#206: Top Prioritization Methods for Lawyers (When Everything Feels Like A Priority)

Heather, I am so busy. I feel like I don't even have time to think. That was how a recent mastermind session began. And honestly, this topic came up more than once during both of my masterminds this past year. It's a common problem for lawyers.

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We get into a big deal or case, which takes up a lot of our time. But we have other clients to service, too. And colleagues to manage. And people to manage. And BD to attend to. And also a family, an actual personal life. How can you possibly do all the things? Spoiler, you can't.

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Hey there, everybody. This is Heather Moulder of Life & Law. And today, we are getting into some top prioritization techniques that you can start using to help you better determine what's truly a priority, which sometimes isn't what you think.

Why Urgency Isn't The Same Thing As Being A Priority

Because we often think things that are urgent are priorities, and urgency does not equal priority.

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At least not necessarily. We're going to talk about how best to utilize these methods, when to use these methods. And I'm going to also give you some of my top tips for more effective prioritization and then also just staying out of overwhelm, that overwhelm mode, even when you are busier. Because let's be honest, life and work can get busy sometimes, right?

So let's just start with this:

Everything Cannot Be A Priority

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When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. I'm gonna say that again. I know I've covered this before, but this is so important. When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. You don't have time to do all the things. You don't have the energy for it either. And even if you could go without sleep, I guarantee your list of things would get longer and longer.

The Personality Traits That You Believe Make You Successful (Are Also Holding You Back)

This is partly due to people-pleasing.

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There's a reason you went into a service-based business. You want to serve. You like to serve. You want to make other people happy. You love to help people. But with most of us, and let me just say, generally speaking, lawyers are people pleasers, okay? We are service-oriented and we want to please others. It can backfire on you when you don't draw proper boundaries.

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And also, you're good at what you do. You probably have specific skills and strengths that others value. So when they want you, it's usually for a reason, and it is hard to say no in those circumstances. Yet, I hate to break this to you, you're going to have to sometimes. Not all the time, sometimes.

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But here's the thing, and here's what we often don't step back to analyze. Not everything is truly urgent. Just because something feels urgent does not make it a priority. And often, you do not need to be the one to do the thing or all of the thing. There is something called negotiation, okay? You negotiate for your clients,

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Start learning to negotiate on behalf of yourself. Figure out the real timeline. Negotiate what you can do.

A Case-Study On Delegation/Negotiation

So I had a client, this was actually quite a few years ago, one of my first clients, who was a specialist in a particular area. Everybody in her firm would come to her for that. Nobody else seemed to know what they were doing in this. And it was taking a lot away from the work she needed to be doing for her clients and

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Yet she felt obligated to do these other things. What we finally uncovered for her, kind of the why behind why she needed to start saying no and renegotiate more often, was this.

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Other people really needed to learn this. She needed to not be the only person in the firm to understand this and be the expert at this. Now, maybe she'd be the top expert, but there needed to be other people that could do this type of work. Because what if something happened to her? What if she left? That would leave them in a bind. Some of this was her wanting to be needed, wanting to be the expert. So we had to work through all that. This all comes down to mindset, y'all.

How Mindset Gets In Your Way

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What's the mindset you have around saying no, what you say yes to, why you say yes to it, and the boundaries that you put into place? I talked a bit about this in an early podcast episode that I highly encourage you to listen to. In fact, if I were forced to list my top podcasts of all time that I wish lawyers would listen to, this would be on that list.

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And it really is from the early days. It is episode nine, how to be productive, a productive mindset. So to go deeper into some of the mindset stuff, I highly recommend you go back and listen to that. Whether you've listened to it before or not, even if you have, it's probably been a long time, you might need a refresher. Because mindset stuff never goes away. It's always something we need to work on. Okay, so that was kind of my...

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My soapbox moment on mindset, it all comes down to your mentality. You need to at least accept and acknowledge this and that some of this is due to the people pleasing. Some of this is due to wanting to be the expert like my client. And by the way, what we did, what she really was able to finally get behind was this.

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Yeah, it was great for her to be the expert and she still would be the top expert in her firm no matter what because she had the most experience. But it was really bad for everyone else to have to rely on her for so much. What if something happened to her? It was bad for her firm as well. It was also bad for her clients because she was constantly being pulled away.

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So we implemented a six-month plan for her to get more people involved, for her to help train and teach so that she could slowly but surely start handing off more and more and more of that work. And she ended up being the person that if somebody came to her and said, oh my God, I need you on this.

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She'd take five minutes to listen to what was going on. She'd assign somebody else to deal with the initial issues. She'd talk them through it. She'd make sure they were on the right track and she'd let others do the main work. Then she would review. Then she would talk to them about it. So she was still a part of it, but it did not take nearly as much of her time once we implemented this. And then others started to get better at it. Others started to gain needed experience and expertise.

