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10 Ways to Achieve Work-Life Balance

Here is a great list from Web Worker Daily of 10 more ways to achieve that work-life balance. While the list is aimed at ‘web-workers”, I really think it can be used by all of us. Especially in this “connected” world we have created.

1. Don’t always be connected. If you’ve got a Blackberry, a laptop or some other mobile device, you can’t ever get away from work. When you’re out of your office (or your home office), allow yourself to be disconnected. You don’t need to get email all the time, the instant it arrives. It can wait a few hours. When you’re away from your computer, you should allow yourself to live. Let this be your most firm boundary. Even better, unplug your Internet connection when a) you want to get some real work done or b) you are done working for the day.

2. Limit work. You need to set working hours. You can’t be working around the clock, from early morning hours to late at night, or you’ll have no life away from work. So set your hours — when you start and end, when you take lunch, even schedule other breaks. And set your limits to less than you work now. Sure, that’ll mean you’ll have less time to do your work, but that’ll force you to focus on the important tasks and eliminate the less important ones.

3. Make life a priority. What do you want to do besides work? And don’t say Twitter or Digg or YouTube. Something outside of the Internet. Exercise, reading, writing, spending time with family and friends, hobbies, sports, gardening. Whatever it is that you love to do, make it a priority. Schedule time to do it. Don’t allow work to push these priorities back.

4. Batch tasks. You have a dozen small tasks that you do throughout the day. Batch them together, like with like, and do them all at once. Email is a good example. Instead of doing email all day, have specific times when you process and respond to email. Same thing with IM: don’t be available all the time, but only once a day (for example). Same thing with phone calls, and other small tasks you do every day. It’ll save you time and stop your important tasks from being constantly interrupted.

5. Define what you want to do today. Web work is never finished. You could do 100 tasks today, and not be done. You won’t do 100 tasks. You might not even do 10. So no matter how much you do, you won’t be done. Instead of putting yourself on that never-ending treadmill, define a limited number of important things you really want to accomplish today. And focus on those.

6. Limit meetings & communication. Meetings, phone calls, IMs all waste your productive time. Which means that you have to work longer to get as much done. Instead, try to get out of every meeting possible. Most meetings can be accomplished through email. And ask people to email instead of call. Then limit email to twice a day (or once, if you’re brave). Or at most, once an hour, if you need to be connected that often.

7. Do the hard stuff first. Reward yourself after a good day’s work by putting the fun and easy tasks at the end. Start your day with the tasks you know you’ll want to put off, and get them out of the way. That way, you have good stuff at the end of the day, and the hard stuff doesn’t weigh you down all day.

8. Slow down. It may seem weird to read ‘slow down’ as a tip when you want to get your work done so you can do stuff outside of work. But in truth, trying to cram a lot of work into a small amount of time is too stressful. I advocate doing less, but focusing on the important stuff … and doing it slower. Pay attention, enjoy yourself, relax a little. This applies to when you’re not doing work … eating, driving, doing fun stuff, showering. Slow down and pay attention, and life won’t seem a huge rush of tasks, but will become more enjoyable.

9. Block schedule. Schedule your day in blocks, so that it’s compartmentalized and there’s time for everything. A block for the important tasks (Item #5), for the smaller tasks (Item #4), for routine tasks or errands or chores, and for the non-work stuff you really want to do (Item #3).

10. Be firm. Whether it’s with a boss or co-workers or clients, you need to have clear boundaries of your time, and be firm with those boundaries. Don’t be afraid to say no. Make your boundaries clear, and don’t allow them to be violated. This may mean telling people that you’re changing how you do email, or your hours, so that they know what to expect. You may get negative reactions. But be firm, and stick to your guns.

Source for Post: Web Worker Daily.

The Ocean Energy Minute and NY Minutes

Carolyn Elefant of My Shingle fame and Nicole Black of Sui Generis -- a New York law blog have both started doing “video minues” on their respective blogs.

Carolyn has her first one up on her great blog, Offshore Renewable Energy Law Blog. Nicole has a series of them up under the Category, NY Minute.

What is great about this is both are Solo’s. They are both using the blog and the internet to carve out a niche in their practice areas. Carolyn has made a challenge to all of us to try doing this ourselves.

