Page 6 - Dallas Vol 5 No 1

Are You Doing What You Do Best?
Three Steps to Effective Time Allocation
and Management
By Kimberly A. Rice
The number of hours in a week has not changed. There are still 168. No more, no less. Yet, we all struggle with squeezing ev-
ery second out of every hour, every day. I get it ... too much to do, not enough time.
Stay with me for a minute (still, 60 seconds). This is not an article on time management, per se, but rather a chal- lenge to reflect upon and assess whether the tasks you invest and give your time to, is impeding you dedicating time to building and growing your business. For most of us, it is too easy to lose focus on what we do best (in your case, prac- ticing law) and instead find ourselves scrambling to meet presentation outline deadlines or skipping a potentially high impact networking opportunity.
For decades now, we frequently hear law firm clients lamenting that time
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management is one of their greatest challenges. Developing the business, delivering extraordinary service, billing and collecting, and all those administra- tive tasks many lawyers must attend to, aside from any additional firm or profes- sional development obligations they may have. Yep, it can be overwhelming. That is precisely the reason why we must con- tinuously assess where we are spending our time.
Our clients have heard me say many times:
As a prosperous business owner, you have two jobs: (1) DELIVER extraordinary services to your clients (part of that is producing superior work product). (2) BE the face of your firm. Everything else may be delegated or outsourced.
You must allocate time to those tasks, which are in your “expert” wheelhouse, and assign to others the items which are not a productive use of your time.
With that in mind, then, why do some lawyers eat meals at their desks most days instead of scheduling coffee/meal with a referral source, client or even colleague to nurture those relationships (this task falls under “being the face of your firm”)?
How is it a good use of a lawyer’s time to think they can blog regularly, enough to gain traction to build a robust online reputation? This is totally not a good use of your time. There are writers, even law- yer writers, who can and do stay abreast of issues and timely topics within your area of legal expertise who will curate content for you regularly. For Google’s purposes, the content needs to be quick, concise, and factually accurate. 300-500