For lawyers who want to get in more billable hours, the key to doing so is getting and staying organized. But how do busy attorneys with a full schedule manage to tame the clutter in their life. Let’s explore the essential keys to getting and staying organized.

Leverage Your Assistant

If you have an assistant, make sure you use them to make your life less hectic. Don’t let a steep learning curve or assumptions about their abilities stop you from taking advantage of this valuable resource. Here are a few ways you can leverage your assistant effectively.

• Assess their abilities. Even if you’ve had an assistant for years, take the time to reassess their skills. Are there things they can do that you haven’t discovered?  If so, you may want to determine how those skills can help you get and stay organized.
• Make a wish list. Write out a list of the things you want to shift to someone else. Check off those things that don’t require legal skills and hand them over to your assistant. Discuss with your assistant if and how they can take on the tasks on your list.
• Offer training.  Everyone has ambitious, including your assistant.  If your assistant doesn’t have the skills necessary to take on your most pressing administrative tasks, consider getting them training. Advancing your assistant’s skills is a win/win because it moves their career forward it benefits you.

Budget Your Time

Time is just like money, if you don’t watch it carefully you’ll waste it.  If you want to improve your productivity and get organized you’ll need to create a time budget.  Here are a few tips:

• Get a calendar and use it.  There are many calendar options for busy attorneys, but you’ll need one that will easily integrate into your existing system. For example, if you’re someone who communicates mostly by email, an electronic calendar will make it easy to add appointments that were scheduled via email. Also, online calendars offer easy access for multiple people from anywhere in the world.
• Create a work schedule.  Decide when you will begin your day and when you will (ideally) end it.  If you have 10 hours each day to work, divvy up that time so that you’re spending it mostly on those things that will have the most impact. For example, you might allot 4 hours to billable activities and two to administrative tasks. While it may not be possible to keep to the schedule exactly, having something written down will keep you more or less on track.
• Take breaks. While taking breaks may seem like a distant dream, it’s very important to getting and staying organized. A failure to take breaks will cause you to slow down, lose energy, and eventually break away from your work schedule.

Use The Right Tools

To get a handle on the clutter in your life, you’ll need to use the right tools. But not every tool is right for every attorney. Here a few tips for getting your organizational tools to work for you.

• Install an integrated system. When attempting to tame paper and electronic clutter, you need systems that work in concert with each other. For example, a calendar system that’s automatically connected to your email and billing system will make it easy to make appointments and even send invoices. But to have an effectively integrated system, you’ll need to completely assess all of your needs.
• Merge your social media. As more attorneys market online, social media is becoming a requirement. But working with three or four social media accounts can feel chaotic.  Use tech tools such as Hootsuite so that you can send social media messages to various platforms through a single interface. This not only saves time, it reduces the amount of tech clutter in your life.

To get and stay organized you must leverage all your resources to get the most out of what they offer.

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Chelsey Lambert is Vice President of Marketing & Communications at Smokeball, a provider of practice management software for small law firms, based in Chicago, IL. Her mission is to help attorneys, and legal professionals understand the technology that is available to them, how to use it, and the positive impacts it can have on their business. After leaving her role as a Practice Management Advisor for the Chicago Bar Association in 2014, she continues to speak and write for legal organizations across the US, on technology, hiring, marketing and small law firm best practices. In her spare time, she enjoys a good yoga class, volunteering, and taking in the sunshine on Chicago’s beautiful lakeshore.