Downsizing

I have downsized.

Oh, I don’t mean my paycheck, although for the time being while I’m getting my business going, that’s true too. (Just you wait . . . I’ll be back making the medium bucks again any time now!)

No, I mean I’ve downsized in terms of the size of the offices I work with, and the size of the cases I work on. It’s still a novelty!

In BigLaw in recent years, I tended to work on mega-cases. There were armies of attorneys to respond to, scads of money at stake, and boatloads of documents to manage, and filings and deadlines to track. There were always ten plates spinning at once.

Which isn’t to say I don’t have ten plates spinning at once now – often I do. But they’re my plates, not the plates spun off by the decisions of others, which I must nonetheless keep in the air somehow.

No, the offices I work with now as a virtual paralegal tend to be small. I work with solo practitioners, for the most part. They may or may not have on-site staff, and they may or may not have permanent office space.

Because my clients have smaller offices themselves, they tend to handle matters that are somewhat less document intensive than those I've handled in the past. They tend to use different technology than that which I had become accustomed to in recent years. I work more with PDF document compilations, and less with Concordance databases, for example. I prepare document productions in the hundreds (or maybe low thousands) of pages, rather than in the tens of thousands.

But these are minor differences - differences of detail rather than substance.

In fact, now more than ever I am often called upon to figure out the most efficient way to accomplish a project with available resources and my own two hands and the small-office technology at my disposal, with no Litigation Support personnel to fall back on for getting a project done. This satisfies my practical nature.

Case size and technology may have downsized, but professionalism certainly has not. With my attorney clients, the quality of the work is just as painstaking, and the expectations of excellence are just as high as they were when I worked at larger firms. This satisfies my perfectionist nature.

There is a different “office” dynamic as well. (Yes, in an odd way my attorney clients and I do make up an "office.") There are fewer layers of approval to work one’s way through than in large offices. I find that communication is more direct, and the sense of partnership I feel with my clients is more pronounced. This satisfies my collaborative nature.

So you see, in my world, downsizing has been a very good thing!

Driven: Part 4, or Believing Isn't Necessarily Seeing

OMG it's been f-o-r-e-v-e-r since I posted last, where have I been?

I've been here!

Pretty, eh? 

Plus when I haven't been frolicking in the desert, I've been Crazy Busy.

Enough of that, onward with the thoughts I've been thinking while reading Daniel Pink’s Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.

The farther I read in this provocative book, the more I realize that it has vast implications for virtual paralegals such as me, and  for all other freelance or telecommuting workers.

I’ve seen a lot of articles suggesting that trust is a barrier to telecommuting or remote working relationships. That managers, supervisors, and business owners who hire contractors worry about the work getting done when no supervisor is present to watch it happening.

This is the exact opposite of what I experience, and I'm guessing it is the opposite of what all of my virtual colleagues experience too.

The notion that a remote working contractor, such as a virtual paralegal, won’t work when not being watched operates on the old assumptions that people don’t really want to work, and must be driven to by carrots and sticks. An assumption that doesn’t really bear out when people are interested in what they’re doing, and have a deep personal investment in what they're doing.

In fact, the very reason that many freelancers want to be self-employed and want to work remotely is that autonomy is very important to us, and it is also highly motivating. The control I wield over when and how I work is an integral part of my drive to excel.

I've commented in previous posts about the way in which carrots and sticks can warp our natural motivation to work hard. Studies show that in a work environment where workers know they are being monitored to assure they’re performing, they may actually slack if monitoring stops. The goal can shift from performing the work to appearing busy for the ever watchful boss. So I can see how managers – lawyers in my case – could become programmed to believe workers require monitoring to get them to perform.

But a self-employed person, someone owning her own business and responsible for her own income, benefits, livelihood and well-being, is really operating outside such an environment. She has strong motivation to perform and to exceed expectations that has nothing to do with being monitored.

Now I’m not suggesting that it’s impossible for a remote working professional to slack off and charge clients for not working – obviously there are unscrupulous folks around. I'm simply saying that for me, the motivation to do my best and most efficient work stems from my love of what I'm doing, from the exhilarating sense of pride I feel from owning a business that provides services to clients, and from the knowledge that it's the value I provide that keeps clients coming back, whether they can see me working or not.

Method to My Madness: Getting More Done

Running my own business requires a different mindset about time management than that which served me as a law firm employee. I have many more tasks requiring my attention, and a different set of priorities. This has necessitated a "re-think" about the organization of my time.

