00:00 Jack Zinda Foreign welcome to the Effective Lawyer, a podcast for ambitious attorneys who want to improve their practice. My name is Jack Zinda and I'll be your host. Welcome to another episode of the Effective Lawyer podcast. I'm your host, Jack, and today I'm going to be talking about systems, how to run your law firm on systems instead of chaos. You know what I've noticed is a lot of law firms and a lot of attorneys frankly, are going from fire to fire. They're working more hours, spending less time with their family and getting less done. Let me take you back in time to tell you what my life was back was like back in 2008-2010 when I first started my firm. So I would come into the office, I would check my email and I'd see, oh man, we have an upset client. 00:55 Jack Zinda I need to get on the phone with that client. So then I would call the client, leave them a message, and then I remembered, oh shoot, I need to get an offer back to that insurance adjuster in this case I was working on. In the meantime, a paralegal would come into my office, say, hey, I need to discuss a raise or I'm going to quit. At the same time I forgot, hey, don't forget to pay your bills. Then I finally got that offer out. The client calls back, but unfortunately I was on the phone with someone else. So I called them back. Then they called me back a third time. They finally get a hold of me. It's about 4:15. 01:23 Jack Zinda We talk for a little bit, get the client back on the reservation and now it's 5pm and I just have enough time to get started for the expert deposition I have tomorrow. And I get to work from 5 to 9pm I don't know if that sounds familiar to you, but that's the way I lived for about 18 months when I first started my practice. And it was driving me crazy. I at that time I didn't have any children, but I wasn't spending hardly any time with my wife. I was at the office. I was a slave to my desk. I was getting some financial success and even some success in getting the firm going, but I wasn't enjoying it. I wasn't having the personal success that I really was looking for. So I started reading books, I started asking what other people are doing. 02:02 Jack Zinda And frankly, I've had a lot of luck taking from non lawyers and applying that to my legal practice. For whatever reason, us as legal practitioners are usually late adopters and aren't really the most innovative out there. And at the same time I was starting a SaaS company, a software company, while simultaneously started my law firm. So organization, prioritization, discipline was really critical to my success. And you only have so many hours a day, even if you want to be a workaholic, have no friends, no family, you know, you're capped at maybe 20 hours a day because you're going to have time to sleep and eat. And that's if you're insane and you can handle that little sleep and that little external stimulation. 02:43 Jack Zinda And frankly, a lot of people that say they do that, in the stories and kind of mythology of people like Elon Musk, when you dig in and start pulling back the curtain, you find it. A lot of it is mythology and a lot of it is misremembering. A lot of it, frankly, is, you know, made up. And I found the most successful people are disciplined about how they work and giving themselves enough time to recharge, spend time with friends and family, and get the most out of their business and out of life. So let me tell you what some of the systems that I put in place that have really helped me in that process. And today I want to talk about my weekly planning system. And first I want to say I did not get this system myself. 03:19 Jack Zinda I didn't come up with all these techniques and tactics. There's some really great books to check out. One is Getting Things Done by David Allen. Amazing book about how to review your life, how to see what priorities you need, how to create project plans, tasks, actions, things like that. Another great book is your Bet My Best Year Ever by Michael Height that really walks through this planning approach, whether you're talking about quarterly or weekly. And the third book is the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. It really focuses on efficiency, getting more accomplished versus working more hours. And I took a combination of all these to put together my own system that works best for me. So every week I usually sit down on Sundays and I do what's called a weekly review. 03:58 Jack Zinda So I first and see, what are my priorities for the quarter? What is it? What are my KPIs for the law firm? Do I have any personal goals? And does the company have any professional goals that they're trying to achieve? And do I have any personal professional goals? And usually I've done that in the quarter and have those listed out on a piece of paper. So, for example, our law firm is trying to get to X million in revenue, X million in profit. I want to make sure we try one case this quarter for eight that's worth more than eight figures. A personal one might be. I want to run a marathon in six months, and so I need to make sure I'm training for that. So I've got my professional, I've got my personal goals. 04:38 Jack Zinda Then I look at the KPIs of the company. So how are we doing on revenue demands, our marketing KPIs and I have a little grid and I just go down and I do a, an X if we're in trouble, a dash if we're okay, and a check if we're really good. And I've created my own worksheet and I'm happy to share that with anyone if you want to reach out to me and any templates I have things like that. And so it's real basic. You know, starts with cash, because cash is king. Does the company have enough cash on hand? Then I go next to net income. Are we making enough profit? Then I jump down to revenue, which is attorneys fees for most people. Then I go to our sub metrics, which are resolutions. 