All Our Tips
Use Alerts So You Are Never Late for an Appointment
Are you frequently late for meetings and appointments? “My lawyer made me wait” is an all too common client complaint. Being late all the time is something that will really annoy clients – and other lawyers too.
For those of you that get lost in the demands of a busy schedule, there is a simple trick you can use to avoid being late for things: When setting a meeting or appointment, remember to set a reminder or alert as well.
Most calendar programs have a feature that lets you add a reminder or alert to each meeting or appointment entry. This alert or reminder gives you an audible and/or visual reminder of the upcoming appointment at a pre-set time before the meeting.
When you create an appointment, set a reminder with an appropriate amount of time to allow for necessary preparations or travel time. If the meeting is in your office, five minutes could be sufficient. Or perhaps 30 minutes if you need some time to review documents to prepare for the meeting. If you have an appointment that is out of the office, create a reminder that factors in your travel time. These reminders will give you a helpful nudge so you are prepared and on time for you next appointment. These reminders will usually sync to the calendar on your smartphone as well.
Double-checking your reminders at the start of the day can help as well. You may need extra time to prepare for a meeting or for travel if there has been a snow storm.
Making a Wise Choice…
I would like to take this moment to introduce my new joint columnist, Garry J. Wise of Toronto. As you gentle readers would know, my long-time collaborator and friend Laura A. Calloway recently resigned from this column due to growing work demands.
A bit about my friend and new collaborator:
Garry J. Wise was called to the Ontario Bar in 1986, and practices with Wise Law Office, a Toronto litigation firm that focuses on Employment Law, Family Law, Estates Litigation and Civil Litigation.
He is primary contributor to the award-winning Wise Law Blog, which features daily legal news updates and commentaries. Garry is also developer of WiseLii, Canada’s Free Mobile Legal Research Tool , an iPhone application that enables users to access Canadian case law, statutes and regulations via CanLii.
Garry has contributed to Bar-eX News, Huffington Post, CCH Labour & Law Newsletter, Canadian Bar Association’s Solo and Small Firm Addendum, Divorce Magazine and CCH Canadian Family Law Guide. He has been a Continuing Legal Education presenter on social media, legal ethics, Web 2.0 and security issues affecting the legal profession, and has been an occasional commentator on TV, radio and other media. Garry has been featured in the National Post, Toronto Star, LawPro Magazine,Lawyer’s Weekly, Canadian Lawyer Magazine, CCH Student E-Monthly and Toronto’s Now Magazine.
In addition to his professional and blogging activities, Garry dabbles as a writer and musician. Garry J. Wise can be reached by email to [email protected] or by phone at 416-972-1800.
Given this background, today’s tip is to collaborate.
What are the benefits and risks of collaborating?
Benefits:
- Knowledge and information sharing
- Good practices development
- Sharing risks and ability to split tasks
- A greater integrated approach to problem solving
- Capacity to replicate success and pass on learning to others
- Greater co-ordination and organization of activities
- Wider reach
- Better use of resources
- Draws on a wider range of experiences
- Mutual support and drive
Risks:
- Outcomes may take longer
- Potential for confusion until objectives are clarified and discussed
- Loss of flexibility
- Increased complexities
- Potential for mismatches
- Change management issues in moving from solo projects to cooperative ones
- Lack of clarity on roles, responsibilities and delegated tasks
- Damage to organization and reputations if collaboration fails
- Potential to drain energy from other demands
All in all, every organization and person has to decide if a project is suited to a collaborative approach. The rewards resulting from a positive collaboration can be substantial and long-lasting. A wise decision is one that selects the right approach to people and projects and pairs those that will work well together.
Who Inspires You
Today’s Tip is a follow-up from a theme that I see running through recent Research tips.
The theme is about WHO. Who can you go to for a quick answer, who do you trust to be your source for information, who is the person that inspires you or inspire your confidence.
I posted yesterday at Slaw about being inspired by Stephen Abram recently. Perhaps Stephen is one of the people that inspire you as well. If you are looking for a great place to be inspired, consider attending the Canadian Association of Law Libraries Annual Conference in Montreal May 5-8, 2013. Stephen will be offering a session on Librarians as Innovators.
Related Posts:
Find Your Groups
Look to Experts for Case Comments
Go to the Source
Look to the Library of Parliament
Talk to Your Librarian
Reposition Photos on Your Facebook Timeline
Photos uploaded to Facebook don’t always appear how you want them when they are displayed on your Timeline. Photos, and especially wide photos, will be cropped so they fit in a square box on the Timeline. This may cut off a part of the photo that you want displayed.
