Many lawyers deal daily with a subtle form of procrastination – working on “busywork” to avoid the important but intimidating jobs that they should be working on. This behavior creates a vicious cycle that causes stress which, often, leads to additional procrastination which, in turn, leads to more stress and, you guessed it, more procrastination.

“Life is a series of interruptions interrupted by interruptions” is a quote that we had always attributed to John Lennon, but that may be apocryphal.

Anyone who has ever worked in a law office knows that interruptions are the bane of a lawyer’s existence. We can’t tell you how to get rid of them, but we can offer some suggestions to help you control them and reduce their impact on your work.

To control interruptions, make sure that you and your secretary both take your previously scheduled work sessions as seriously as you would a client interview. If …

In what condition are your accounts receivable?

While your total accounts receivable number from your accounting system tells you the total amount of money owed by your firm’s clients, your accounts receivable report should be aged 30, 60 and 90+ days to give you greater information of the state of your receivables.

The 2008 Juris Law Firm Economic Survey from LexisNexis (the last date for which we have such a survey – they are no longer being published – a great loss as these surveys were very detailed and informative) shows that ‘days fees outstanding’ for accounts receivable in 2008 …

Decide to block out your time and put aside one block of time to accomplish important but not urgent tasks to avoid them never bubbling up on your To Do list - and actually get them done.

At the Taste of TECHSHOW Dinner that we hosted back in April, one of the attendees, Kenneth Prochnow, a lawyer from Palo Alto, California, produced his business card, which was imprinted with a QR code. A couple of the more tech-savvy people at the table had QR code readers on their smartphones, and were quickly connected through this little code with Ken’s firm’s facebook fan page.

For those of you who as yet are only peripherally aware of QR codes, they are those little squares full of black and white squiggles that are starting to show up in …

"Do you jump from one task to the next without ever finishing? You may want to try the Pomodoro Technique of getting work done.

Being more thoughtful, courteous and deliberative when you leave a voice mail message, particularly one for a client, can do wonders to make that client believe he or she has chosen the right attorney – and to recommend you to others.

Regardless of how you say it, in order to make every day a successful one and keep your energy and enthusiasm levels high, you should spend the first few minutes of it (or – even better – a few minutes at the end of the day before) determining what your most important tasks are. Jot them down.