As a paralegal in a law firm, my to-do list flowed from my case deadlines, and assignments from attorneys. After all, most case deadlines are pretty non-negotiable! That motion must get filed by this time on this date, and I must move heaven and earth to make that happen. And when a partner calls wanting something done, the only appropriate response is, “On it!”

Now as a virtual and freelance paralegal, I still have deadlines for case work assigned by my attorney clients. But on top of that, I also have a host of business related tasks I must perform. No matter how much client work I have in the pipeline (and I want to have a lot!), I ignore these other tasks at my peril, because my flow of future client work depends on them.

When I first started this business, I naturally used my old method of a long, daily list of to-dos, largely driven by external deadlines. But when I began adding those business and marketing related projects into this list, two things happened.

First, the list got overwhelmingly long!

But second and perhaps more problematic, because the business related tasks didn’t usually have the hard deadlines that the client projects did, they got shoved to the side. Or they led to a lot of disorganized and confusing “project jumping.” My sense of the priority of these business tasks was so subjective and fear driven, that I found myself switching from one thing to another to the point that little got done.

I needed a better way.

I've posted before about my realization that I need a strategy for prioritizing my to-dos. As my thinking has evolved – or perhaps as my frustration level has become unbearable – I’ve also realized I need a structure. Something to keep the daily list below 25 items. Or even if I'm using the post-it method (which is that your daily list has to fit on a post-it - see here), I need something to prevent those items that never make it onto the post-it from completely falling through the cracks.

So now I’m trying the “days of the week” method. In other words, categories of projects are assigned to different days of the week.

Now, some tasks need to be done every day. Like client work – I do whatever it takes to get it done, get it done well, and get it done on time. Also exercise – I really try to do this every day. Also Twitter, reading and commenting on blogs, and other social media activities – I spend time on them most days, although not the same amount of time each day. (Why waste time on this? See here and here.)

Another item I can’t assign a day to is in-person networking events. I see big benefits from these for my business, so I attend them whenever they occur and schedule everything else around them.

But the bigger biz-related projects? I’ve assigned them days. For example, I reserve the same day each week for working on my Newsletter. (Not a subscriber? See the sidebar!) I reserve a different day each week for article writing. And yet another day for my website. Etc.

What’s helpful about this is it thwarts my temptation to switch projects every time I get an idea. Say I get an incredibly great idea about organizing an article I’m writing. Typically I would start worrying about the article, and maybe I would even stop what I’m doing to work on it. But this way, I jot the idea down, tell myself I’ll flesh it out on my article writing day, and then continue what I was doing. Or suppose I get a sudden surge of panic that my newsletter isn't ready and it has to go out next week - OMG! I tell myself to relax, that I’ll finish it on my upcoming newsletter day. And I go on with what I’m doing.

Another benefit is that I can actually assure I will get to my accounting, and other administrative stuff! After all, I’ve reserved Mondays for that! It makes it much harder to come up with a convenient excuse to avoid working on that stuff I don't enjoy but need to to!

This method is working for me at the moment, and I find I’m managing to move more projects forward. How about you – what do you do about managing your to-do list?

After all, it's just an experiment!

People are going to peg me as a Peter Bregman groupie.  Oh well, there are worse things, I suppose.

Bregman wrote another post last month that has stuck with me ever since, called Live Life as an Experiment.  In it, he tells a story of an experiment in which he returned an item to a store and tried to get out of paying the 20% restocking fee.  His experiment succeeded; he appealed to the store manager’s generosity and avoided paying the fee, and learned that many people really do want to be generous, given the chance.  But he drew a much bigger lesson from this, which appeals to me a great deal.  And that was,

Live life as an experiment!

“Because when we live life as an experiment, we are far more willing to take risks, to acknowledge failure, to learn and develop. That's what experiments are all about: discovery and growth. There is no real failure in an experiment because it's all data. If something doesn't work, that's simply data that leads to changing behavior to see if something else does work.”

Bregman's argument suggests to me that I might be willing to do something I would normally find embarrassing, if it’s an experiment.  Take, for example, business cold calling!  Something I’m horrified at the thought of doing, for a number of reasons which are probably pretty sound.  But what if I made an experiment of it?  What if the point was to see whether a cold call resulted in a meeting, or in a hang-up?  If the goal of the experiment is simply data, then either result is OK, right?

