“It’s faster to just do it” is something I hear all the time.

It’s the response I get when I ask about whether an attorney is using our document assembly system.

It’s the response I get when I ask about using abbreviation expansion tools like ActiveWords or TextExpander.

“Look,” I’m told, “I can cut and paste or just type it faster.”

They don’t want to use these time-saving drafting tools.

Why?

Because they’d have to invest time in learning and tweaking the time-savers. They’re thinking short-term and doing what’s faster for them today rather than investing a little extra time now to save lots of time tomorrow.

Here’s what I mean—an example:

I eat at Greek Fiesta obsessively. I’m in love with its chicken gyro sandwich.

When I meet someone for lunch, we often meet at Greek Fiesta. I type the words “Greek Fiesta” constantly. I mention it in my e-mails, calendar, etc. I’m constantly typing those 11 letters.

You probably have phrases like that which you type over and over—phrases like “WHEREFORE THE PLAINTIFF MOVES THE COURT…” and other such nonsense.

What if you could type “GF” instead of “Greek Fiesta?”

What if you could type something like “.fee” and have a five-paragraph e-mail typed out explaining to your client how to execute a client agreement and send you payment? Wouldn’t that save you time?

Would it be faster to type “.fee” or just do it?

The first time, it would likely be faster to just do it. The next 500 times, it would be much faster to do it my way.

When I reach this point in the conversation with the lawyer and I start breaking down the resistance, the next thing I hear is “Well, that’s nice, but I need to customize my responses. I don’t do cookie cutter documents.”

Here’s the deal: you can still customize. You can always edit your documents once the tool spits it out. It’s easier and faster to edit than to create from scratch.

Next argument: “I can just cut and paste; I’ve got a great directory filled with snippets.”

That’s a terrific argument and tells me that you’re really ready for one of these tools. You can move your snippets into the tool and you’ll be ready to go. It’s so much faster and more efficient to use the tool rather than cutting and pasting.

If you haven’t tried ActiveWords (for the PC) or TextExpander (for the Mac), please do it. You can try either of them for free. You’re going to save time—lots of time—and you’re going to dramatically increase your efficiency at the keyboard.