You’re running around like a chicken with your head cut off.
- One day you’re in court.
- The next day you’re in a mediation.
- The next day you’re running errands to the bank, courthouse, post office, Verizon store, and office supply store and trying to squeeze in a lunch with a mentor.
You really do resemble that headless chicken. You are out of time. It’s all used up.
Yet, your revenue is about $9,000 per month.
How can that be? It doesn’t add up. You’re working nonstop, yet your bank account doesn’t show it. It doesn’t make sense.
Like Sands Through the Hourglass…
The solution?
You’ve got to find out where the time is going. That’s the only way you’re going to be able to redirect your energy into productive activity. Most lawyers living this hamster-wheel existence look back on their weeks and have no idea what happened. They can’t explain the mismatch of the energy expended vs. the revenue collected.
Where is your time going? It’s easy to find out. Here’s what you do:
- Designate a legal pad for data collection.
- Write the day of the week at the top of a page: “Monday.”
- Write the time down the left side of the page. Start at 8:00 AM and create an entry for every 15 minutes (e.g., 8:15, 8:30, 8:45, etc.).
- Carry the pad with you all day long. Make it your new best friend.
- Record what you’re doing every 15 minutes.
- Keep the record for a week.
- At the end of the week, go through your data. Classify and categorize your information, and figure out where the time is going.
You likely think you already know where the time goes. Without collecting the data, you have an opinion. I can promise you that, with the data, you’ll find some surprises. You’ll discover that you’re spending time on some things you weren’t aware of, and you’ll be on your way to correcting the problem.
Awareness is the key here. Collecting the data will allow you to stop wondering where the time went and start knowing what happened. Once you know where your time goes, you’ll be in a position to take corrective action. The starting point is to figure out where the time is going now.
