What’s the most productive day of the week?  Most HR directors report that Tuesday has that honour.  And the least productive? You guessed right! Friday.

Monday is a contender for most productive day of the week but what tends to get in the way of the doing are the meetings and planning that tends to get jammed into the Monday slot.

To help you get more out of your Fridays and to turn Monday into a productivity zone – try a Friday afternoon planning session.

A Friday afternoon planning session accomplishes three great things:

1. It sets you up for starting

“Lawyer Norm Keith is 58 and laughs hard when asked about his readiness for retirement.”  There is an old adage that most good lawyers live well work hard and die poor”, he says referencing the quote from American Lawyer and statesman, Daniel Webster.  “Many probably for appearances sake, or life enjoyment or because they are not thinking or planning ahead.”  (Canadian Lawyer Mag, June 1^st 2015)

As a lawyer who owns or works for a small or large firm, or in the capacity as a sole practitioner, you need to be prepared to take responsibility for your financial future. …

It’s June, already! It’s been a long winter. Yet, somehow it feels like summer has crept up on us.

For some law firms, that can mean the beginning of a slower period. A chance for some well-earned, rest and relaxation.

Not to be a downer about it, but that also happens to be a good time to do some planning for your firm.

Whatever has been on your mind for the fall – a new website, marketing plans for the associates, a succession plan for a retiring partner or even a retreat – it will be easier to get started …

Mindsets are simply deeply held beliefs, and in the words of author and professor Dr. Carol Dweck “we can always change our minds”.

Dweck discovered that people generally hold one of two mindsets, a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. And these mindsets have a strong influence on how we approach challenge.

With a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them.

Dweck says that with a fixed mindset every situation is evaluated: Will I succeed or fail? …

Ahead of me laid a mountain of a mediation memo. On one side a complex liability scenario had to be made easily digestible. Expert and lay witnesses provided converging and diverging testimony, and I had to explain why I happened to have the best interpretation. Hundreds of pages of reports lay in store, needing analysis with a fine-tooth comb and a magician’s touch to transform it all to less than a dozen pages. On the other side the damages story awaited. Millions of dollars claimed, another set of reports and analysis. Where to start, how to start, should I even …

Web design is a fast-moving field. Do these changes make you wonder if it’s time to update your law firm’s website? The decision itself can be daunting. Does it need to be an overhaul? Or should we just tweak? How much is enough? Will it even make a difference?

Why not take a scientific approach and deconstruct your site to better assess its current state?

Here are a few questions to get you started:

1. Branding – From words to pictures, does the website integrate your professional identity, appropriately and creatively? Or, put another way, does it make you proud?

Begin your journey towards intentional organization™ with the first thing Master Virtual Assistant AndreaCan counsels her clients:

The first thing I teach to stressed out lawyers is to write things down. Not on post its or various yellow pads – in the same spot. Get a notebook, I recommend and use a Moleskin … cuz if it was good enough for Hemingway – seriously, because it is small enough to be portable yet large enough to be useful.

Every morning, I open to a new page, date it and use that page to capture any of the things I need …

When I joined the law firm as a mid-level associate, the managing partner shook my hand and welcomed me. “We’re happy to have you”, he said. “I’m happy to be here”, I said, and asked, “where are my files?” “In your office. You have one hundred to start with.” I walked with excitement and, admittedly, not a little fear and trembling, into my office, fired up my computer, and thanked my lucky stars for joining a paperless firm. Then I clicked on each file from A to Z. Where to start? What to do? Didn’t every file need tasks doing …

A number of Canadians wait until the last minute to contribute to their RRSP. Perhaps it’s a financial hangover after the Christmas bills have come in or a general avoidance to deal with their finances. Often the RSP investment is made without any real thought on how the investment will be withdrawn to create and income stream in retirement or without considering alternative types of investments such as a TFSA. Before the March 1st deadline ask yourself: have I created a plan to pay as little tax as possible when I start to draw an income from my investments?

Are …

There I was at the office, churning away, berated by my boss, being laughed at, missing meetings, leavings tasks unfinished. Everywhere my heart raced, a test around every corner. Perform or perish – I was perishing. But then the fog of sleep lifted, the grey clouds of my old job giving way to the sunshine of reality. The old job long gone, I breathed in the heaven of the here and now. Sometimes a nightmare is good for the soul.

Perhaps because I love giving advice more than taking it, I often talk to lawyers considering a career change. I …