As a devoted Apple geek, one of the things I wanted to do with my law practice was to make the greatest use of technology in order to leverage my resources and hopefully become and remain profitable. To a large extent I have been able to do just that. But a couple of things lately have caused me to ramp up my efforts to be even more technologically resourceful.
Paperless, A MacSparky Field Guide by David Sparks available for your iPad only via iTunes store. This interactive ibook is chock full of literally jaw dropping ideas for automating the workflow in your law office (or any office) and creating a paperless environment. I had dabbled around previously with a number of the tools and utilities that David uses but had never integrated the entire spectrum into a useable workflow. His ingenious use of a file naming convention, coupled with TextExpander snippets, Hazel automated organizer, Automator scripts, and Spotlight gives the workflow methodology I had been looking for.
The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris was a very illuminating book – once I gave it a chance. I bought this book on my iPad some time ago and put it down because I thought the author was pretentious and his approach not practicable. But I picked it up again this past weekend and have completely changed my mind. Tim’s basic premise is to create cash flow that operates with a minimal amount of your direct hands on involvement and a maximum amount of monetary return. Who doesn’t want that? But it is his use of virtual assistants that creates an environment where the work gets done under your direction while you can be virtually anywhere other than the office. My office is and has been virtually ready in the sense that I can access 90% of what I need to run my practice from any Mac, my iPhone, or my iPad. But it’s that last 10% that Tim provides a clear roadmap for doing that has really charged my batteries.
So, I am doubling down to squeeze even more automation through technology to allow me to untether myself from my physical office space. This involves restructuring some of my work habits (more discipline regarding email and multitasking interruptions), better task management and automated reminders, adding new systems to replace my fax (honestly, we put a man on the moon and a robot on Mars but we are still using fax?), getting a virtual assistant (that’s a really big deal), and lots more.
Maybe I will make it down to the beach this week!
