I recently read A World Without Email. It is one of those dangerous books by an academic (Cal Newport is a professor of computer science at Georgetown) that has some suggestions for things that could be implemented in the real world. I was so taken with some of its ideas that I also had my law partner read it and we had a discussion yesterday about how we could implement some of them, at least on a trial basis.

For any clients who may be concerned, no, we won’t be deleting our email accounts and you will still be able to contact us that way. Our experiments are going to be more internally focused. There are various methodologies used in software development that we are going to experiment with in a law firm setting. We have already adopted a task flow tool to help us visualize what tasks need to be accomplished next for each of the multiple matters we are juggling at any one time. We are still refining the template for what that tool will ultimately look like, but it’s basically some version of a digital whiteboard with a bunch of sticky notes on it. Another experiment we are conducting is to run daily “stand-ups” each morning. We don’t actually stand up during these short meetings, but we do go through each of our outstanding matters and update each other on what progress has been made and what tasks need to be accomplished next. This allows us to set our work agendas at least for that morning and better ensure that nothing slips through the cracks. We are still too reactive in the afternoons for my liking, but progress is progress and great systems take time to build. It has already cut down drastically on internal emails and at the expense of just a few minutes a day and a few phone calls a week.

We are still toying with blocking off certain times during the week for dedicated Deep Work Sessions (to stick with the Cal Newport terminology), but that has not yet been formalized. It’s just so draining to have a half-hour meeting every hour on the hour all day and I’m willing to experiment with batching things as much as possible to boost my productivity and sanity. And don’t expect to see our firm or me personally on Twitter any time soon.

Not only do I recommend reading through this book, but I also recommend thinking about how you can take ideas that you see working for other people in other industries and mold them to improve your own work. Many of the greatest innovations have taken place when people transport an idea from one field to solve a problem in another. When you expose yourself to ideas outside your core competencies, you never know what you might encounter.