Don’t fret – there is an easy way to fix. Place your mouse over the update containing the photo you want to adjust. Click on the “Edit” icon (the pencil) in the top right corner of the update. You will see a “Reposition Photo” option. Click on this, then slide your photo up, down, left or right. Press save when you get the photo in the position you want. Bingo – people will see what you want them to see.
You can do the same thing with your Cover photo. Place your mouse over it, click on the Change Cover button and select Reposition.
Time Management Part Two
In my last post, I dealt with the issue of procrastination as being the first hurdle in terms of task management. In this second part of the post, we are dealing with all the interruptions that happen to you once you have started on the path to accomplish a task.
Now that you finally have your job started, how do you manage the inevitable interruptions that are keeping you from finishing? To do this, you must take control of your boundaries and space. People have long noticed the difficulty in dealing with interruptions:
“Life is a series of interruptions interrupted by interruptions”
(unknown)
-or-
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”
John Lennon.
So how do you handle the unending series of interruptions?
First, divide and conquer. Take your day and isolate time to do your most important work – free of interruptions. Make an appointment with yourself in your calendar to work on this project. Change your voice mail message to inform callers that you will be returning calls after a specific time and then stick to your commitment. Then close your door. I have found that people will respect the fact that you have set aside time to accomplish specific tasks provided that you have clearly indicated when you will be available to return calls.
Two, when you do take telephone calls – be all business. Cutting out the unnecessary chatter will free up time for returning more calls in less time.
Three, use e-mail. This avoids telephone tag and forces people to be succinct.
Four, post frequently asked questions on a web page, wiki, extranet, Q&A document or collaborative web page. Let the FAQs speak to your audience so that you are not called upon to answer routine questions over and over – and avoid the interruptions.
Five, work somewhere out of your office if you really have to get something done. It could be in a ‘war room’ in the office or your home or a library. By removing yourself from the sources of interruptions, you craft the space you need to do your important work.
Lastly, and *most* importantly, learn to say “No”. People will continually approach you to take on new tasks ahead of what you currently have to do – to the effect that your existing work load gets further and further behind. Practice saying “no” to the new tasks until your existing work is caught up. “No” is the most important word when it comes to handling your time.
By getting started on your tasks, eliminating interruptions and putting a halt to new work, you will go a long way towards achieving your objectives rather than those of others and no longer feel trapped by your commitments.
Look to Experts for Case Comments
I have a pretty easy time monitoring Canadian case law that is of interest to people in my organization. RSS feeds for CanLII searches or to monitor court output, good newsletters available from commercial legal publishers both in print and online, and the great sharing services offered by lawyers and firms, for example:
- Supreme Advocacy Letter created and distributed by Eugene Meehan and his team
- The Rules Newsletter offered by Alberta firm Jensen Shawa Solomon Duguid Hawkes LLP
For global case law that you should know about, look to the law blogs. A great example of how law blogs can keep you up to date on foreign decisions that will interest you, check out Barrk Sookmans post today Google wins sponsored links case in Australia. Today’s Tip: follow practice specific blogs for highlights on the most important foreign judgments in your area of practice.
While this method for following foreign case law does not replace research on a specific question that will spring your decision to look at foreign material, it is a good way to keep in the global loop.
An Easy Way to Access Multiple Printer Format Settings
If you routinely print two or more kinds of documents, each requiring its own printer settings, you’ve probably found it frustrating to have to re-enter or change printer properties every time you change documents.
There is actually a very simple trick to 
avoid having to do this. Simply install the same printer two or more times, but with different names and settings. This way, you simply select the “printer” that has the appropriate print settings you want each time you print.
To install a printer with new print settings in Windows, go to Start, Settings, Printers, and click the Add Printer icon. Install the printer as you would normally. When you come to the screen where you name your printer, name it something that differentiates it from your default printer. The name should also remind you of what the special printer settings are. For example, ”HP4landscape” for a printer that prints in landscape format.
When you finish the installation, right-click on the new printer and select Properties. Enter the special print settings you want to have for the new printer, and then click OK.
Now, when you want to print using the new print settings, you can just select appropriate printer name from your program’s Print dialog box.
Time Management Part One
This is the first of two tips dealing with personal time management.
There are two big difficulties when it comes to time management and trying to fit in all the tasks that we have to do in our lives.
One is procrastination (trying to start a task) and the other is dealing with interruptions (trying to finish a task).
This post deals with procrastination.
In order to start dealing with procrastination, you need to come to an understanding when you are procrastinating on a task in order to start to take steps to correct it.