If there are others of you doing this, please post a comment to this post with a link to your blog videos. I have an idea and will explore it further once I see what the response is.

Google and Research Libraries Launch Project to Scan Large Collection of Books

There has been talk about this now for a couple of years.

Google has launched a program with a number of research libraries in the U.S. and the U.K. aimed at ultimately scanning all the books in their collections. The result of the multiple-year project would be an online digital library of what could number as many as 30 million volumes. The program will encompass books in and out of print, in copyright, and in the public domain—all available for full-text searching and, for the public domain items, full-image viewing. Participants in the program are the libraries of Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and Oxford University, as well as the New York Public Library (NYPL).

Information Today goes on to state Google’s primary goal aims at out-of-print material, whether public domain or in copyright. Google maintains that it is meeting library copyright standards. Participants will receive no financial compensation from Google, but the massive digitization project will also cost them nothing, according to involved librarians with whom I have spoken. Each library in the program will receive digital copies of the books it has contributed, which it can then use to enhance service to its own patrons.

The Library Boy reminds us there are two questions we may want to ask:

● for more and more people, if it's not on Google, it does not exist and the fear is that Google will decide to digitize works that will allow it to sell ads. What isn't digitized will disappear, at least from people's awareness

● if Google should ever go bankrupt, to whom will humanity's digitized heritage belong?

Microsoft's Bribe

So, if you give a blogger a windoze laptop, will they post good things about Mcrosoft and their new operating system, Vista. An operating system that already has holes in it.

Bloggers Blog states that "If you give a blogger a cool Acer Ferrari laptop he or she will love you -- or at least talk about you. That seems to be the idea behind Microsoft's recent gift. Microsoft gave an undisclosed number of tech bloggers Acer Ferrari notebooks as part of a Windows Vista promotion."

Whatsnextblog.com talks about the possible scandal brewing over Microsoft's blogger bribe campaign.

This will go down as one of the best marketing/PR campaigns ever or as one of the biggest flops ever. Time will tell. But, have you noticed. It takes a bribe to get someone to talk nice about Microsoft. Take note, how many laptops has Apple sent out to get the great comments they get from bloggers? I would venture, none.

Cyber Crime goes 9 to 5

This from Cnet.com:

2006 was a good year for bad people. The Washington Post is quoting Internet security experts who say this past year saw more and worse online spam and sophisticaed cyber-attacks.

But wait, there's more good news. 2007 will not be any better, the pros predict. And perhaps the sourest note of all: there's so much money being bilked via cybercrime, the crooks now work 9 to 5. Not nights and weekends as in the old days. They have their day job and it's stealing from you and me.

I have noticed a huge effort from cyber crooks to get my own information. I get emails from "banks" I don't even have an account at daily asking me to go to their site to check my personal information for security reasons. I find it interesting I get these request when I don't even have an account with them.

We should all be careful of such scams and at the same time, we should warn our business clients of the same.

Video Conferencing

Here is another option for those that use windoze in their office. Festooninc will actually allow you to do a video conference with more than one person at a time.

"The Sky is Falling, the Sky is Falling"

Kevin O'Keefe of lexBlog has a great post called Chicken Little and the ethics of lawyer blogs.

The very first line in the post, Lawyers are foolishly getting sucked into a discussion of whether lawyer blogs should be regulated as lawyer advertising and, if so, how, really says it all.

Blogging is for the most part something we already do in our practices. We communicate and blogging is just another way to do that.

Lawyer communications take place in person or via mediums such as the phone, mail, fax, email, websites, and now blogs. We do not need separate ethics rules governing each medium of communication. The same rules apply when talking in person as on a blog.

Why are we even having a conversation about different ethics rules for blogging? My view and one that I have expressed often is that someone is scared by blogging. They are threatened by it. And they don't understand it.

Who is behind the push for "new ethic rules" for bloggers? It certainly is not the solo or small law firm. We are the ones out in front with this new and great way to communicate with our clients and the general public. We are the ones that understand the basic concept of blogging and what it can do for us. We understand how we can use it to market our firms and our services. We are not afraid to try new things.

