Even though everyone is doled the same 24 hours per day, some lawyers have established protocols for squeezing more out of each moment than others. Progressive Law Practice asked some of them to share their battle-tested time management tips. Here’s hoping your 2018 is more productive, less stressful and far more profitable!

Carolyn Rosenblatt, Founder, Aging Parents

Rosenblatt didn’t start her professional career as an attorney. In fact, it was her decade as a Registered Nurse, making countless house calls to elderly people and their families, that eventually led her to law school. She was a litigator for 27 years until she and her husband created AgingParents.com.

Today they offer mediation and counseling services for matters relating to aging. Rosenblatt’s time-management tips include:

• First thing every morning, set the day’s priorities, either in writing or printed out in a place where you can’t avoid looking at it. Reprioritize as necessary
• Limit socializing to lunchtime only, which includes not checking social media. Interruptions for socializing can easily put a wrench into a person’s productivity
• If working on a brief, deadline or other time-sensitive matter, do not accept phone calls except for true emergencies. This includes calls from family.
• Take time to go out for lunch, which is a natural time to let your mind rest and give yourself a break
• At the end of your workday, prioritize matters from the day’s 'To-Do List' that did not get accomplished for the next time you work. Seeing the item on your list day after day is a motivator.

Bobby Wilbert, Associate at the Law Offices of Richard B. Rosenblatt, Rockville, MD

Wilbert has been representing clients in personal bankruptcy and other debt-related matters for more than 25 years. He also actively heads a Facebook group focusing on bankruptcy law and posts case law updates on the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys’ news blog and Facebook page.

“My time is at a premium so being productive and efficient are essential to being able to juggle” everything, Wilbert says. “When it comes to my law practice and blogging activities, I find Microsoft's One Note App and browser extensions invaluable. I get up every morning by 5 a.m. and scour the Internet for bankruptcy news, cases, student loan information and newly released unofficial Lucero recordings,” he says.

Next, Wilbert says he checks his law firm email and updates clients on their cases, such as document requests from Trustees, hearing reminders and more. “I save my client’s docs and case blurbs to One Note so I can easily find them hours later when I create blog posts and draft pleadings. One Note also integrates nicely with my Outlook calendar to remind me of deadlines in my cases and hearing dates. It also meshes nicely with Microsoft Word so I can incorporate blurbs into Motions and other pleadings due that day,” Wilbert says.

Wilbert is also a devotee of Google Docs on Google’s Chrome browser since the coupling allows him to dictate notes and type content as he speaks. Since he posts case law and other bankruptcy-related posts online several times a day, he is a huge fan of the “Scheduling” option. That way, he says, “I can schedule 10 posts throughout the day” without having to physically write and publish them at the time, he says.

Bill Nolan, Managing Partner, Barnes and Thornburg

“I am never done trying to optimize the use of time; I am always tweaking and trying new things,” says Nolan, Managing Partner of the Columbus office of Barnes and Thornburg. While he says he is open to considering suggestions that might help him be more efficient, he cautions other lawyers not to worry if they don’t implement every suggestion made by what he calls “consultant du jours.”

Time management is highly individualized, Nolan says. His greatest challenge is “finding uninterrupted stretches of time to focus on things that require deeper thought, so it’s critical that when I see one of those stretches (e.g. early in the morning), I need to use it accordingly.”

Other time management protocols Nolan follows include:

• Setting an internal limit on the number of discretionary, albeit potentially valuable, meetings he schedules. As such, he tries not to set any in the morning
• Although as Managing Partner he is expected to be extremely responsive to communications, when he is working on a particular task, he clicks the “offline” button on Outlook to reduce the distraction of incoming emails until he has completed his project
• Staying mentally sharp is an important aspect of time management in Nolan’s world. To accomplish that, he tries to get up to see people as often as possible in his office rather than merely calling or e-mailing. Nolan is also a big proponent of walking a few blocks to meetings, weather permitting. “That’s good for mental sharpness, too,” he says.  

Tami Kamin Meyer is an Ohio attorney and writer and Chair of the Marketing Committee of the American Society of Journalists and Authors.