Email is by far one of the biggest time sucks for the modern professional. Hours can swiftly pass by while trying to catch up on an ever growing inbox. As an attorney, you are often sifting through emails from clients in conjunction with correspondence from other audiences aiding you in your case related pursuits. It can take hours just trying to decide what requires your immediate attention and what can wait. The common nature of this time suck has inspired the creation of the following list of tips to help you avoid giving half your work day to checking and responding to emails!

Prioritize before you log in:

What are the most pressing responsibilities on your list of to-dos? Organize them in order of priority and focus on the top 3 subjects. When you first jump into your email, be sure to read and respond to emails only related to them. This can be difficult to do when you’re scrolling through and scanning for the topic so make it easier on yourself by searching within your inbox. Searching and pulling up emails solely related to the topics on your list will keep your efforts laser focused and optimize the use of your time. Searching the topic in your inbox also removes all potential sidetracking emails related to “exclusive deals” and/or any other form of content completely unrelated to your professional line of work.

Put a time block in your schedule to check your email:

Constantly checking your email while on the go maintains constant professional pressure. While this may be motivation in many cases, it can also significantly contribute to burn out. So instead put time on your calendar daily to check your email, take control of your response time and interactions of this nature. The amount of time you block off is completely up to you, some people do one hour while others commit to two and a half hours. The point of this tip is to build the act of checking your email into a workflow that makes things less overwhelming.

Use an email scheduling plug-in:

Okay, scheduling emails has changed the game for everyone that does it. There is a large possibility that you’re never going to go back once you begin to use this practice. Now bear with me when I make this next suggestion: what if you didn’t check your email at all during the day? I know, it sounds insane but get this, we all know there are some emails that don’t require immediate response and attention, things that require thoughtful responses and pondering. Save these emails for later, respond to them at a later time. Now I am not saying you should be responding to emails at 7:00pm, but I am saying you could draft your responses to emails at 7:00pm and schedule them to be automatically sent at 8:00am. The most famous tool for scheduling emails is the Boomerang plug-in for Gmail. Let’s not also confuse this with the idea of extending your work day, it’s more so rearranging your work hours in a sense.

All of these tips were written with the theme of increasing the efficiency seen in an average work day. Of course these aren’t the only options, but they are definitely among the best!

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As an attorney, you’re consistently juggling a multitude of responsibilities. Undoubtedly there are many moments that are stressful. Why not explore some ways to alleviate that stress? We’ve put together a list of ways to transfer some responsibility in addition to ways for automating some of the routine processes in your average work day!

Transfer of responsibility

• Hire a secretary / personal assistant / intern

People normally wince at the idea of hiring someone to keep them organized. However, the amount of relief this brings will be invaluable. You wouldn’t believe the amount of time you would save by simply having someone take on the responsibility of answering your phone and/or lightly vetting potential clients. If hiring someone is not an option, bringing on an intern might be. Interns can do the groundwork of obtaining necessary information for your cases so you have more time to focus on the most important components. In addition to that they bring high energy at low cost to you.

• Outsource

Completing things like lead research, similar case research, the position judges have taken on particular cases can be outsourced to research agencies. From this you can get the public information you need while you hone in the confidential information. It’s okay to let go of some of the responsibilities on your plate, it allows room for more growth on behalf of your business and most importantly you as a professional. Granted, this is much easier said than done but after you reap the benefits of letting go of something on your list, it will begin to get easier as time goes on.

 Automation

• Using software to schedule your social media posts

There is a plethora of options when it comes to social media management and building them into your workflow can be life changing. It saves HOURS worth of time in terms of planning and posting on social media. It is very easy to jump down a rabbit hole when managing and engaging on social media, so do yourself a favor by cutting down on that time and organizing content for the coming weeks. Not only does this give you breathing room but it also builds out a road of branding that you can manipulate how you see fit as opposed to building on the fly.

• Email plugins to schedule your response / update emails

Email is always a constant responsibility that looms over the heads of professionals. You never realize how much time you spend responding to emails until you realize half your work day is already gone and you’ve spent the entire time clearing your inbox. Plug-ins that allow you to schedule when your emails will be sent in response helps on a massive scale because it removes the obligation of responding in the moment. In an effort to avoid sending emails at 11:00 pm, instead you can write out the response at 11:00 pm and schedule the email to be sent at 9:00 am the next day. The presence of plug-ins like this transform the way you approach your hours of productivity. These plug-ins exist across most of the mainstream email services (Google, Yahoo, Aol, etc.)

These days it seems like 24 hours is never enough time but with these tools you may start to think that 24 hours is more than enough! Change the way you approach productivity and invite delegation and automation into your operation. Not only will your future self appreciate this, the tools will also be instrumental in building out workflows for your growing practice.

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