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And it didn't hurt her at all. It actually up-leveled how others saw her within and outside of her firm. So get behind the mindset. That is key.

5 Methods of Prioritization (& How To Use Each One)

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So for the remainder of today, we're going to go over five methods for prioritizing. Because guess what? There are more ways than one to prioritize. And when you use these methods, there are different times, honestly, to implement them. It may make more sense to use one over the other or to utilize two at a time. And we're going to get into that.

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We're also going to discuss my tips for staying out of overwhelm that will help you to prioritize even better. And as mentioned, this came up quite a bit this past year with clients, especially a couple of clients in my masterminds.

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So if this is resonating with you at all, and you know that one of the things you need to get more done is business development, I invite you to check out Elevate. Elevate is my business development mastermind for lawyers who are ready to build a seven-figure and beyond law practice without the overwhelm, without the burnout, without it taking over their entire lives.

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Inside of Elevate, you're going to get structured support from a group of peers on a similar journey and a coach who's been through it herself, which would be me, of course. Strategic guidance tailored to your goals, your strengths, and your personality. That's kind of my way of doing things and helping my clients. And you're going to get foundational habits for long-term success in law and life.

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Elevate is a once-per-year opportunity. Doors open next month. And you can get on the waitlist now for early bird perks. Learn more and sign up for the waitlist at LifeAndLawPodcast.com. See the Elevate banner at the top of the page, and that will take you to where you need to go. Okay, so let's get into those top prioritization methods.

Method One: The Eisenhower Matrix

Now, I have talked about this before, but...

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It bears breaking down again because this is by far my favorite. Frankly, I use this all the time. And it's what seems to help my clients the most.

What is the Eisenhower Matrix?

The Eisenhower Matrix categorizes tasks by urgency and importance. We lawyers have real issues differentiating between what's urgent versus what's important.

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As I said before, urgency does not equal importance. Sometimes urgent things are not important. Sometimes they are. Sometimes what's really, really important isn't actually that urgent, but it will become if we don't ever get to it.

Application & Benefits of the Eisenhower Matrix

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So this method can help train your brain to more quickly identify and differentiate between true emergencies versus manufactured ones, and why it might not be a priority for you even if something is urgent. And just because it's a priority for someone doesn't make it a priority for you. Now again, I've gone into detail on this method before, but here are the basics. You break things down into a four-matrix grid.

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Grid 1, urgent and important. So, examples. You have a filing deadline tomorrow for a brief that needs to get finalized. You have a closing in two days and you need to finish the credit agreement today for sign off by tomorrow.

Those things are very important. They're part of what you need to be doing, your goals for, you know, implementing what you need to for your practice and your clients. And they are urgent. Another one that would be BD would be you have a speech in three days and you have to finalize the outline and get it out today so that because the organizers need it, right? Right.

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Urgent and important. Part of your job description, part of what you actually need to be doing, it's on your plate. You can't delegate it to anybody else. You need to be the one to do it. And there's a time deadline that's short.

The next one is important but not urgent yet.

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So these things tend to become very urgent if you keep putting them off too long. Examples may be you just got a new term sheet for a deal that won't be getting started for another week or two, so you have time to take a look at it and get back with your thoughts. You have an answer due in two weeks and have plenty of time to get it done. You need to go get your annual checkup scheduled within the next month or two. Not yet urgent, but it needs to get done. So it's a personal thing, right? Important, yet not urgent.

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The third one is urgent but not important. So this can be manufactured emergencies that aren't all that real. It could be an urgency for someone else that's a priority to them that they need your help with, but it's technically not your priority. It could be meeting an internal deadline for an administrative task that you don't really need to be doing yet you have said you will do or somebody assigned to you.

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It could be planning for a professional development group meeting that you've taken on, but it no longer meets your marketing priorities. So all of those things might be or feel urgent, yet they're not really that important either to you or they're not very related to your goals and the things you need to be doing for your job every single day.

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The final category is not urgent and not really important. Now, this is the time-waster stuff that like social media scrolling, office gossip, things that we tend to find ourselves doing more and more. Funny enough, the busier and more overwhelmed we feel because our brains just need a turn off. So what I would say on this is if you notice that you've got a lot of this going on, you need a pause.

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You have time for a pause if you have time for this. You need a pause to step back and reevaluate and kind of think, okay, what's going on here? How can I help myself?

Okay, so when you force yourself to identify each task you have on your to-do list and fit them into one of these four categories, you are more likely to be able to challenge your assumptions around what's truly important versus what just feels it because it's urgent, and then clearly see what can be delegated and what can be pushed off.

Also, a note. It helps you to calendar those important things that are not yet urgent, get them into your calendar, or have regular time blocks every week that are dedicated to those types of things so that they do not become an emergency.

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Again, I covered this methodology in detail in an earlier podcast. It was actually my How to Be Productive Part 2 episode. So the one I mentioned earlier, there was a Part 1 and a Part 2. It was Episode 10, and I will put a link to that in the show notes should you want to go deeper.