What other business related icky projects could I turn into an experiment?  How would this mindset improve my willingness to take a risk?  What could I learn from it?

Who knows, it might even result in increased business!  Now, wouldn’t that be grand?

What Matters To You?

I was recently left a bit breathless by a very arresting blog post by Peter Bregman called “Don’t Regret Working Too Hard.”  The springboard was an article suggesting that as people near the end of their lives, their two most common regrets are not having lived a life true to themselves, and having worked too hard.  From this, Bregman suggests that one might address – or perhaps prevent - these regrets by figuring out what really matters to us, and trying to spend time working on those things, rather than on things that are not meaningful to us.
 

As a CEO, Bregman took his post in a different direction than I can as a small business owner with no employees, but his chief point still brought me up short.

So the question is, what matters to you?

That is a critically important question to explore.

After all, I don’t want to spend any time – now or later – regretting that I worked too hard, or regretting that I missed out somehow on being my best self, doing what I most wanted to do.  And for me, it isn’t so much about working too many hours, but rather, working on projects I don’t value.

On one level, this idea is reaffirming to me, because I’m aware that I started down this path of owning my own business for precisely this reason.  I became aware that what really matters to me is having a work life that isn’t so alienated from my “non-work” life.  Having more autonomy, more control over the texture and quality of my days.  Being my own boss, reaping all the fruits of my own labor rather than primarily enriching others. 

So in that respect, I am indeed spending my time working on what matters to me, and that is a gratifying thing to realize.
 

My challenge going forward is to never stop asking myself what matters most to me, and to continue to find ways to spend my time doing just that.

What matters most to you?

Sunday Six Word Memoir

I’ve had an unsettling week.  Unsettling in a good way, that is.  It all started a little while back when I scored a copy of Dave Navaro’s ebook, 7 Steps To Playing A Much Bigger Game.  Which is not hard to do, since he’s giving it away on his website, how cool is that.  Although I think I got it from somewhere else. 

In any event, reading and working through it has been challenged my thinking quite a bit, as I’m struggling to build my little great big freelance and virtual paralegal business in a difficult economy.  It’s challenged me to ask myself if I’m really "all in" on this project, and if I really am, then what else am I prepared to do to succeed.  Beyond that, how much further can I take my ideas; what additional services or products can I provide that might benefit my clients even more, while yielding greater income for me?  What am I willing to invest, of my time and effort and resources, in order to insure my success?

As a result I’m in the midst of adding to my marketing arsenal, and planning new approaches for reaching new clients.  I’m far from finished working these ideas out, but in the interim, here is the next in my series of Six Word Memoirs – a memoir to encapsulate my week:
 

Be all in; go all out!

Got your own Six Word Memoir?  Feel free to share it in the Comments!

Face Time, or, Working That Room!

Networking events were not part of my life when I was employed in Big Law – or at least I didn’t perceive what I was doing to be “networking.”  I rubbed shoulders with other paralegals and legal support professionals at MCLEs and other seminars, and of course met people in other industries at MeetUps and other gatherings.  I made friends where I could, noted interesting information I came across, but didn’t consider such events essential for my livelihood.
 

Now that I’m a business owner, events where I can meet fellow entrepreneurs and other legal professionals have become hugely important.  I seek out such gatherings wherever I can, and I make it a priority to show up.  Of course my direct mail, email and internet marketing are all worthwhile, but there’s something irreplaceable about meeting someone face to face.  I remember the people I meet, and what I’ve learned about what they do and what they need.  And I hope they remember me!
 

I attend county Bar Association events, paralegal association meetings, e-discovery seminars, as well as local business networking events whenever I can.  I still try to make friends.  I still note interesting information I come across.  If I meet someone who could benefit from my contract paralegal services someday, of course I make a special effort to learn about her firm and practice.  However, I find that people in other industries are great connections to make as well.  I never know when I might have a need for the expertise of someone I meet outside the legal profession, or whether I will meet someone I can refer to them.

Last week I attended an event hosted by the Napa Chamber of Commerce at the beautiful Artesa Winery.  It was a gorgeous setting and a beautiful mild summer evening.  I met interesting people in the wine industry, video and internet marketing fields, direct mail and network marketing areas, and yes, the legal industry too.  The wines and the food items from local restaurants were excellent, and it all made for a lovely and beneficial evening.
 