So: How do you start?
First, recognize that you are procrastinating. This is taking ownership of the issue and admitting to yourself the difficulties that you have with this aspect of your life.
Next, if you haven’t already done so, separate your tasks into four categories:
- important and urgent,
- important but not urgent,
- urgent but not important, and
- neither important nor urgent.
Looking at the lists of tasks so divided, decide which of your important and urgent tasks you should be tackling but are not. Self-awareness of the tasks in which you are procrastinating is the first step to self-correction.
Now ask your self: why you are procrastinating? It could be that you find the task unpleasant. You may find it daunting in scope. Or – you keep giving it a low-priority on your list with the hope that someone else will do it.
Once you know the why you can take steps to figure out how you will deal with it.
Is the task unpleasant? Promise yourself a reward once it is done. Also realize the consequences that may come to you if you don’t do it are probably worse than doing the task.
Is the task too daunting? See if you can break it into smaller parts and do the first part now.
Does the not have a deadline by which it must be done? If not, set yourself a deadline. It is always better to work towards a defined finish date than allowing tasks to gnaw at you and consume your time while you fret.
By setting a deadline, you are making a promise to yourself that you don’t have to deal with this (unpleasant) task once the deadline is met. That itself should be a positive reward!
By meeting your procrastination head-on, you can start to take care of those tasks that are sitting on your to-do list and feel better about how you have used your time each day.
The next post in this series will discuss dealing with all the interruptions that come at your once you have started in on your important and urgent tasks for the day.
New Government Publications Resource
A press release received in my email inbox inspired today’s tip. Because I subscribe to an email list used by Canadian law libraries (CALL-L – an open list, more info here), I received the following press release:
APLIC/ABPAC releases its Government and Legislative Libraries Online Publications Portal (GALLOPP/PPGPE): A key resource for locating Canadian and Provincial Government Publications.
The Association of Parliamentary Libraries in Canada (APLIC) is proud to announce the release of its unique pan-Canadian bilingual government and legislative publications portal known as GALLOPP (Government and Legislative Libraries Online Publications Portal) / PPGPE (Portail des publications gouvernementales et parlementaires électroniques). It promises to become a vital resource for Canadian libraries seeking the electronic publications of Canada’s federal, provincial and territorial governments and legislatures.
The result of collaboration between provincial and territorial legislative libraries from across Canada and the federal government’s Depository Services Program (DSP), the portal provides one-stop access to over 320,000 electronic provincial, territorial and federal government publications and legislative materials dating back to 1995.
Its simple and easy-to-use English and French interface allows users to search for documents by keyword or full-text and then link to the electronic copies of the materials hosted by the collecting library. Results can be cross-jurisdictional or limited by jurisdiction or date.
The portal is a unique resource bringing together for the first time the significant government document repositories that have been built by individual legislative libraries and the DSP.
New documents will be added regularly to GALLOPP. A detailed scope note on the site provides an up-to-date description of the portal’s content.
The portal is available at no charge and is accessible on the APLIC site at http://www.aplic-abpac.ca/aplic_home.html .
The APLIC Portal page offers a scope note describing the wonderful material now amalgamted for searching in this new database resource. There is even an easy to understand option.
My sincere congratulations and thanks to the Association of Parliamentary Libraries in Canada for making this material easier to access. Having this information is a fantastic reason to make use of email lists.
How You Can Improve Your Mobile “Touch” Keyboard Typing Skills
I am a Blackberry person, and I’m holding out (with great patriotic hope) for a new BB10 Blackberry with a real keyboard (apparently there is a model with a real keyboard). I like the real keys on my Blackberry Torch. I have tried onscreen keyboards and find they are frustrating. I find them to be non-responsive and I hit often seem to hit the wrong key.
All that said (and to avoid a flurry of unfriendly comments from the platoons of iPhone and Android users, and the occasional Windows phone users that are out there),I recognize there are different strokes for different folks. Some of my best friends love their iPhones and other devices with onscreen keyboards. And some of them are even ex-Blackberry users that swear they can type as fast or faster on their touchscreens as they could on their trusty old Blackberry keyboard.
If you are a Blackberry convert (by choice or not) or are otherwise struggling to make your touchscreen keyboard work, you need to read the How Can I Improve My Mobile Typing Skills post on LifeHacker by Adam Dachis. He has some great pointers on how to improve your touchscreen typing technique, some apps that give you better onscreen keyboards, and tips on how you can use text expansion to increase your typing speed.
Happy typing everyone, even those with touchscreen keyboards!
