Intra-office meetings are notoriously considered tedious exercises in futility, drags on productivity, and generally annoying. If you are fortunate enough to have input on how meetings are run at your firm, suggest running the next meeting like Google.

Have a set agenda. Address each issue like something on a grocery list and move onto the next topic. Agendas force participants to pay attention and stay focused.

Stick to the clock. If you allot 30 minutes for a meeting, stick to the time limit. A time limit will help participants stay focused for the shorter period of time, and will decrease extraneous conversation during the meeting.

Create open-office hours. If you are in a management position, set aside a time to allow individuals to address specific concerns. This should help prevent individual issues from popping up during large meetings.

Work Hacks: How to Run Meetings Google-style | Web Worker Daily

(photo: Tony Simkin)

Run Meetings Like Google 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

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

GoToMeeting is an intriguing, relatively cheap way to conduct online meetings.

The service allows users to do more than just conduct online videoconferences, users can see the moderator’s computer screen. The moderator can also allow other users to control their computer, making the online meeting more interactive than just a video conference.

With the click of a button, the moderator can switch allow another participant to become the moderator, and display the desktop of their screen. Theoretically, this allows for more collaborative online meetings.

There are two pricing plans, monthly plans for $49.00 a month, or a yearly plan for $468. The service allows up to 15 participants per meeting, and participants do not have to pay to join the meeting. Users are allowed to host an unlimited number of meetings per year.

The downside? For one, there is a one month free trial, but that requires a credit card—meaning if you do not cancel in 30 days, you will be charged. Two, without being able to test run the application, it is impossible to review how various computers and operating systems run the application. The website says the program works on both Macs and PCs…but lots of programs run into problems when Macs and PCs interact. Three, Skype is a lot cheaper than $49 a month. At the same time, Skype is only useful if everyone has Skype on their computer.

If you are willing to provide a credit card number, GoToMeeting seems promising enough to warrant a 30 day trial.

Affordable Online Meetings is a post from: Lawyerist

Meetings are getting a bad rap these days, but I find them very useful to help me complete a project, especially when it has no clear deadline. Those kinds of tasks can end up sitting on your work plan for weeks, since they are always lower priority than the things due right now. But you can use meetings to get things get done sooner, rather than later.

Schedule a meeting with your client to finalize each important document or project. If it has a due date—discovery responses or an affidavit in support of a motion, for example—schedule the meeting a couple of days before the due date. If not, set the date a few weeks out, so that you will have plenty of time to prepare a draft.

Prepare a draft for the meeting, and modify it based on information and input from your client. Whether you are drafting a complaint or a contract, this will make the client feel involved, give you a due date when you know the document will be finished, and help you get things done.

Plus, if you draft documents with your client, instead of just sending them to the client to sign, you maximize your chances of avoiding those embarrassing moments during a deposition when your client says he or she does not recognize a key document—the complaint, for example.

(photo: dissolve)

Use Client Meetings to Increase Productivity is a post from: Lawyerist

One of the biggest pains about managing a law practice is scheduling meeting, conferences, and other get-togethers with clients, opposing parties and attorneys, etc., all of whom have crowded calendars. TimeBridge goes a long way toward simplifying the process of setting meetings.

Here’s how it works: pick a few possible meeting times, and enter the e-mail addresses of the attendees (or their staff). They send it back with their availability, and TimeBridge either confirms the meeting time or asks for more possible times.

It also has a plug-in for Outlook and Google Calendar so you can use it without leaving the comfort of your PIM.

[via Lifehacker]

TimeBridge simplifies scheduling meetings is a post from: Lawyerist