Yes, I still experience some initial reticence to striking up conversations with strangers, but once I get going I do love to chat with people I meet, learn about how they’re operating their businesses, and compare notes on marketing strategies and the economy, etc.  I try to focus on making friends rather than doing a hard-sell about my services, and I try to follow up with emails to everyone I meet that I want to stay in touch with.
 

Will I get business directly from such networking events?  I certainly hope so, but it isn’t solely about that.  Rather, it’s about making connections in my local community, establishing friendships with people I can help and who can perhaps help me one day.  It’s about Whuffie.
 

For another take on networking events, I highly recommend these:  Chere Estrin’s wonderful post, You Call This Networking?? – boy, can I relate to this anxiety!  Also, an inspiring post from Women Grow Business called,  Want to Grow Your Business? Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone. 
 

So what about you – do you network?  Feel free to share your stories in the comments!

How to Succeed in Business . . . by Really, Really Trying

Occasionally I read an article or blog post I find so thought provoking, I cannot shake it off. 

Such as last month, when I read Sonia Simone’s CopyBlogger piece, The Three Surprisingly Simple Keys to Success.  What was provocative about this piece for me was the discussion of things that I typically view as outside my control which may actually be very much within my control.

What are the three keys, and are they within my grasp after all?  The article starts with the well-known premise that in order to succeed – in whatever you’re trying to succeed in – you need any two of the three following things: talent, luck, or persistence.  Now, the last one, persistence, may be challenging, but at least it's up to me and me alone to persist or not.  But what if I’m neither talented enough nor lucky enough?

Talent

I’ve been accustomed to thinking talent is innate.  Something I was born to be good at.  Some “gift” that always came naturally to me.  (Phrased that way, how many of these do I actually have?!?  Hmm . . .)  For example, I had a bit of an ear for music when I was young, and thought of it as a “talent” I had been born with - possibly discounting too much the 1-2 hours per day I practiced (which is of course nothing by musicians’ standards - but still).  But Simone suggests that what we think of as talent is more often something we love so much that we do it a lot, in which case does the success stem from innate ability, or from “nonstop, almost obsessive practice”? 

Thought provoking question!  If some activity I need to make my business succeed - such as successful marketing, thoughtful use of social media, writing useful articles - doesn’t come naturally to me, do I give up on talent and turn to the other two Keys to Success?  Nope.  I keep marketing.  I keep working at communicating.  I write, and write, and write some more. 

As Simone writes, “The more you work, the more talented you get.”  Which is actually a huge relief!

Luck

Luck is obviously completely outside my realm of influence - or so I thought.  But what if luck isn’t really “luck”?  If a brand new client phones me because my marketing piece lands on her desk the very day she needs help, is that luck?  Maybe, but if I strew my marketing pieces wider and farther and more strategically and more often, can I improve the odds of such a thing happening?

If I bump into three potential clients at a social event and spark their interest in my business primarily because I’m likable and I express confidence that I can benefit them, is that lucky?  Perhaps a bit, but if I get out more often and meet more people, and if I’m putting my most likable self forward at all times, do I improve my odds? 

What if I’m always striving to be kind, be helpful, be generous, improve my karma, and increase my whuffie?  What if these things, over time, bring me more business and happier clients?  Is that luck?

As Simone says, “The more you work, the luckier you get.”  Good news!

Persistence

I’m not suggesting this one is easy; however it is a lot easier for me to realize that this particular key to success is within my control.  I need to keep at it and not give up.  Keep working hard and well for my clients.  Keep dreaming up new avenues for finding and attracting clients.  Keep marketing.  Keep writing.  Keep interacting.  Keep striving to be generous.  Keep doing my best work.  Relentlessly.  Every day.  No matter what.  Without fail.

So when I’m tempted to feel discouraged that things aren’t going my way, not falling into place, not progressing quickly enough, this article is an excellent reminder to me that if I just persist, keep working hard at all the tasks before me, perhaps I can increase my talent, create my own luck, and my business will become a success.

Building My Business or Spinning My Wheels?

When I first started my own business, I floundered trying to figure out how to be productive.  After all, I had spent much of my work life having my activities dictated by supervisors.  Obviously, one of the appeals of entrepreneurship is that I do in fact now set my own schedule and determine my own work activities!  But instead of being happy about that, I was frustrated at all the distractions hurtling my way that I wasn’t managing well, and anxious that I wasn’t getting enough done, or wasn’t getting the right things done.