05:17 Jack Zinda We call this key metrics is another metric we use, which is a combination of demands, lawsuits, depositions, things like that. And I'm doing what's called drilling down. So I'm going down from the big metrics to the small metrics. And what I'm trying to do is one, get a pulse of the business. How's the business doing? So I can understand what should I focus my energy on. But you need to make sure you're disciplined about this approach because it's very easy to get sidetracked and to start looking at things, getting, going into emails. So I just look at our dashboard that I've created when I'm doing this process and I don't look at anything else. And I actually use a piece of paper with a pen versus a laptop. When I'm taking notes. 05:52 Jack Zinda For me, I use like a notebook like this, and I will write down my thoughts, what I'm thinking about, what I need to work on. And that helps me not get distracted from, you know, if you're using a laptop, with Outlook teams, things like that. So, you know, I've looked at my quarterly priorities, my goals, then I've gone through my KPIs for the company. And if something is red or is off track, I'll make a note of that to the side. I say, okay, off track. Let's say leads from referrals. So, you know, we get cases from other attorneys, old clients. We also do some digital marketing. We also do some community engagement. And we have metrics for each one. And so if I said, hey, we're off track for leads from other lawyers, then I would drill down what's the cause? 06:35 Jack Zinda And then one of my team members is responsible for that KPI. So I'd say, okay, let's just say the person's name was Bill is accountable for referrals. I say referrals. Need touch base with Bill. And so that's on my list of things to work on that week. So out of your review of your priorities and your goals and then your KPIs, you should have a list of things that you need to work on or problems you need to solve. And what I'm doing is I'm doing this process is I'm trying to get to where I can fill out my weekly review worksheet which says top objective for the week. What's the most important thing that I need to accomplish? Then I have what meetings do I need to attend? And I also have what meetings do I need to cancel or move. 07:16 Jack Zinda I have what do I need to address with my direct reports. Then I have things I need to delegate, things I can hand off to other people. Then I need, then I have things that I need to follow up on that people owe me. And I also might have hires need to make or hires I need to make progress on. And I'll have just a random list of things that I've thought of when I'm doing this process that I'm not sure where those are going to go. So as I'm looking at the KPIs and our priorities, then I go to each of my direct reports and I have those listed out. So I've got the attorneys that report to me, I've got my chief marketing officer, I've got my head of finance. 07:49 Jack Zinda And I'm thinking, is there anything I need touch base with this person on? And is their department on track? And I'll also review anything they've rolled up to me for the week. So if they have something they need to review or sign off on or something like that, if you'd like a copy of any of the things you heard about here today, or to set up a time to talk one about one of our team members about a case, please go to Zendalaw IO and we have amazing resources, downloads, guides, and you can set up a time to talk to us if you want to talk about how we handle things or any case in particular. Then I review my task list and I use Asana to help track my tasks. But there's a million others. Outlook has a task tracker. 08:37 Jack Zinda I mean, there's like literally hundreds of these apps out there. But I've used Asana for a while and I find it really helpful. And each week I will actually print off a lift stomach test. You kind of notice I have a habit of using paper instead of the digital world. I have found it may just be me, but I get very distracted using the digital world. And this weekly review can take an hour and a half to two hours if I'm using on paper. It could take three to four to five if I'm on the Internet. And I get distracted and bouncing around from one place to another. So I've reviewed my priorities and my goals. I've reviewed my KPIs, I've reviewed my task list. I've reviewed the list of things that people have asked me to look at. 09:16 Jack Zinda Now, note, I haven't actually looked at all those things necessarily. I just know what they are and if I need to do something with those. And out of that, I've got this long list of things that I might want to work on for the week. And I sit back and I look at it, I say, okay, what's the most important thing I need to get done? And this is the hardest job. This is the. The whole nine yards. This is why you get paid to be a CEO or a great trialer is picking what is the one thing to work on. It's the same if you're trying cases. What's this case about? What's the one thing I need to prove today with this witness? 09:44 Jack Zinda And you drill down and you figure that out, and then you put that at the top of your weekly review. And you want to make sure, no matter what that you have a plan to accomplish that top objective. Okay, the next thing you want to know is you have got to schedule the things you need to work on. So, you know, I've got here an outline for my weekly review and how I like to put that together. So when it comes to weekly planning, okay, your week schedule and calendar should reflect your priorities. I see a lot of people get this part wrong. Okay, My personal opinion, you need to block not just your appointments, but what you're going to do during the week. What work are you going to get done? I have this terrible habit. 