Let’s make your life less stressful through the nerdy power of time management

What if you could skip all those emails back and forth trying to find a time for a phone call/Zoom meeting? If you love those emails as much as I do (i.e., not much), have you checked out a meeting-booking software?

When I joined the entrepreneur world, I got introduced to Acuity and Calendly, and my first thought was, “WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I WAS PRACTICING LAW?” And since more and more of my professional clients are turning to them, I want to make sure you know about them, too.

Do you have to deal with CLEs, CMEs, or other continuing education requirements?

As I listened to one last night and logged it into my little CLE tracker spreadsheet, I realized I’m just two credits shy of meeting my requirements for this CLE period – and they aren’t due until January. This was one of those moments where I felt super grateful to Past Me for setting up Future Me to get something done without the last-minute scramble.

I just created a game plan to get it done over time – and voila! You can, too.

Here’re my tips for making CLE/CME/CE-compliance as painless as possible.

Likely because there was no “how to stay organized during the day-to-day grind” class in law school, many attorneys suffer from disorganized case files.

This means lots of last-minute scrambles to meet deadlines, twinges of mild panic when a client calls to request information that we can’t find quickly, and – most importantly – a lack of mental clarity regarding litigation strategy and status.

That used to describe me. As a new attorney straight out of law school at a big law firm in Boston, I had no idea how to keep my case files organized and important information accessible (in any one case, much less the numerous ones I had on my plate).

Over time, through experimentation, observation of some impressively organized attorneys, and research, I figured out systems to help me keep important documents handy, discovery and electronic files under control, and deadlines met without undue stress or scramble.

Given the lack of information on this front for new attorneys (and experienced attorneys, for that matter), I wanted to pass along my system in case it’s helpful to you.