Using a Calendar System to Get the Work Done

We have two topics to talk about with regard to the area of "getting the work done". We will be finished with this section. You will remember that "getting the work done" is one of the five things that makes up every business in the world. Those five things are as follows: "Clients and customers"; "Administration"; "Getting the work done"; "Billing"; and "Collecting."

I have left the two topics that I am going to talk about this week and next week until the end, because they are so important and I wanted to give them more emphasis than simply being buried in the middle of all of these ideas.

This week we are going to talk about the utilization of a calendar system in your office for helping you to "get the work done." I can not emphasize enough how important the use of a calendaring system is in almost every phase of your law firm practice, but in particular, the calendaring system is incredibly important in the area of "getting the work done."

I talked some time ago about the various software systems that we utilize in our office. I must admit, I was astounded to find out that we have 22 different systems. One of the main reasons I was astounded, is that we frankly don't spend very much money on software, nor are we a terribly sophisticated software user. I've always just tried to use the basics. We recently updated our calendaring system and went to a system called "Time Matters 5.0-Calendaring and Contacts." This system has been very helpful to us with regard to trying to figure out how we can calendar everything that we need to calendar on a day to day basis so that it will continually keep us updated about our deadlines and what we need to accomplish in order to meet our deadlines.

I would like to tell you about some parts of our calendaring system so that you can understand how this calendaring system works for us on a day to day basis. They include: input timing; input format; input content; retrieval timing; my personal calendar content; my personal calendar how I use it; to do list; and past calendar storage.

I think you will see when I talk about each one of these areas how important a calendar is in my law firm, law practice, and in my life.

Let's take each one of the above areas and talk about them one at a time. The first area is calendar input timing. The concept with regard to having a procedure for inputting information into the calendar is absolutely essential. We have a "rule" in our firm that at anytime anybody sees any date of any kind involving any client matter they need to be sure that it is inputted into the calendar. The only way they can do that is to check the calendar to see if it is already on the calendar, if it is not on the calendar they need to add it. We utilize a firm-wide calendar so that everyone in the firm knows what everybody has scheduled for particular day during a particular time period. There is absolutely no substitute for having in place a "rule" that says everyone is responsible for calendaring. When the mail is opened, you calendar important dates that are contained in correspondence. When you have a telephone conference you calendar dates that are agreed to. When you have meetings, you calendar important dates for things that need to be done by a certain time. In short, absolutely each and every time you would calendar a date, you and everyone else you work with need to stop and be sure that date is in the calendar.

The second area to talk about is formatting. We have developed a system that we utilize with regard to calendaring input hat has been very helpful to us. Because not all of us use palm pilots, we have tried to tailor our calendaring system to meet individual people's needs as well as the need of the firm. We have constantly stressed that the need of the firm, and the need to take care of individual clients matters, always "trumps" any personal needs of any individual utilizing the calendar system. Every entry that is put into our firm calendar is coded. The first thing that needs to be determined in putting something into the calendar is it a firm-wide date or individual date. If it is a firm-wide date, the initials twlg, standing for The Wirken Law Group, are the very first initials put in with regard to the calendar entry. The second entry is the initials of the lawyer who is primarily responsible for a particular matter getting done. The next set of initials are the initials who is secondarily responsible for getting the matter done and the last set of initials are the person who inputted the entry. These set of initials would look as follows: twlg/jcw/lv/WZ. This series of letters tells me that this is a firm wide deadline, that I am the primary responsible lawyer to get the job done, that I have an associate assigned to the matter and that this input was done by one of our paralegals. Note the capital letters with regard to the person who inputted the information so that we can determine the original operator who put the information in the calendaring system should we need to back track and correct any errors. The next bit of information with regard to formatting would be to put in the clients last name, first name, then depending on whether or not it is a plaintiff's matter or a defense matter or a non-litigation matter the utilization of either a "V" right after the clients name if we are the plaintiffs, or "A" ; and then the other parties name with a "V" if we are defendants. If it is a non-litigation matter, the name of the client and the client's matter is simply stated, again utilizing the client's last name first, and the client's first name if necessary to differentiate the client from other clients in the law firm. Quite often we will use only the client's last name if there are no other clients in the law firm with a similar name. The next bit of information that is put into the calendar is exactly what it is that needs to be done that day, and then usually if necessary a geographical location of any court, a particular division of any court, and in some cases even the name of a judge. We have found that within reason, the more information that is contained in that calendar entry the better.

On items that are not client related, again, we utilize either the firm initials or an individuals initials and that the end of that entry we put a parentheses with regard to who has input that again in capital letters and a close parentheses.

When our calendars are printed out, it shows non-time specific matters at the top of the page, and time specific matters opposite the times they need to be accomplished.

We have elected to utilize a format from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. with regard to our calendaring system and that seems to have worked out very well.

The third area is input content. We have made an agreement with everyone in our law firm that everything that everyone does on a daily basis between seven o'clock in the morning and seven o'clock at night will show up in our firm calendar. I have met great resistance with this, because people try to tell me that it is not important for everyone in the firm to know what they have to do on a personal basis each day. I must admit that I have advertently disagreed with this, because the nature of the law practice is such that when you need somebody, you usually need them now, not four hours from now or tomorrow. Knowing where everybody is if they are not in the office has been incredibly helpful. You can track people down when their cell phones don't work and quite frankly everybody feels better when they can't find somebody if they know that they are off doing something legitimate as opposed to just simply being ignorant about where that person might be. I have found that this improves law firm moral and it certainly improves my thoughts about how hard people are working and whether or not they are paying attention to our clients matters.

The next item that we are going to talk about is the timing with regard to the retrieval of calendar information. Because I do not utilize a computer at my desk, I ask that every time a date is put in the calendar that deals with me, that a person hit the print button so that I may get a copy of that new page in my inbox. I ask that my secretary helps me update my calendar with these new pages as they come through, and this system seems to work quite well. We have a printer at my secretary's desk, and everyone in the office can access that printer, so it is not necessary for them to have to get up out of there desk to pick up the copy they have just printed and be sure that it gets in my inbox. Obviously, if I were to be able to use a computer at my desk and download to my palm pilot and utilize that as my calendar, the whole firm would be in the "electronic age." I must admit that I have had my palm pilot now for two years, and just simply can't seem to get everything synchronized in such a way that I have all the information available to me when I need it off of my palm pilot. Oh well, I'm still going to try! Obviously, everyone else in the office has the totality of the firm calendar and their individual calendars on their individual computer at their desk, and in many cases those computers are synchronized with palm pilots.

The next area we are going to talk about is my personal calendar and how I use it. This includes the firm calendar because I am one of the substantial "business getters" for the firm. Next week, we will discuss my personal calendar, calendar utilization, firm to do list, and calendar storage. Again, you will not be surprised to see that we have a systematic approach to the use of our calendar and that it is incredibly helpful to us in helping us to get the clients work done on a timely, efficient and professional manner. I think you will find these two articles on the calendar and our calendaring system that we utilize in our firm very helpful to you in your individual practice.

Talk to you next week.

Jim Wirken is a civil trial attorney and the Chairman of the Board of The Wirken Law Group in Kansas City.