After all, there are many things I need to fit into my schedule in order to keep my business running, and part of my learning curve as a new entrepreneur has been figuring out what those things are.  I devised ever longer lists of activities I hoped would grow my business.  Yet, even with to do lists, I still wasn’t content with my progress, and felt that important tasks were slipping through the cracks due to distractions, or poor time management, or perhaps just through poor prioritization.  Or perhaps because I just didn’t know what the heck I was doing!

Mostly I felt I was spinning my wheels.
 

Finally the messages of the business books and blogs I was reading sunk in, and I stepped back and thought about strategy.  I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating.  Mitch Joel talks about tactics - in my case my to-do list - being useless without a strategy.  I needed to ask myself why I would do any of the tasks on my to-do list, and which piece of my overall strategy each item supported.  So I sat down and thought about my business strategy, and prioritized broad business goals.  Then I listed categories of tasks under each goal, and I made sure that every task I dreamed up to do fit somewhere into that strategy and supported at least one of those goals.
 

Even that wasn’t enough.  It doesn’t do to merely write up a strategy; I must implement it.  So I have devised a daily schedule for myself.  I have even set up reminders.  And I am trying to stick to my schedule.  I may make daily decisions about flexing parts of the schedule here or there depending on my client commitments or appointments, but I am finding it tremendously useful to have thought through a plan for my day which is based upon my business strategy, rather than the whim du jour.  Here’s how it works.
 

Obviously work for my clients takes priority, and having lots of client work is the point of the whole exercise.  So when I have client work to do, I devote large chunks of time to it, and fit other tasks in as I may.  That said, these are the tasks I make sure I work into my schedule.

Social Media

 

I set aside some time each day for LinkedIn, Twitter and my RSS feed.  I check in on LinkedIn, see if there are any group discussions I want to contribute to.  I skim through my various Twitter feeds, click on interesting links, and retweet things I find useful.  I skim through the blogs in my RSS feed, and comment on or tweet blogs posts, as seems appropriate.  The business strategy here is three-fold.  First, it’s educational for me; it helps me keep abreast of the trends in my industry.  Next, I am building on-line relationships with people in my field from whom I can learn and whom I can perhaps assist.  And finally, I am developing my “brand” as a skilled paralegal who is an expert in her field.  However, I could spend all day on these things, so I set a time limit to it – I try to keep it to an hour (90 non-consecutive minutes max).
 

Writing

 

I set aside time for writing projects.  I am always working on articles related to the legal industry and/or paralegal work.  I make them available for download on my website, and I plan to pursue publication avenues for some of them in the future.  The business strategy behind this is twofold:  I want to continue to learn and keep my skills sharp, and the research required by writing articles accomplishes this.  And second, writing articles helps me in that above-mentioned “brand development.”

Marketing

 

Do you remember that line from the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, “Always Be Closing”?  The business strategy here is “Always Be Marketing.”  I can’t afford to take a break from this.  I need to find ways to reach new markets, and to stay on the radar of potential clients.  I always have a few marketing projects going, whether it’s tweaking my website, developing new marketing materials, executing a direct mail campaign, building my marketing database, in person networking with former colleagues or potential clients, or studying marketing books.  I need to be relentless in my marketing efforts in order to keep business coming in the door.

The Rest of It

 

Recently I have begun scheduling regular time for writing posts for my two blogs, because I’ve realized that was the only way I would fit it in.  It is my hope that this will help me post a bit more consistently in the future.  I also set aside time most days for a little work-out, and this happens whether I have client work or not.  No one is going to keep me healthy but me!
 

Add in errands, meal preparation, and reading my various business books and magazines, plus some cooking magazines and the occasional novel (this usually happens in the evenings when my brain is too weary to “work” any more), and my days are very full!  That’s a good thing!
 

But the best thing of all is that when I regularly review my strategy for growing my business and the activities needed to support that strategy, and then stick to a schedule for chipping away at these activities, I accomplish more, and I hope the things I accomplish are actually pushing my business strategy forward! 

 

What are your time management strategies?  Feel free to share them in the comments.

Blog Current: Wading Through an Endless Flow of Ideas

Why do I subscribe to blogs and news feeds?  Because subscribing is such a huge time saver, as shown in this cool little video!
 
But the prior question would be why do I read blogs at all?  Because I want to keep abreast of law practice trends.  Because I never owned a business before, and I barely know what I’m doing.  Because some days I’m scared to death!  Oh, and because it’s fun!
 