It is really to the point that those who are scared of us are scared of technology in general. If they had their way, they would want us all to go back to the old IBM Select typewriters and carbon paper. That way they could use their big firm office pool full of help to draft all their documents and other pleadings. While us solos and small firm lawyers try to play catch up again. Being scared of blogs is just about as stupid as big law being scared of the personal computer, telephone, fax machine, copy machine and scanner.

Blogging is just another example of something we can use to be on a more level playing field as big law. We can use it to communicate. We can use it to market. We can use it to reach the masses without spending our life savings. And most important and in my opinion our obligation, we can use it to provide information to the general public. Information that answers their questions and concerns in a format and in a way they can understand and use.

That is most likely what scares those behind the push for "new ethics" rules the most. We are providing information to the public, and oh my god, we are providing it for FREE. They are not really wanting to have new rules as much as they are wanting to slow us down.

As O'Keefe states:

We do not need new ethics rules addressing blogs written by lawyers and judges who don't know the first thing about blogs or for that matter communicating with real people via the Internet. And that this cat is out of the bag - lawyer blogs are here to stay. Lawyer blogs break down the barriers between non-lawyers and lawyers, share helpful information with the public, help people evaluate lawyers, and are improving the image of our profession.

And that is what scares them. Bloggers are not the enemy. Their own fear and slow process of accepting change is the enemy. Instead of trying to run from it, those behind the push for these so called new ethic rules should be running towards blogging.

No ethics body is going to put a lid on lawyer blogs. Any lawyer who fears they may is screaming the sky is falling.

Get over yourself big law, we are not going away. In fact, if you don't get on board, you will be extinct like the dinosaur. Solo and small firm bloggers are forming networks of like kind bloggers and working together. Big Law you need to take advantage of blogging, stop bitching about the need for new ethics rules and just do it, BLOG!!!!

Net Neutrality Explained

Chuck Newton over at his blog, Spare Room Tycoon has a post today about Net Neutrality.

"There is an attack on Net Neutrality in this country as I blog. Since the Robber Barron days we have had what are known as "common carriage" rules in this country, which provide in part that services subject to interstate commerce must be offered on non-discriminatory basis, neutral as to users and use."

Chuck provided the below video that does a great job of explaining net neutrality and what it means to you and me. I need to say that I am sorry for not getting on this sooner. But, I would agree with everyone that the net must remain neutral. Watch the video.

The Connected Lawyer -- Instant Messaging

Chuck Newton over at his Spare Room Tycoon blog has a great post this morning called Ibo Thinko I Wanto Meebo Me. Chuck is discussing using IM as a way to communicate.

I too have talked about the use of IM in a law firm as another way to stay "Connected." There are a number of programs one can use for IM'ing and the Mac. The first one of course is Apple's built in iChat. I use iChat as my primary IM'ing program. It has so many built in features that I am not even going to attempt to mention them all. But, there is one that is awesome. You can use it for a video conference with more than one person. And with the new features coming soon on Mac OS X Leopard, we will be able to do even more as far as collaborating with one another.

Another Mac download I have tried is Adium. It is also free and can connect to AIM, MSN, Jabber (Google Talk and iChat), Yahoo, and more.

The only other one that I have tried is Fire. It too will run the same IM services as Adium.

Instant Messaging is just one more way for you to stay connected and to be a "Connected Lawyer."

RSS Feeds for New Jersey Legal Materials

UPDATE: The FutureLawyer ran with my post More Uses for RSS and the Lawyer and provided a link to RSS Feeds for New Jersey Legal Information.

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is gaining steam, but will not be ubiquitous with many users until it becomes easy to use for the ordinary web citizen. If you don't subscribe to RSS feeds, try going to Yahoo.Com, and see how easy it is. Just point your browser to a page you are interested in, and, if it has a feed, Yahoo will offer to add it to your MyYahoo page. Then, every new feed will automatically be uploaded to your MyYahoo page every day. This is a great way to get RSS.

If you are using a computer and the internet, you can use RSS. If you are not comfortable with RSS, go to the Yahoo RSS Page and read more. Yahoo really does have a quick and easy way to get started with RSS.