically updates my contacts’ information when they update theirs with Plaxo.
• E-mail: Mozilla Thunderbird. I use IMAP, not POP, so my e-mail stays stored safely on my mail server, and I can use any e-mail application to see it without having to re-setup folders, etc. And Thunderbird does e-mail, especially IMAP, better than all the rest.
• Word processing / document creation: OpenOffice.org. I stopped using Microsoft Office nearly a year ago, and have never looked back. It’s free, powerful, and easier to convert documents to PDF. Plus, it offers excellent support for both MS Office and Corel Wordperfect file formats.
• PDF creation: OpenOffice.org, Ubuntu Linux, and Acrobat 7.0 Standard. Many documents are as simple as hitting the “convert to PDF” button in OOo. To print websites and things, I use the built-in PDF printer in Ubuntu Linux or the Acrobat PDF printer in Windows. For PDF document editing and assembly, however, Acrobat is great, although I plan to convert to CutePDF when I finally feel the need to “upgrade” to a newer version. Unless a good and free options emerges.
• Timekeeping: OpenOffice.org Calc. Simple is always best, and sometimes fancy shmancy timekeeping software is just too hard. I just use a spreadsheet to log my hours. I think I would need a better solution if there were more people working here than just me, but an OOo spreadsheet is perfect for an office of one.
• Billing: OpenOffice.org Calc. Since I rarely have more than one client with an hourly-fee arrangement at any one time, I do not need anything fancy for billing. I just use OOo Calc to whip up invoices, which seems to work just fine.
• Bookkeeping / accounting: GnuCash. I am a nuts-and-bolts kind of guy. I hate the way Billing Matters Plus and Quickbooks try to hide the bookkeeping from the user. GnuCash lets me handle the books like a bookkeeper so that I can see what is happening.

What I use to manage my practice is a post from: Lawyerist

For quite a while now, I have been using Plaxo to manage my contacts. The great advantage of Plaxo is that it syncs with a variety of software—I use it with Outlook (two different copies), Thunderbird (ditto), and Gmail. The mobile version of Plaxo is also fast enough that you can access it even from an older smartphone instead of your local contacts.

With Plaxo, you can also sync your Outlook calendar(s), tasks, and notes.

LinkedIn does much the same thing, along with the social networking aspect. Both LinkedIn and Plaxo will automatically update contact information for any of your contacts who are also members, which is a handy feature.

Enter a new player, Keepm, which focuses solely on contact management. It will import from Gmail, Yahoo!, LinkedIn, etc. For someone who just needs a central contacts repository and does not want to muck about with all the social networking that comes with Plaxo and LinkedIn, Keepm looks like a simple, lightweight, and central contact manager.

[via Lifehacker]

Managing contacts is a post from: Lawyerist