We’ve gotten strong responses for our wellness content so we’re going to step up the pace with a whole hour of free fitness advice for busy lawyers!

When: February 23, 2012, 12:00PM – 1:00PM, EST
Speaker: Marc Perry, BuiltLean

Limited space. Click here to Register!

Do you find it hard to lose fat with a busy office job? Are you confused what to eat and how to exercise to change your body as fast as possible…and keep those results? This special presentation by renowned fitness expert and BuiltLean founder Marc Perry will simplify the how you can lose fat fast with short, efficient workouts and easy to implement nutrition strategies. (more…)

A recent post on Time Management, To-Do Lists, and the 3 + 2 Rule resonated broadly, suggesting that many of us continue to struggle with how to manage the 50, 60, 70 (and more) hours of work we face every week.

Summarizing the 3 + 2 Rule:

Identify only 3 big things and 2 small things to do in a day. Write down the 3 main activities you need to accomplish, each taking 2 to 3 hours, and 2 minor ones that take around 20 minutes each.

In addition to prioritizing your challenging list of tasks to a core five, or for those long days when deadline looming tasks demand a longer To-Do list, here are a few additional time savers to employ: (more…)

Within minutes, I came across these two status updates from friends who work at law firms:

“I have too much going on”

“I haven’t even gotten to my to-do list yet”.

We can all relate. It’s impossible to escape the nonstop online (and offline) flow of Twitter and Facebook, email, voicemail and text messages, the office pop-in and water-cooler chats. How can we ever keep up? Should we even try to? Can we really get everything meaningfully done…today?

No. And trying to do so can lead to frustration and feeling overwhelmed, and ultimately, procrastination. (more…)

Are you the most effective manager you can be? Do you unleash the most productivity from your workforce?

I finally got around to reading and article I ripped out of Harbard Business Review from March of last year: it was shuffled from my inbox to a “To Read” file and back a dozen times. Boy am I smacking my forehead now, as the piece, “The Power of Small Wins” contained some of the best management advice I’ve come across.

The core idea of the piece revolves around increasing employee productivity, and you do this by being in synch with motivation. Unfortunately, even the most well-intentioned of us don’t really understand what motivates employees to perform at their highest level.

Theresa Amabile and Steven J. Kramer, who spent more than 10 years conducting research in employee motivation, sum up their findings by saying:

What motivates people on a day to day basis is the sense that they are making progress.

And in a virtuous cycle, the more progress they make, the more satisfied they are. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true: obstructions, toxins, and problems de-motivate people. (more…)

We have many acronyms in the software business, but my favorite relates to a process, not a techno-flavor of the month. It’s the DRY principal, and it stands for Don’t Repeat Yourself.

Legal form creation is one area that’s completely ripe for the DRY principal, and until now, there hasn’t been a good option for firms on a limited tech budget, Macintosh using attorneys, or those favoring cloud software. Today however, Rocket Matter, the sponsor of this blog, rolled out Document Assembly as part of their 2.0 release.

Consequently, document assembly technology, typically affordable only to firms with large budgets and/or Windows-based systems, is now available to the rest of the world. The long, cruel nightmare is over.

Embracing automatic document generation has many advantages, but here are the top five: (more…)

As I looked around this blog considering what to write (cool blog!), I began to think about why we are interested in increasing productivity. Ultimately, I realized, we are interested in being more productive because we think that, by doing so, we can get more of what we want in life. In other words, in spite of the challenges of law, we want to thrive – that overall sense that life is good in spite of the challenges (or maybe because of them).

There are some wrong turns we can take on the path to thriving, and one of them is to focus on making more money. In other words, we could believe:

More productivity = More money = Greater Thriving

Wrong! Research on well-being, what makes us happy, what gives us that sense of thriving in life has produced some pretty compelling evidence that beyond a fairly modest base, money makes little difference. However, most people get this point intuitively without the research. Try this. Imagine a lawyer with a household income of $80,000 who describes his or her life as follows: (more…)

Remember when we proudly exclaimed “multitasking” as a skill on our resume? That was before social media, and the abundance of online distractions that permeate our increasingly digital work life.

And not just our work life. Our social lives are interrupted with smartphone beeps, although in recent social situations it seems to be an increasingly accepted part of the experience. Treadmill desk are all the rage (I tried a stationary bike/desk contraption and it worked well for a time, but abandoned it for the gym. It’s good to step away from the desk!). Even movie theaters are putting in “tweeting seats”. Whatever happened to being present and enjoying the event and the company of the people right next to you? (more…)

Our headquarters are in sunny South Florida, but when I get to spend time in my hometown in West New York, there are a few little things that I really look forward to doing. One of those things is snagging some fresh donuts (or, if you prefer, doughnuts) early in the morning from a local, family-owned bakery.  Sure, the donuts at the major supermarkets are fine, the ones at the chain store coffee shops are OK, but they’re just not as good.

So … how does this relate to software?

Well, one of the great things we’re going to see in 2012 is a proliferation of more software and technological tools for lawyers. As technology marches forward, as attorney adoption becomes inevitable (eventually required?), the software business becomes more attractive and naturally more players will enter the market.  Generally, competition is good and more choice is even better, but then again … (more…)

Lawyers, like other professionals, work better and clear a higher profit when they make better decisions.

And you make better decisions when you’re less stressed. And you’re less stressed when you exercise.

You also have more energy for work when you kick off the morning with a run or a circuit at the gym. And aside from the productivity and mental boost you get from exercise, there’s the clear benefit of better health.

Consistent exercise is elusive for many people, and it was for me as well. I would turn over a new leaf & work out hard for three months until travel or a cold would knock me off my routine. Then I would take three months off, or however long it took until I got back into the swing of things. (more…)

We’re all about productivity, especially during Get Organized Month! Sure, it’s a good idea to have a Dumpster Day to Make your Law Office a Less Cluttered – And Happier – Place to Work! How about a Dumpster Day for Apps?

Removed unused apps

Too many apps slow down your mobile device, affect battery life and can even compromise security. For most of the apps that I write about in our App of the Week series, I’m either a user or I download the app for a test drive. This can get unwieldy in a hurry, so once a month, usually on the first or last day, I schedule a dumpster day and get rid of all the apps I’m not using, including that ‘can’t miss’ app that’s been sitting there unused for over a year. I’ve done this with apps that I’ve paid for. Just because I paid for it doesn’t make it useful. (more…)