According to a British study, it takes us over a minute to recover our focus after checking email. That means if you check your email every five minutes or so, you are spending over eight hours a week trying to recover your focus.

That’s one more good reason to stay on task! To get back some of that time, turn off the auto-check feature on your email software. If you use webmail, don’t leave it open in a browser tab all day.

Instead, wait until your attention is already diverted to hit “send/receive.” Do it after you finish a task and your focus is already in limbo. Or before and after lunch when you have a few moments. You will spend less time in transition and more time getting things done in your day.

Email becomes a dangerous distraction | Sidney Morning Herald (via Lifehacker)

A few years back, everyone got really excited about “multitasking,” the idea that people could work on more than one task at a time. That was a big fat lie. People can’t really do two (or more) things at once; the best we can do is switch between two tasks really quickly, and all that does is make us inefficient and sloppy at both tasks.

Lawyers know this. Many lawyers justify a .2hr minimum billing increment, in part, because of the time it takes to switch between tasks. The more interruptions we allow in our day, the more time we waste switching gears. And yet, we allow so many interruptions.

So stop trying to multitask, and eliminate as many interruptions as you can. Think of your work day in chunks of time. I try to sit down in the morning and schedule my day. I rarely answer email immediately or pick up the phone when it rings; instead, I try to check and respond to email in between tasks, and I set aside a chunk of time in the afternoon to return phone calls.

Mostly, I just try not to think in terms of multitasking. Instead, I try to work on one task until I finish it, and then I move on to the next one. Sure, I don’t multitask, but in the end, I get more done, and do a better job on the tasks I complete.

Time seems to be one of the most-common reasons why attorneys who do not use social networks do not start. In the world of hourly billing, all time has a value, and many attorneys seem to believe that (1) networking online will take a lot of time and (2) may not be worthwhile in the end.

The second belief may or may not be true, just like having lunch with a potential client or colleague may not result in a new client or referral to the firm. The first belief is a misconception, at least partially.

Networking takes time, whether that networking takes the form of a bar association event, a happy hour with colleagues, or online social networking. Just like “regular,” offline networking, time spent networking online is up to the person doing the networking online. Networking online is “real” marketing. It should be a necessary part of your job, not just frivolous web surfing. But you do not need to spend more than 15-20 minutes a day to benefit from networking online.

So let’s take a look at three major online social networking tools—LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter—and how much time you will probably have to spend to see some benefit.

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Annoying, isn’t it? And yet, if you are an attorney, there are dozens, if not hundreds or thousands of people who can make your phone ring any time they want to.

This is my favorite part of my answering machine message:

I return phone calls at 10 and 4 if I am in the office. If you need to reach me more quickly, please send me an e-mail.

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Lifehacker’s Brad Isaac suggests using “EOM”, a quick way to indicate the end of a message, to save your addressees’ time. How? Put the whole message in the subject, and end with “EOM” (example: “Will be in the office @ 3:30 EOM”), which indicates the reader need not waste time opening your email.

Even used in the body of the message, it can help, since many email programs give the reader a short preview of the message. If the reader sees EOM, he or she can act on the message and move on.

Sure, you will get a lot of questions at first, but once everyone is in the know, it should help speed things up!

How “EOM” Makes Your Email More Efficient | Lifehacker

Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero theory of email is an extremely effective way to turn down the noise and get control of your inbox. After all, the inbox on your (or your secretary’s) desk is a waypoint, not a filing cabinet. Shouldn’t your email inbox be the same? Makes sense, but many people just let their email inbox fill up with junk.

And many people over-organize their email. All those folders into which you carefully sort your email (one for each client, maybe?) are largely wasted effort. You can just use the handy search box to find them when you need them (plus, unless you are using Gmail, you have a host of sent emails that do not end up in those folders, anyway).

Do you have a load of spam and listserv emails sitting in your inbox? Why? Delete it if you do not need it.

Delete the junk, act on the important stuff, and then archive it. Sort only what you must (I have one big “clients and cases” folder where I toss everything case-related, although I am not even sure that much is necessary).

Enjoy a tranquil inbox.

On Peanut Shells and Email Archiving | 43 Folders (via Lifehacker)

Luis Suarez, who works for IBM from the Canary Islands, got tired of wading through piles of e-mail, so he moved most of his communications to social networking tools, especially blogs. To keep up with his co-workers, he used an RSS reader (I use Google Reader for the same thing) to stay on top of their blogs.

Lawyers can make use of social networking tools, as well. A litigation team could make extremely effective use of a blog to track ideas, due dates, documents, and more. It would need to be a non-public blog, obviously, but this would be easy to accomplish.

One of the problems with e-mail is it is sent, received, and then lost. If team members communicated on a blog, that information would be constantly available and frequently reviewed.

I Freed Myself From E-Mail’s Grip | New York Times

My wife’s company has a “summer camp” retreat this weekend, and invited family members to tag along. So I did. I loved that I could pick up and tag along with nothing but my laptop. As a solo, I can’t really afford to take a three-day vacation, but because I have a paperless office, I can work just as easily from this lake resort as I can from my office.

But unlike working from my office, there is a deck with an amazing view off our hotel room. And a canoe at the marina that is calling my name . . .

I sat on a panel with productivity guru Merlin Mann today. We talked about a range of issues, from information overload to paperlessness to Getting Things Done and the Franklin-Covey method, all with reference to the life of lawyers.

If you are not familiar with Merlin Mann, check out the video below, “Inbox Zero,” which changed my e-mail life.