The blogs in my RSS reader fluctuate.  Being self-employed, time management is something I constantly wrestle with.  Mindful that I need to spend time on the most important things, I regularly review my subscriptions and remove blogs that I’m either – let’s face it, just not reading – or else not benefiting from any more.  But what benefits me?

Those benefits fluctuate too, as I move through different phases of my entrepreneurial pursuits, but generally, my blog subscriptions fall into three categories: law and paralegal blogs; marketing and business blogs; and what I think of as “entrepreneurial inspiration” blogs.  (There are also food/wine blogs, but that’s a topic for Sonoma Sip.)  

Here are just a few of the blogs in each category that I read regularly.
 
Legal Profession
 
LTN Law Technology News – LTN is a news feed of articles from a variety of sources focused on technology in law practice.  As technological advances have always been of great interest, but also of great importance to me as a paralegal, I find this feed extremely useful.  It also has a focus on e-discovery, which is a big interest of mine.
 
Practical Paralegalism – Lynne DeVenny is a North Carolina paralegal who writes a highly engaging blog about and for fellow paralegals.  Her posts are a mix of education, paralegal news and funny or moving anecdotes, and I always enjoy it.  Check it out!
 
Georgetown Law’s E-Discovery Law Blog - As I mentioned, I'm quite interested in e-discovery, and consequently I subscribe to a number of e-discovery blogs.  Scholarly yet very clearly written, it covers an interesting array of e-discovery related topics.
 
Marketing & Business Advice
 
Six Pixels of Separation – a marketing blog written by Mitch Joel of TwistImage.com, author of the recent book by the same name.  I enjoyed the book, and I also subscribe to Mitch’s podcast.  If there is one significant message I’ve gleaned from Six Pixels, it is to continually ask myself why.  Why should clients hire me instead of someone else, why is anyone interested in anything I have to say, why am I choosing this marketing method over another?  My strategy has to dictate my tactics; otherwise everything I do is just a distraction.(fn)   Thought-provoking stuff!
 
IttyBiz: Marketing for Businesses Without Marketing Departments – a hilariously funny yet very insightful blog written by Naomi Dunford.  I need to remember not to sip coffee or wine or any other liquid while reading Naomi’s posts lest I spew it all over my computer when I burst out laughing, and the smiles would be reason enough to read it.  But the blog is also full of marketing insights geared straight toward my very small sort of business.
 
Entrepreneurial Inspiration
 
Buon Viaggio – a blog written by Barbara Winter of JoyfullyJobless.com fame.  As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, her book was highly influential in my decision to start my own contract paralegal business.  Her blog continues to inspire, and encourages me to revel in the fact that despite all its challenges, becoming self-employed was the best thing I could have done in this season of my life.
 
Seth’s Blog -  I realize it’s quite unoriginal to adore Seth’s blog – it might just be the most popular blog on the planet – but I don’t care.  Seth’s posts are endlessly honest, insightful, and arresting, and I rarely if ever fail to be challenged by them.  Perhaps the two most transformative messages for me have been the importance of generosity in my life, in my relationships, in my business, and the importance of what Seth calls “shipping.”  Do it.  Get it on the market.  Start the business.  Execute the plan – not the perfect plan, just the plan I have right now.  Act, move, get it done.  I need this kick in the pants every day!
 
I could talk about many more noteworthy blogs – and perhaps I will in a follow-up post.  These blogs might not be your cup of tea – what benefits me right now might be – probably is! – different from what benefits you.  Regardless, I wholeheartedly recommend that you spend a slot of time a day or a week feeding your mind with insights from others that might hone your skills, challenge your thinking, give you new ideas, or simply provide encouragement that you’re on the right track!
 
So what are you reading?  Feel free to share it in the comments!



fn:  Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone, by Mitch Joel, at 50-51. New York: Business Plus, 2009.

Calling the IT Department! Oh Wait . . . That's Me!

As mentioned in my last post, I spent last week transitioning from my five year old PC to the new laptop I bought.  Doing this in the midst of a research and drafting project for a client posed additional challenges, but I'm happy with the result.  And it gives rise to a brief discussion of my home office, what I need and use, the software I like, etc.  So here goes.

First, a quick synopsis of the discussion I have with my Mac loving family and friends (and there are many).  The Mac lovers in my life mount compelling arguments in its favor, but in my own computer choice, the primary criterion is compatibility.  Most law offices operate on Windows PCs; hence, so will my home office.  I can’t afford to have clients complaining about my documents not working properly, and I don’t want to spend time on conversions, etc.  So it was a Windows laptop for me.

