How to Work More Efficiently and Effectively

• Author: Allison C. Shields Johs
• Pages: 6-9

6 FAMILY ADVOCATE www.shopaba.org

The title of this article was originally “How to

Work More Eciently,” but both eciency

(doing things the right way) and eectiveness

(doing the right things) are important to your

productivity. is article oers strategies for both.

Manage Interruptions

All too often, lawyers fall into the trap of constantly reacting

to emails, telephone calls, or other interruptions instead of

deciding in advance where to spend their time and energy.

Allowing too many interruptions is a major obstacle to

eectiveness and eciency.

Get a Handle on Your Email

Email can easily become one of the worst time wasters in

your practice; don’t let it hijack your productivity. A good

way to prevent that is to clear your inbox of anything that

does not belong there.

How to Work More

Eciently and Eectively

BY ALLISON C. SHIELDS JOHS

First, limit your work email account to business messages.

Create a separate account for subscriptions or shopping sites

so sales promotions and shipping conrmations stay out of

the way of your most important messages. Delete any

unnecessary messages immediately. Remove yourself from

one email list per day until you’re only on lists that you

actively participate in or routinely derive valuable informa-

tion from. If you miss being on a list you’ve deleted, you can

always resubscribe.

Don’t use your inbox as your task list. If an email repre-

sents a task, move it out of your inbox and into your tasks

folder, or add it to a to-do list or action folder. In Outlook,

you can drag and drop an email message directly to your

tasks folder. If the email requires action by someone else,

forward it to that person right away with your instructions.

en delete the email from your inbox, move it to an

alternate folder for follow-up, or convert it into a task for

follow-up.

Published in Family Advocate, Volume 43, Number 3, Winter 2021. © 2021 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved. This information or any portion thereof

may not be copied or disseminated in any form or by any means or stored in an electronic database or retrieval system without the express written consent of the American Bar Association.