Tips for Junior Lawyers on Task Management
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Some tips to help you manage your time more efficiently. Based on the time matrix covered by different business advisers and adapted specifically for junior lawyers. This note was developed by Sarah Fox, solicitor and legal trainer. As a former paralegal (and then junior lawyer) Sarah knows how important it is to get new staff productive - complying with good management practice, teamwork as well as meeting client needs. This note is part of a series of session for junior lawyers. For more information contact [email protected].
Transcript of Tips for Junior Lawyers on Task Management
Cutting Through the Complexities of Construction Law
Sarah’s Tips on
TASK MANAGEMENT
Sarah Fox, 2014
Page 2 © Enjoy Legal Learning, 2014
Task Management Some tips to help you manage your time more efficiently
Tasks can be split into four different categories depending on their relative urgency and importance, which Enjoy has named after the effect they have on your time:1
Urgent but unimportant
TIME STEALERS Resist
Tip: develop processes to resist these
and resolve them earlier; explain your approach to others
EG: interruptions, misunderstandings, trivial
or irrelevant requests, email circulars
Urgent and important
FOCUS SHIFTERS Do Tip: learn to prioritise within this category by asking probing questions of the task’s originator EG: client or project emergencies, staff issues, adjudications and legal proceedings
Neither urgent nor important
TIME WASTERS Reject
Tip: learn to spot them and swap with focus shifters or focus boosters
EG: net surfing, chatting to colleagues, reading unrelated journals, reading irrelevant
minutes or emails copied to you
Important but not urgent
FOCUS BOOSTERS Schedule
Tip: plan time for these as they are critical to business & personal success EG: research, thinking, strategic planning, advising, preparing user guides, focused meetings
In order to lighten the load for your client (L from the BUILD™ process), you, and your client team, needs to spend most of its time on tasks from the ‘focus boosters’ box.
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Time wasters need to be avoided. Many of these are within your control and so it is up to you to reject them and stop spending your working hours on these tasks. If a task has a ‘why am I doing it?’ element, then consider whether you should be spending time on it at all.
Quick win: spot them and swap them for focus booster tasks. Time stealers should be resisted. This requires teams to set good habits and systems to ensure they are efficient but not unfriendly. Sometimes these are tasks which appeared easy but prove not to be – at this point it is wise to ask for help and assistance. These tasks are unfulfilling because you are not achieving anything important.
Quick wins: do them after focus boosters; set a time limit for tasks to ensure they don’t overwhelm more important activities.
Page 3 © Enjoy Legal Learning, 2014
Focus shifters are driven by time pressures. They are more complex to control and manage. Completing these tasks creates a buzz and positive outcomes, although they shift your focus and steal time from other tasks. They may be accompanied by external pressures which can create stress.2 The very urgency of these tasks can lead to mistakes as deadlines loom. If you are spending too much time of focus shifters you are fire-fighting. More often than not time spent here is as a result of poor time management.
Quick wins: do tasks before they become urgent. Focus boosters are critical to success. These tasks are ones to concentrate your time and efforts on. This is where most effective professionals spend their time. However, to do so takes time, effort and teamwork.
Quick wins: schedule uninterrupted periods into your diary to do these sort of tasks, at least weekly.
Summary
“Getting everything done is not always a sign of good time management; it can also be a sign of not having enough to do.”3
The Author Sarah Fox of Enjoy Legal Learning developed this guide. She is a professional speaker, innovator and trainer who cuts through the complexities of construction law. She provides confidence to those who use construction contracts through workshops that clarify and simplify the law. She is also author of the 500 Word Contract™. To find out how Enjoy can transform your technical training, contact Sarah on her mobile: 07767 342747 or by email: [email protected]
1 See e.g. the business balls time matrix upon which the above table is based.
2 One definition of stress is a level of pressure (internal or external) with which we find difficulty coping.
3 Susan Billbess, writer - Nov 2008, at www.businessballs.com/inspirational_motivational_quotes.htm.
