5 Ways to Create More Available Time By Chuck Roberts July 2011 Does time management seem like something from the science fiction genre? With easy‐to‐apply, proven techniques, effective time management can be much more like science and a lot less like fiction. Everyone shares a common constraint: there are only 24 hours in any given day. How efficiently we spend that time affects our professional advancement and quality of life. The effective application of time‐
management techniques pays dividends as long as they continue to be used. As a result, the potential impact of effective time management is greater than most people imagine. Many of the most widely publicized time‐management techniques are direct, where the time savings is readily visible and can be easily quantified. Examples include reducing interruptions and handling a piece of paper or email only once. Other techniques yield a time savings by precluding problems, making the effects less visible and difficult to quantify. However, these indirect time‐saving techniques can be equally, or more, effective. Following are a mix of five direct and indirect time management concepts that are highly effective, but seldom publicized. Leveraging Your Circadian Rhythm Humans, animals, plants, and even bacteria experience a biological cycle of approximately 24 hours. This cycle is called the circadian rhythm. Your personal circadian rhythm is influenced by your routine, such as the time of day you wake up, eat, and go to bed, as well as environmental conditions, such as the amount of natural light exposure you receive. Your level of competency and efficiency applicable to a particular type of task fluctuates with this rhythm. Thus, scheduling activities such that the type of task matches the period of day during which you are best suited to perform that task can significantly improve your overall productivity. In order to do this, you must first develop a better understanding of your personal circadian rhythm. This is easily accomplished by self‐
observation over a period of about a week. A gross sense of the rhythm can be obtained by making qualitative mental notes of fluctuations in your performance but keeping a log with quantitative data is recommended if you wish to fully capitalize on this opportunity. Client and company requirements will impact your ability to fully adjust your schedule to the greatest advantage. However, by making a concerted effort to schedule activities that you can control to match your circadian rhythm, you can realize a significant increase in overall productivity, leaving you with more available time to accomplish other things. www.lawpracticetoday.org
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Proactive Load Leveling When I first entered the professional‐services industry, I expected the long hours but was surprised by the dramatic fluctuations in workload caused largely by uncontrollable short‐notice deadlines associated with client requirements. I found myself caught in a repetitive 4‐week cycle of 80‐hour weeks and all‐nighters. The work had to get done but my productivity suffered from a lack of rest and high stress. Knowing there had to be a better way, I developed a technique to reduce the magnitude of the workload spikes and increase productivity. I call this technique proactive load leveling and still use it today. Gathering data from the prior 20 weeks of my timesheets, I plotted the hours spent on predictable routine and uncontrollable non‐routine activity. The spikes were clearly visible, as was the fact that the layering of predictable routine work requirements on top of the uncontrollable short‐notice work requirements was a clear factor in pushing the total hours to extreme levels and killing productivity. In response, I increased the amount of overtime I worked when there was not an immediate need for it. This enabled me to accelerate the performance of predictable routine work requirements. Completing these work requirements in advance did not impact the frequency of uncontrollable workload spikes, but it did reduce the total workload when the unpredictable portion occurred. This decrease in total workload during the spikes reduced fatigue and stress, enabling me to achieve a 5% gain in productivity (note that a five percent productivity gain in a 70 hour week gives you an extra 3.5 hours). This correspondingly reduced the total number of hours required to complete all the work. By proactively working ahead, the load was leveled and the total number of hours required to complete the work was reduced. Reducing Selective Procrastination Exports report that at least 20% of people identify themselves as chronic procrastinators but I would estimate that there are at least twice that many professionals who are what I call selective procrastinators. These individuals don’t identify themselves as chronic procrastinators and don’t routinely procrastinate. However, they delay action on certain matters, such as calling a prospective client or addressing a difficult personnel issue, due to a lack of skill and comfort performing such activities. This is common in the legal industry because attorneys are frequently promoted to positions with responsibilities for which they have not had adequate training. It does not mean that they aren’t smart enough to do it but, merely, that they haven’t been taught best practices. Procrastination of this nature is not a matter of time management, but it can cause time management problems, showing up as low productivity. For example, in working with one mid‐level department manager who is in a seller/doer position, he confessed that it takes him approximately one hour to place each call to a prospective client. He explained that, half‐way through his preparation, one of his subordinates would interrupt him with a question. After responding to the question, he had to restart the preparation process at least once more. Procrastination is a learned behavior. Chronic procrastination, while difficult to correct, can be addressed through cognitive behavioral therapy. However, the more common form of selective procrastination is www.lawpracticetoday.org
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much easier to correct with training and practice designed to develop skills that increase one’s comfort level and confidence in performing particular tasks. Thus, to reduce the amount of time wasted by such procrastination, either personally or within your firm, be sure that adequate training is provided on topics that aren’t adequately covered in law school, such as business development and supervisory skills. Leveraging Travel Time When questioned about how they plan their travel, most professionals respond that each trip is for a single purpose. For example, they’ll travel a significant distance to a conference, attend the conference, and return home without making any additional visits while in the area, such as to prospective clients or their firm’s other offices. In fact, many confess that, when they do visit their firm’s other offices, they spend time only with the specific people they need to see to address the matter at hand. Unfortunately, this is also true for many high‐level managing partners. This presents a huge, missed opportunity. Regardless of how diligently you try to work when traveling, significant unproductive time is involved. Having to return to a location to do something you could have done when already there is inefficient. Additionally, your ability to work efficiently across geographic and departmental lines within your firm, including the ability to cross‐sell services, depends largely on developing relationships characterized by trust with others in your firm. This is most effectively accomplished with face‐to‐face contact. So, the next time you’re taking a trip, plan it such that you leverage your travel time to accomplish multiple objectives, including the development of stronger relationships within your own firm. Effective Communication Few people are likely to think of effective communication as a time‐management technique. In my work solving problems within professional‐services industry, communication has been found to be a root cause of more than 90% of all problems. Problems resulting from ineffective communication often reach large proportions before they are detected or addressed. They not only take many hours to resolve but can permanently damage trust and working relationships, which can cost the firm dearly. We all know how to communicate but communicating in a highly effective manner requires skill that’s developed through training and practice. Such training involves learning about the process of communication and the application of scientific techniques proven to increase the other party’s receptivity to you and your message. Because communication is a two‐way process, full development of this skill set also requires practice. Such practice enables you to be more adept at rapidly implementing subtle changes to your message as feedback is received from the other party. www.lawpracticetoday.org
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The benefits of superior communication skills may not be immediately apparent but they can be substantial. Positive impacts of this skill set can dramatically impact your firm’s growth potential and bottom line. Summary There are many time‐management techniques for improving individual and firm productivity. Adopting those listed in this article, as well as more commonly known techniques, can result in substantial improvements, especially when multiple techniques are applied simultaneously. These productivity improvements can provide you and your firm more time to devote to client‐relationship building and service, yielding a competitive advantage in today’s challenging marketplace. Chuck Roberts is President of Performance Management Group, Inc., a firm that provides training and consulting services directed at helping professionals with business development and business management responsibilities to function more comfortably at a higher level of performance. He can be reached at croberts@p‐m‐g‐i.com. www.lawpracticetoday.org
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