10:29 Jack Zinda If I don't have what I need to work planned out, I will come to the office and I'll start creating chaos. I'll say, you know, I'm really curious about what's going on with Intake this week. Let me follow up with, you know, Michael to see how things are going. And so now I interrupt his day and ask him for some reports. And he's a little shocked because I'm reaching out to him out of the blue and I'm asking for things and. And then I'll start working on something else. And maybe it's not important, but it's just on top of my mind. So I'm creating chaos over there. And before you know it's noon and I've got nothing done. But if I'd had an appointment like a deposition, I would have definitely been prepared for that. 11:00 Jack Zinda So if I had planned out, hey, my number one thing this week is to get our referrals back on track. I would actually block that on my calendar for first thing Monday morning. And so I'm blocking out the work that I need to get done. I'm also blocking out the things I need to do to prepare for other things. So let's say I have an expert deposition or a mediation or trial. I will block out the time I need to work on those things also. And I'm sliding into my weekly plan on the calendar based on priority. And unfortunately, you're gonna have to cancel some things if you're a busy trial lawyer or you have your own business, and that's just a fact of life, you're never going to have enough time to get everything done that other people want you to do. 11:35 Jack Zinda And your job, if you want to hit your goals, is to focus on just the things that are the most important. I found a lot of people get caught up on other people's priorities. If you think about email, for example, when someone emails you, that's them asking you if you can jump in and help them with a problem. And you would never just have an open door say anyone in the whole world can come into my office and ask me for something. And email is the same thing. So you have to be disciplined as an entrepreneur on what are the things you're going to work on, who are going to have access to your calendar, what sort of priorities you have. 12:06 Jack Zinda One thing that I found that's helpful for that is having an ideal week, which is a preset schedule that my assistant uses to help plan out my week. So, for example, Mondays, I'm always reviewing the KPIs of the firm, the financials, the cash, things like that. Tuesdays, I'm usually doing creative meetings. Wednesdays, we have our leadership team meeting every Wednesday. And I'm also having one ones Thursday I usually focus on cases and Fridays I usually do a recap of the day. I like to do creative work, podcasts, recording videos, things like that. Now obviously, if I have a trial that throws things in the mix or have a week long appointment that throws things into the mix that I can't control. 12:40 Jack Zinda But it gives my team an idea of what I like to do in the ideal schedule and what works best for my energy level. So to kind of recap where we're at so far, okay, you've done your weekly review, you have your list of priorities, you've got your ideal week set up. You, you've slid in the stuff you need to do based on those priorities. Now we have to figure out what do I need to do with all these things I need to hand off to other people. Okay, that goes in my delegated or to be delegated list that I'm going to hand off to folks and I'll list them out by the person that's responsible for that. 13:09 Jack Zinda And one interesting trick when your company gets up to a certain size is you have to be really careful what you give yourself as a task because if you end up putting too much stuff on your plate, you're going to be unreliable and not get it done. And you're also going to let the company down because you end up working on things that you shouldn't necessarily be working on yourself. And that is a very tough thing to do and it takes a lot of discipline. So I will take that list, sort it by who it's owed to, and then I will have my assistant send it to those people and we will go over it in our daily huddles, which is usually a leadership team, or we'll go over in their weekly ones in the week, ones. 13:44 Jack Zinda I'm going to explain what I meant by those things, what I was handing off, what was included, what do I need out of them and get there okay. If they can handle whatever assignment that was what I need. And because I have a weekly meeting with my team each week that gives us an outlet to handle those things. Weeks when I'm traveling or weeks, I don't think I can handle that meeting. My assistant has it for me and she does it in a way to make sure that the person's getting their answers and I'm getting the information back from them so we can keep the machine running very quickly and very fast. Okay, so we've got our priorities, we've got our week planned out. Now we're Going into execute now, what do we do when the week's over? 14:19 Jack Zinda And I usually do this on Fridays is I'll look back at the week and say, okay, what did I accomplish? What didn't I? And I actually have a word doc that has all this stuff listed off. And as I've been doing it during the week, I'm marking it off and I've got this document that helps me start for the following week to see if I missed out on anything. In Michael Hyde's book Best Year, yeah, he has a great outline where he talks about how to do a weekly review. And the first thing you do is say, how did the week go? What how did I do all my objectives from last week that really forces you to address the issue if you hit those objectives or not. I don't type these things out. I'm just kind of making notes. 14:52 Jack Zinda And you just thinking about it forces you to address did I get what I needed to get done? Then I go back and look at were there any meetings that I had that I shouldn't have had? Did I feel like it was productive? What things drain me of energy? What things? Where did I get distracted? And I'll think of ways to improve the following week. And then I start, you know, wash, rinse and repeat on that quarterly review or the weekly review to see what I need to work on the next week. This is a lot. And it took me, I don't know, three to four years to really get this system down where I felt great about it. If you'd like a copy of what I use, feel free to reach out. You can email me. Also, check out those books I mentioned. 15:26 Jack Zinda Those are great foundational tools and they have great tactics as well to help give you a head start. I hope this was helpful. Until next time. Thanks. 15:38 Speaker 2 That wraps up another episode of the Effective Lawyer. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. And if you've got a minute, a quick rating or review goes a long way. Want more tips, insights and stories from the field? Head over to Zindalaw.io To learn more. Thanks for listening. Until next time.