Tips on Productivity!
Shocking news: it’s almost March. Didn’t the new year just happen? Why are the months flying by so quickly? Happily, time is moving faster, in part, because we’re busy.
Since time is moving faster, I’m trying to find ways to do more with my work day. Strangely, no matter how hard I try, I can’t squeeze more hours into my day and I’m left trying to squeeze more work out of my hours. Since I know I’m not the only one interested in managing my time better, I’m putting together some interesting resources to share with you.
One of the best time- and workflow-management systems I’ve found is the “Getting Things Done” system by David Allen. This system gives you a framework for dealing with every work assignment, email, and chore in your personal or professional life. It gives you a way of keeping track of your ongoing projects that is supposed to eliminate (and actually does cut down on) those moments you spend thinking about all the things you need to get done. I call those my “mental Outlook Pop-Up Reminder moments” because they remind me of those annoying reminders from Microsoft, and are generally about as welcome.
You can check out some of the free articles on the Getting Things Done system on David Allen’s website. Some other quick and interesting articles on time management are available at the Legal Watercooler (an excellent legal marketing blog), Brazen Careerist (a dubious but fascinating career blog), lawjobs.com and on ABAJournal.com. There’s also a free e-book available called Time Management for Creative People that works extremely well for lawyers.
I hope you find these resources helpful – here’s to productivity!
Free and Trustworthy Online Legal References
There are a lot of different free legal reference sources out there, some that are well-maintained and some that were put up some time ago and haven’t been updated in ages. In fact, the federal government is looking into starting up Law.gov, a website that is “A Proposed Registry and Repository of All Primary Legal Materials of the United States”
While Law.gov is still under construction, Cornell’s Legal Information Institute has a number of great resources available online, including the entire US Code, Supreme Court Cases from 1992 on, and a link library that directs people to state-level resources in their own state. They also have a wiki-style legal dictionary, built by the site’s users and administrators.
Another great legal resource with access to case law is Findlaw for Legal Professionals - it has cases, practice-area specific pages, interesting legal news, sample business contracts and more. However, you do have to wade through some pop-up screens to access the information.
And, in honor of this past President’s Day, here are some Presidential documents that you might be interested in looking into:
Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents from GPO Access: searchable, from 2009.
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents from GPO Access: searchable, 1993-Jan. 29, 2009.
Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents from Hein Online: searchable, from 1965.
Public Papers of the President from the National Archives and Records Administration via GPO Access: searchable, from 1992.
Codification of Presidential Proclamations and Executive Orders from the National Archives and Records Administration: searchable, with an index and disposition tables, from 1945 to 1989.
Executive orders disposition tables, from the National Archives and Records Administration: arranged by president then year, from 1937-date.
Presidential Documents Guide from the National Archives and Records Administration.
(Hat Tip to the Marian Gould Gallager library for the Presidential Information!)
