Last month, I attended a phenomenal webinar about time management from a panel of women lawyers entitled “How Do They Do It? Tips for Taking Control of Your Time From Women Who Are Doing It All.”
Two things that I took away:
- That regardless of practice area, tenure or familial status – the stress of “doing it all” was very real, even if it showed up in different ways
- That we are all hungry for tips or hacks on how to better manage our time
While I certainly don’t have all the answers, I thought that it might be helpful to share the top 5 apps that I use consistently to help me live my best life.
Scheduling
Whether it’s scheduling a committee meeting for volunteer work or a mentoring session, my go-to is Doodle. More often than not, too many emails are exchanged over availability, especially if it’s a larger group. Using Doodle, I am able to send a “survey” of my availability to a single person or a group. Because it is integrated with my calendar, I can also see at a glance what is open for the offering.
For a 1:1 meeting, once my recipient chooses, Doodle will automatically send them a calendar invite for a Zoom call (or in Outlook) and block it on our calendar. For a group meeting, everyone is able to input their availability (using mine as the starting point) with a click of a mouse, and I can choose the one that works with the most people. Again, Doodle can automatically book it on your calendar and send it to others for you. Such a time-saver!
Social Media Posts
Contrary to how it may appear, I am actually not on social media all the time. I use Hootsuite to schedule my posts, usually a week at a time. I really love the convenience of taking an hour or two on a weekend to intentionally schedule what I want to share and essentially “set it and forget it.” I use this same method for managing a social media account for a non-profit I’m a part of. It’s not necessarily less work – I still carefully read and curate what I want to share. At the same time, the scheduling allows me to be consistent with my posting — even if I can’t consistently engage and comment when life gets busy.
Another tool I love to use is Canva. It allows me to create effortlessly create graphics for social media, for the organizations I’m involved in and even for work. I’ve gotten so many compliments with zero graphic design background.
Staying Connected
One of the things that I constantly fail at is staying connected to friends.
Don’t get me wrong – my friends know that I’m the person to call in a crisis! Whether it’s work or relationship or personal development, I can quickly jump into problem-solving mode (after a decent amount of empathy and listening), but I’m probably the worst person to call if you just want to chat. I hate that I’m even confessing this, but it’s important to know yourself, right? When a conversation has no agenda, and it’s less about whether you’re living your best life and your self-actualization, and more about pop culture, sports, or celebrity gossip, I am terrible at staying present.
Which is why I love the Marco Polo app. I love it because it’s the closest to having a real conversation (using video messages) – but at my convenience. Plus, it gives me time to think of an appropriate response. I especially love moving mentoring sessions here because if I can’t make time for a 1:1 call or session – we can simply exchange ideas and thoughts using this app.
Tracking Time
I know, I know.
Many of you are probably aghast at the thought of tracking time when I don’t have to bill anymore because I’m in-house. But it’s so easy with Timeular and I love having the data to help drive my decisions.
As for what time I track, I don’t track my personal time – time with my family or time working out. I do track work, mentoring, diversity work, pro bono and community work and personal development.
Here’s how I use the data:
From time to time, I will get asked by my Associate General Counsel what takes up most of my time – whether it’s a business client or a project. Instead of just guessing, which could be based on recency bias, I can pull up a report on Timeular, and it tells me with a click of a mouse. Candidly, those times are rare.
Where I find the most value in tracking my time is for diagnostic and alignment purposes. If a particular client or project is taking a lot of time, I use the data as a reflection point. Is there something we could do to improve our efficiency? Am I spending more time on preventing issues or managing litigation?
On alignment – Mentoring is important to me. So….how much time am I spending? Is it too much or too little? Is there a more efficient way to mentor? Same thing goes for diversity work. Championing diversity, equity and inclusion is important to me but how much time am I actually spending in this space?
Tracking my time gives me the ability to measure it and intentionally make changes based on what I see.
What are some of your favorite apps?
