Law Consulting Blog : Cordell Parvin's Law Consulting Blog : Coach & Consultant For Lawyers & Law Firms : Business Development, Career Planning

What do you suppose is the most frequent coaching agenda item I receive from lawyers I coach? It is managing time. Lawyers say to me: "I do not have time to do my billable work, client development and still have a family life." Since the lawyers I coach raise it time and again, that topic is likely on your mind as well.

Some time ago, I  listened to a Harvard Ideacast titled: Are You Spending Your Time the Right Way? I urge you to listen to it. In the podcast Melissa Raffon has many ideas I thought were helpful, including making a list of things to do, then estimating how much time each will take and then blocking out time in your calendar to do them. When I practiced law I tried to do that each week. 

Melissa also posted a blog Are You Spending Your Time the Right Way? I thought her ideas in the blog were also helpful. In the blog post she suggests breaking down your responsibilities into categories and then planning time around those categories. Based on what I learned from reading Stephen Covey's books: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People  and First Things First I began to plan my week around my roles: Father, Son, Husband, Brother, Practice Group Leader, Practicing Lawyer, Client Developer, Sunday School Teacher and Youth Group Leader. Based on Covey's advice, each week I wrote down the most important activity I could do in each role. 

Because my work has frequently taken me out of town, and because I worked on client development on Saturday mornings, Saturday afternoons were "father-daughter" time. Jill and I ate lunch where she chose (usually an ethnic restaurant that Nancy did not like), then we were off to do whatever she wanted to do. That time with Jill was usually the most important thing I could do each week as a father. I will always treasure our discussions.

In this video clip I discuss how to plan your work and life around your priorities.

 Are you writing down the most important activity you can do in each of your roles? If not, it is highly likely you are missing some important personal activities because you are being consumed by your billable work. That is a recipe for frustration and burnout. Give this approach a try.

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I often am asked what my favorite blogs and podcasts are, so I thought I would share them with you.

Seth Godin is the marketing guru and a lot of what he writes about applies to lawyers.

Creating Customer Evangelists has a great book on client service.

Scott Ginsberg is an excellent writer on becoming more valuable to clients. If you go to his regular website there are dozens of good articles on networking etc.

Justin R. Levy has social media materials I like.

More great stuff on social media by Steffan Antonas.

Copyblogger is the number one site on blogging and writing.

Chris Brogan is co-author of Trust Agents a great book every lawyer should read.

Personal Branding Blog has excellent ideas on personal branding.

I like Growth Nation's 51 free marketing tips. Take a look and see which ones apply to what you are trying to do.

You can get all of these by RSS feeds that will come to your iGoogle account or your Google Reader account. This makes it easy to decide which posts to read.

My favorite Podcast that I subscribe to in iTunes is Duct Tape Marketing. John Jantsch interviews all the people above and more. Go back over the last year and you will find some valuable interviews. Take note that earlier this year he moved the podcast to a different location.

I learn something valuable from each of the blogs and podcasts above. You will also.
 

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Tuesday, I asked if you had answered "why" client development is important to you. It is the first step to make time for client development. In this post, I will share with you three noted experts' approach to time management.

Noted author Carl Sandburg once said: “Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how well it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” He wrote that long before the Internet, email and other current potential distractions.

In a couple of weeks I will be doing a program called “Time Management: Making Time for Client Development.” I plan to include a discussion on time and energy management and share ideas I learned from books by Stephen Covey, David Allen and Jim Loehr. Each author approaches the subject in a slightly different way. I have read their books and listened to their presentations. I have found each approach valuable. Recently I found a report on the effectiveness of coaching programs using each approach. I plan my week around my roles as Stephen Covey suggests. I use David Allen's approach to next actions. i set physical/economic, mental/learning, emotional/relationship, and spiritual/values goals based on Jim Loehr's four sources of energy. Take a look and decide which approach will work best for you.

One final thought: One way to make time for client development is to eliminate wasted time. How much time do you waste each day on things that really do not matter? You might be opening and responding to unimportant emails, doing things that could be delegated, searching for things in your office. If you saved just 30 minutes a day, that would be 182½ hours for a year. Suppose you used that time for client development or your own development, what do you think would happen to your career?
 

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I believe the most popular agenda item at the first coaching session is time management. It is not surprising in that time and energy are our two most important assets. The question typically includes how can I find time for client development and comes from lawyers who have not previously had a written plan with goals. My answer is you have to make time and the way to do it is through a plan. If you don’t, you will never “find” it.

For each lawyer, making time will be different. As lawyers I coach know, I made time for my writing and speaking preparation on Saturdays and Sundays from 6am to 9am. I chose those times because I was up anyway and because neither Nancy nor Jill cared that I was not with them. I spent Saturday afternoons with Jill. We called it our father-daughter time.

Christy Crider is a lawyer I coached from Nashville. In our first meeting we talked about planning based on priorities, a subject I wrote about in "Prepare to Win." Christy really got into it and learned to focus her time on her priorities way better than me, and better than any lawyer I know. Her priorities are her family, her church, her health and developing her long-term health care practice. If you had a chance to look at her calendar for any month you would find entries focused on those main priorities. She is able to make time for client development because she has clearly identified what is important to her and does not waste time on things less important to her.

Christy has done a series of presentations and webcasts for lawyers and law students on planning and using their time based on their priorities. She will be a panelist for our “Learning from Each Other” webcast for senior associates and junior partners on March 25, 12:00 noon - 1:00 pm central time. If you are interested in learning how to prepare a plan, contact Joyce to register for the webcast as soon as possible as space is limited

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