The bottom line for “firm” lawyers is billable hours. No matter how many hours you work, it’s the ones billed to clients that serve as your productivity measure. In addition to the attendant financial rewards, more billed time means better performance. Better performance increases accomplishment. Increased accomplishment produces higher career satisfaction. The goal, then, is to bill more time.
There are three ways to increase billable time attributed to you: (a) improved legal skills, (b) increased leverage of others, and (c) better capture of the hours you’re working. The first and second come with time and experience. The third will produce results immediately, one-tenth at a time. Here’s the math:
.1 (hours) x 5 (days/week) x 44 (work weeks/year) = 23 extra billable hours!
Here are several ways to rapidly improve your effective use and capture of billable hours, six minutes at a time.
Managing Email
The killer application that ushered in the Internet era can be a huge time sink. Fine-tuning your use of this powerful communication tool rapidly increases your billable time.
- Turn Off New Message Notifications. New message notifications are a huge distraction. They create internal noise — “What am I missing?” or “Oh, not another thing to do!” You lose focus on what you’re doing or, worse, stop to look at the new message! Email is an asynchronous communication tool. You do NOT need to know every time one hits your inbox. They’re not going anywhere! Triage your email regularly (twice an hour or so) to stay abreast of what’s happening.
- Remove Work Email Address from Personal Subscriptions. Keep your inbox tidy and uncluttered. Get rid of the local weather report or special of the day at your favorite online retailer. This will reduce distraction and time wasted culling through them.
- Get Off Unnec-essary Professional/ Office Email Lists. These also represent a distraction from your own work. Draft a polite, professional email to the list manager asking to be removed if it’s not imperative you receive this email.
- Unsubscribe from Subscriptions You Don’t Read. Most professional purveyors of lists provide a simple unsubscribe mechanism. Take advantage of it. You can always re-subscribe.
- Spot Review Your Inbox From Home or PDA; Reply to Quick Requests. Yes, you’re working away from the office, but this is the new professional landscape. If you can handle several small items in the evening, they’ll be on someone else’s desk in the morning. You’ll be working on more substantive issues.
- Bill All Email Correspondence. Forward a copy of all billable emails to yourself or assistant, with the client, matter and billable time in the Subject line. This will ensure billable work gets billed. Why do the work if you’re not getting “credit” for it? It also creates a paper trail of your work.
Sequestering
It’s not just for juries! The idea is to find a place or process that provides you uninterrupted time to get work done. This doesn’t mean all day, nor does it mean leaving the country. We’re looking for a defined period each day (one to two hours) when you are able to focus on the task(s) of highest priority. Here are some specifics:
- Privatize Your Office. Close your door and DND your phone. If people continue to interrupt you, put a DND sign on your door. You can make it light — “Great Mind at Work, Please Do Not Disturb” or “Out to Work, Back at X:XX O’Clock” or something equally inventive but clear.
- Establish a Secondary Work Place. If the firm has a library, go there. If the firm or office building has a small conference or caucus room, go there. Even an empty office will do. Take only the things you’re going to work on, sit down and get the work done!
- Work From Home. Come in late or go home early one day a week. If you’re going to do this, you must commit to getting the work done. This is an opportunity to increase performance, but the temptation to dally will undermine your objective, so be careful!
You will inevitably be hunted down or interrupted. This is when it is imperative that you politely but clearly explain you’re not currently available and you’ll get back to them immediately when you are. Then make sure you do it! It’s an opportunity to re-train those you work with — you’re enlisting their help to increase your productivity.
Capture All Billable Time
This is the never-ending nag about writing down your time as you bill it. The statistics are overwhelming — you lose 20% of your billable time if you don’t write it down immediately upon completing the work. So, track it constantly through the day. Here are some tips:
- Get Client/Matter Numbers at Inception . If you’re handed a file or engaged in a discussion with another lawyer, ask for the client/matter number up front. This will do two things: (1) make it clear that you’re going to bill the time you work, and (2) eliminate the need for you or your assistant to chase it down later, which wastes billable time.
- Copy Yourself/Assistant on Emails; Include Client/Matter Number and Time Spent. I’ll say it again: Here’s your track record of what you’ve done in email. If necessary, you can print them and have them transferred to the billing program. You did the work, so make sure it’s captured!
- Complete Time Sheets Daily by Day’s End. The best practice is to keep a running log of time (software-based or otherwise) of everything you do as you do it. If you’re a scrap-of-paper person, then you need to aggregate and compile the list into your billing program before going home. Even if your memory rivals that of the elephant, you will miss things if you don’t do this every single day. The research simply supports this conclusion. Recall our math above — one missed tenth per day is 23 hours a year.
Implementing some or all of these suggestions will increase your productivity. Better productivity will improve your compensation and sense of accomplishment. Higher accomplishment results in greater career satisfaction and the extra cash won’t hurt either.
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Paul Burton is a former corporate finance attorney, software executive and successful dot-commer with an extensive background in professional and organizational development.
He works exclusively with lawyers and law firms providing clients practice management consulting, training and coaching. He can be reached at paul@visionmechanix.com.
© 2007 Vision Mechanix, LLC.
