7 Time Management Hacks to Implement Now
“My time is constantly getting away from me. I feel like I’m doing well if I can juggle all of my tasks without dropping any of them.”
If you own a solo or small law firm, that feeling probably sounds familiar.
You start the day with a plan. Then the phone rings. A client emails. A staff member needs an answer. A potential client wants to speak with you immediately. Before you know it, the day is nearly over and the work that actually required your attention is still sitting there.
The problem usually isn’t that you need to work harder. It’s that too many other people have access to your time. You aren’t controlling your day.
The good news is that you can change that. These seven time management hacks can help you regain control of your schedule, reduce interruptions, and create more time for the work that moves your firm forward.
1. Stop Taking Unscheduled Inbound Phone Calls
One of the fastest ways to lose control of your day is to let anyone reach you whenever it’s convenient for them.
- A client calls. You take it.
- A potential client wants to “ask a quick question.” You jump on the phone.
- Someone refers a case and suddenly you’re having a 30-minute conversation you never planned to have.
Stop doing that.
Make a hard and fast rule that people don’t get immediate access to you simply because they decided to call. Calls should be screened, scheduled, or handled by your team whenever possible.
That isn’t poor client service. It’s good time management. You’re running a law firm. Your schedule should operate according to your rules, not everyone else’s whims.
I know this is difficult to do. You think a potential client will go somewhere else, that a client will get upset, or that you will miss an opportunity. Just remember: I said you shouldn’t take the call, not that your team wouldn’t.
2. Create a Defined Window for Meetings and Calls
So how do you schedule calls? Your staff can do it or you can use an app like Calendly or Microsoft Booking. But instead of allowing meetings and phone calls to be scattered throughout your day, contain them.
For example, schedule law office meetings and phone calls between 1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. This helps to protect your morning, as I discuss in the next hack.
Once you establish that window, something interesting happens: people adjust. Clients will work around it. Vendors will work around it. Your team will work around it.
Too many lawyers build their schedules around everyone else’s preferences. Reverse that thinking. Decide when you’re available and let everyone else work within the structure you’ve created.
The fewer transitions you have throughout the day, the more productive you’ll become.
3. Block Your Calendar Before Everyone Else Does
Remember, you control your day, not anyone else. Block out time in your day or week in advance. If something matters, put it on your calendar first.
Block out deep work. Block out planning time. Block out business development. Block out the time you need to work on your firm instead of constantly working in it.
When those blocks are protected, your team knows they aren’t available for scheduling over.
Without those boundaries, empty calendar space tends to become everyone else’s opportunity.
Treat your focused work time the same way you would treat a court appearance or client meeting. You wouldn’t casually allow someone to schedule over a hearing. Don’t casually allow them to schedule over the time you need to run your business effectively.
4. Use One of the Most Powerful Time Management Hacks: Protect Your Morning
Your morning may be the most valuable part of your workday. You just arrived in the office, you’re properly caffeinated, and ready to go. This is when you should be doing your most important work.
Don’t give it away to email. When you begin the day, do not pass go and do not open your inbox.
Instead, block out two to three hours for uninterrupted deep work. Use that time for the tasks requiring your highest level of concentration: legal strategy, important drafting, business development, reviewing financials, improving systems, or planning the firm’s priorities.
It’s also a good time to determine what actually requires your attention and what can be delegated.
If you start every morning responding to other people, you’re allowing other people to set your priorities.
Start with your priorities instead.
5. Park Issues Until Your Office Meetings
Interruptions aren’t always external. Sometimes your own team unintentionally destroys your productivity.
A staff member walks into your office with a question. Ten minutes later, someone sends you a message about another issue. Then someone needs approval on something else.
Individually, each interruption seems minor. Collectively, they can consume an entire day.
Instead, create regular office meetings and teach your team to “park” nonurgent issues until then. Keep a running list. Cover the questions in one focused meeting. You’ll dramatically reduce interruptions while still giving your team consistent access to you.
6. Stop Spending Time on Bad Clients
Some clients cost far more than the fee they pay.
They argue. They complain. They ignore advice. They demand immediate responses. They treat your staff poorly.
And they consume an unbelievable amount of your mental energy.
One of the most overlooked time management hacksis simply becoming more selective about who gets into your firm.
If someone acts like a jerk during the intake process, don’t hire them.
If someone slips through your screening process and later reveals themselves to be a terrible client, address it quickly. When ethically and legally appropriate, end the relationship.
You don’t have unlimited hours. Stop donating them to people who make practicing law miserable.
7. Stop Personally Responding to Every Client Email
Now it’s time to talk about one of the biggest time suck: E-mail.
Many lawyers have unintentionally turned themselves into highly paid email clerks.
A client sends a message, and the lawyer immediately responds. Then another arrives. Then another. Pretty soon, your inbox has dictated your entire afternoon.
Instead, your team should be handling the overwhelming majority of routine client communication. In a well-run firm, you may be copied on many of those emails simply so you know what’s happening, without needing to become involved.
Aim to have your staff handle 95% of your email whenever appropriate. Your time should be reserved for work requiring a lawyer, an owner, or a strategic decision-maker.
Take Back Control of Your Day
You probably don’t need another productivity app. They’re just tools to help you enforce better boundaries. The important thing is to create those boundaries and enforce them strictly.
When you eliminate unscheduled calls, contain meetings, protect your mornings, block your calendar, reduce interruptions, reject bad clients, and delegate email, you begin changing who controls your time.
That’s the larger lesson.
A productive lawyer doesn’t spend the entire day reacting faster. They build a practice that requires less reacting in the first place.
You may not be able to implement all seven changes tomorrow. That’s okay. Pick one. Then set the rule and protect your time. Then teach your clients and your team to operate within it.
Do that consistently, and instead of spending every day trying to keep the planes from crashing into each other, you can finally start deciding where you want them to go.
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Take Back Your Time!
Does your solo law practice make you feel like you’re on a hamster wheel that you just can’t seem to get off? Does it never seem like there’s enough time to get everything done, so you keep on working later and later (and on weekends)?
Do you dream of coming into the office at 9am, working productively on your cases and getting stuff done, then leaving at 5pm to be with your family? All while making a nice living to provide for them?
Then you need to take the right step towards achieving that by downloading my Ultimate Guide to Taking Back Your Time. Ruthlessly implementing the tools it discusses will have an immediate impact on your time and your practice!
