In this digital age where information can be overwhelming, staying on task and avoiding disruptions can be harder to achieve than your actual work. These 5 Digital Productivity Hacks for In-House Lawyers will keep you focused and on track for success. Allowing you to meet your goals and manage your time more effectively, these hacks are a must-have for all lawyers.
1. Avoid the social media rabbit hole
Have you ever logged onto LinkedIn to message a colleague and the next thing you know you’ve lost 45 mins of your day scanning posts, scrolling commentary and checking the latest career moves? You are not alone, and don’t beat yourself up, as social media is cleverly designed to get you back in and keep you scrolling.
Try using this productivity tool to help you get in and get out without social media hijacking your plans for the day: Newsfeed Eradicator Chrome Extension.
Quick to set up, this digital tool eradicates social media noise by replacing your entire news feed with an inspiring quote. It also allows you to dictate and manage your access to the news feed, such as 10 minutes while you have a coffee break, and when the time has lapsed it removes the news feed prompting you to get back to work!
2. Block distracting apps and websites
Do you have ‘big picture thinking’ projects on your to-do list, but as you try to make time for them, you find yourself checking the news for the latest covid updates, or frantically searching for the ‘must-have’ headphones or new tech gadget? Whilst procrastination is a normal part of life, it can interfere with important goals and priorities.
Make productivity your priority and try this tool to block distracting apps and sites: Block site app and Chrome extension.
You can set it up to block certain types of sites and schedule time when you can access them, such as after work hours or during your lunch break. As a bonus, it even comes with funny pictures and quotes to remind you of your goal to stay away from the news, for example.
3. Discover the digital meeting scheduler
Is the old back and forth on emails trying to find a time to meet costing you precious minutes? Or do you sometimes wish you had a personal assistant to organise meetings for you and your team? Avoid this productivity drain altogether and embrace the digital meeting scheduler. A digital scheduler integrates with your own Microsoft Outlook calendar and shares your availability and prevents double-booking. You simply provide a web link to your digital calendar, your colleague books a time that suits them, and it automatically creates a calendar invitation with Zoom or Teams. Easy.
Save time and remove annoying email noise with this digital scheduler: Calendly.
4. Curate your (legal) newsfeed
In the legal industry it is critical to stay on top of the latest changes of legislation, regulations, and important cases, but how can you do this in a way that balances your day-to-day demands and to-do lists? One way to short-cut the information over-load is to rely on your law firms to be across this and to update you via their articles and legal updates. However, that still means a lot of emails and sites to scroll through, not the most effective use of your time.
A digital hack that many legal teams use is to curate their daily newsfeeds through services like Lexology. You can select the topics of legal and business interest along with specific jurisdictions that they want updates on, and every day you will receive a short, curated email with the most relevant articles and legal updates from legal service providers that match what you want.
5. Embrace legal intake, matter management and collaboration tools
An article on digital productivity hacks for lawyers must also include legal technology tools, as these are designed specifically for the unique needs of lawyers, to save them time whilst maintaining privilege and confidentiality. Many of these can be implemented quicker than you would think and can be utilised not only by the in-house legal team, but also your internal clients and outside counsel.
The biggest productivity booster is incorporating workflow automation into every aspect of the matter life cycle. Consider an internal client who fills out an on-line intake form, which can immediately trigger a series of steps, actions, and even draft document sets to be available to the in-house legal team. An action, such as an approval, could also trigger the briefing of outside counsel with tailored instructions, budgets, and purchase orders. Automation of setting tasks, preparing visual Gantt charts and presentation of board reports for the General Counsel are all important activities that can be automated. This is not just the future of the legal function, it is now the reality.
Conclusion
Take the time now to implement these hacks, and you will find an increase in productivity and clarity instantaneously. It is far too easy to get lost in the ‘noise’ of being busy while not achieving what you set out to do. Sometimes the simplest fixes get the best results.
“Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow” Anonymous.