I have always been one to economize on hardware.  My family has a long tradition of handing down computers to each other, and getting by with upgrading and coddling along older hardware.  I know many will disagree with this approach, and believe it’s the best business investment to buy the very best (and consequently most expensive) hardware there is, but I believe I have a good grasp of how much computing power I need to adequately run my business, allowing for expected growth.  So, taking into consideration my still fairly meager budget, I purchased an Acer laptop (not the most expensive one), maxed out the RAM memory before taking it home, and called it good. 

Will this laptop still be serving me well five years from now?  Time will tell, but it certainly meets my needs now, and it feels light years faster than my old PC.  Moreover, when I’m working in my office, the larger LCD monitor, contoured keyboard and mouse from my old PC system are connected to it, greatly enhancing my speed and efficiency.

My laptop came loaded with Windows 7 and MS Office 2007 (a trial version, that is).  I immediately fell in love with both.  I won’t expound on all their many cool features; I just find them both very intuitive to use.

What other software do I find essential for my home office?

•    QuickBooks – I use this for all my business accounting.  It was invaluable last month when my taxes were being prepared, and I find it fairly easy to use.  I purchased this software, as the free version isn’t powerful enough for my needs.

•    Easy Time Tracking Pro – I use this for tracking my billable time.  I can create accounts for as many clients as I want, track my time for each client with a timer, and prepare detailed invoices.  There are a number of time tracking programs out there; this one meets my needs and is relatively inexpensive.  (Again, the free version isn’t powerful enough for my needs.)

•    SugarSync – I use this primarily for on-line backup of my most important data.  I have a free account, so I can’t back my entire computer onto it, but I back up everything work related.  I like the automatic nature of it.  Every time I hit “save” the document automatically backs up; there’s nothing I have to manually do.  SugarSync has file sharing capabilities, and I could in theory share documents with clients in this way, but it would require that the client have a SugarSync account as well, so I’m not using that function at this point.  (I know many people recommend DropBox for these same functions.)

•    Google Docs – I obviously didn’t have to download this, but I do use it in my business.  Google Docs allows me to set up folders through which I can share non-confidential documents with clients (I secure them so I’m not sharing them with the world), whether said clients have a Google account or not. 

•    TweetDeck – I like this platform for Twitter, and I view and respond to my LinkedIn and Facebook updates here as well.  I like the “one stop shopping” TweetDeck affords.

•    Skype – my family uses it a lot, and it is also available for use with clients if they choose.

I of course had to download and configure software and drivers for personal use as well, and transfer all my music, photos and files (Windows Easy Transfer really simplified this process, and enabled me to transfer software settings as well as documents).   All quite time consuming, but I am very close to being finished transferring my electronic life from my old PC to my new laptop.  And I managed to do so seamlessly enough that clients didn’t notice.

And now I'm looking forward to a peaceful and efficient work life in my new home office setup!

Being Goals vs. Doing Goals

Paul Hawken in his book, Growing a Business, describes a concept that stimulated a lot of thought for me.  He tells the story of a large oil company that undertook a study of companies that had endured for centuries, even though their main business had changed over those years.  One of the conclusions they drew “was that these companies survived the upheavals of the marketplace and the world-at-large because they had ‘being’ goals instead of ‘doing’ goals.  Their business was centered on a way of interacting with the work, not on providing one specific product or service.”  

Hawken goes on to provide an example of a given company’s goals involving either “doing” – such as providing white diapers – or “being” – such as providing excellent assistance to mothers of newborns.  The “being” goal is so much more open-ended and versatile; such a goal will enable a business to morph with the needs of mothers over time and to change as technology changes.  It enables a business to last, because it can continue to find new means and mechanisms of meeting its primary goal.
 

I find this concept fascinating and challenging when I think about my own fledgling business.  I’ve begun to rethink both my marketing copy, and my so-called “elevator speech.”  What is the most open-ended, versatile business goal I can state?  I want to be able to provide any type of assistance litigators need over time, even as the technology of meeting those needs is changing rapidly right now.  I don’t want to think of my role too narrowly.  These differences may be subtle, but I’m finding it helpful to refocus the way I think and speak about my business, from “doing” language about tasks I’m capable of performing to “being” language about excellence and competency and reliability.  

What's your "being" goal?

Growing A Business, by Paul Hawken.  New York: Simon & Schuster Inc., 1988.