Time Management for the New Paralegal
When you get right down to it, time management is really about managing your actions. We all want to use various methods of time management to allow us to perform more actions in the day, getting everything done that needs to be done thereby giving us time to do the things we enjoy doing. But time management isn’t a magical cure for getting the actions done that you need to do. It’s simply a useful tool. In fact, it’s a very powerful tool when used correctly, but still just a tool.
You may spend time reading countless books, listening to CDs, and maybe even attend a few online training courses. But unless you take action to put what you have learned into motion, it will be time and effort wasted.
Whether it be in a private law firm, government agency, courthouse, legal department of a corporation or non-profit, you must create a to do list at the start of the day and refer to it often. Or, when organizing your existing files, any new papers must be incorporated into the proper folders. These are just two of the ways Paralegals take action in keeping the organization of their workspace under control.
But perhaps the worst thing that can happen when using the tools time management offers is to follow the actions you have learned, refer to the information you write down, but then simply not get anything done. In the case of a to do list, perhaps you draw the list up for the day, then focus only on the items that are easiest to complete rather than discussing with your attorney supervisor which tasks should have the highest priority. You may not even be aware that you are taking the easy route but at the end of day, were the high priority items completed?
If this is happening, it is possible that the issue isn’t time management, but more an issue of communication with your attorney.
Of course it may just be that you didn’t realize you were putting off completing the high priority tasks, and that realization spurs you on to get everything done!
Ultimately, time management comes down to not only taking action but communicating effectively with your attorney and applying the systems you have learned to plan your activities, then taking action to do those activities in the most efficient way possible.
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