So let's get into the second strategy for prioritization.

Method Two: The Impact-Effort Matrix

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This is what's called the effort matrix or the impact effort matrix. This method prioritizes tasks based on two things:

• the amount of effort required to complete them and
• their potential impact.

Similar to the Eisenhower matrix, there are four grids.

The Four Categories of the Impact-Effort Matrix

High Impact, Low Effort

One grid would be high impact, low effort. Tasks that can be quickly completed and have a significant impact.

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These are quick wins, but note, they must be real wins, not just things that you cross off your to-do list that feels like a win because you've crossed it off. If they don't have a real impact on the bigger picture, i.e. your goals or the things that are on your plate that you, you, you, and only you must really get done, then they're probably not real wins, okay? So high impact, low effort.

An example.

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A quick call to a client about your next steps to move a deal forward that they must do some work or make some decisions on, not you. And maybe this call would take 10 minutes of your time to explain and give the options. They need to think on it. They need to run it up the chain of command. They need to have an internal meeting. They need to make a decision. But you only need that 10 minutes to get this moving forward. Well, that's a high impact, low effort. Your 10 minutes start a chain of reaction that other people can take over and really get something moving forward.

Another example.

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Drafting an email to a client with a quick summary of a discussion you had with opposing counsel the night before and a recommendation of what to do next. Maybe this takes you 15 minutes to draft, but will clearly lay out where you are, the issues that are outstanding, and your recommendation to get the deal moving again. Again, this is something that doesn't take up a lot of your time, but moves things forward pretty quickly. So those are some examples.

High Impact, High Effort

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The next one would be high impact, high effort. This is the big projects, the things that you need like blocked time for. So they have a high impact on your goals and priorities, but they require significant effort. Drafting the brief, drafting the credit agreement, building out your signature marketing presentation. Takes a lot more time and effort, right?

Low Impact, Low Effort

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The next one would be low impact, low effort. These are fill-ins, things that have little effort yet not much of an impact. They can be done when time allows for it. So this can be something like sending a deal checklist to a client who already got it but lost it and asked for it again. These often tend to be things that could be delegated, by the way.

Low Impact, High Effort

The next one is low impact and high effort. These things tend to be money and time pits.

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So maybe you've been asked to chair a committee that will take up a lot of your time yet have no real impact on your business development goals because it's not an organization where your people are. Okay, so when do you use this versus the Eisenhower matrix? Because both of these can be really beneficial.

How (& When) To Use The Impact-Effort Matrix

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So I will tell you, I like to start with the Eisenhower matrix. I like to make sure that when I get started with prioritization, I take a look at all of my to-dos that I have on my plate that feel urgent, that feel like priorities, and I list them out. And then I put them into the Eisenhower matrix and really challenge my assumptions to, okay, is this merely urgent? Is this really urgent? Is this manufactured? How big of a priority is this really? What's the timeframe for it?

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And I fit things into the proper matrix. And then I can usually determine from that, okay, some of this stuff I just don't have to do. I can delegate it or it doesn't have to be done at all. And then some of this stuff really is on my plate and I have to do it.

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And usually, if there's more than one of those things, and I feel like, ooh, this is looking like a pretty busy day or week because of this, that's when I like to take into account this effort matrix, because it helps me to determine, okay, what's

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I have three calls set for today and I don't have any major blocks of time, but tomorrow I have a longer block of time. So let's go through this and decide what's going to give me high impact with low effort because that's what I have time for the next couple of hours. Or that's what I have time for today to kind of fit in. And tomorrow, tomorrow I can have this two hour block and I have time to do this other thing that needs to get done this week. Okay, you see how I'm using that there?

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So that's how I like to use those. I like to use them kind of hand in hand.

Prioritization Method 3: The Pareto Principle

All right, principle number three is called the Pareto principle. This forces you to identify what inputs generate the biggest output.

So the principle in a nutshell is this: 80% of your results likely come from about 20% of your effort or your input. To utilize this principle, you wanna ask what's the most impactful thing you can do that would generate the biggest result?

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The goal is to maximize output by concentrating on the most effective input. So this is easier to understand through examples. Let's say that 80% of your revenues come from like 20 to 25% of your clients. And by the way, it's not always exactly 80-20. It might be 70% of revenues come from 15% of your clients. It doesn't have to be perfectly 80-20.

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Using the Pareto principle, you might try to expand upon the work you do for those clients if there is anywhere to expand within them, or you at least would look into that.

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Or if you can't expand, you've already fully expanded that work, you would identify what makes them higher-value clients so that you can focus on more like them and get more like them. So you'd focus on what makes them higher value. You'd focus on where did I get them. You might ask them for referrals and introductions. Okay.

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Another example, let's say that 80%, 75% of your clients come from networking relationships that represent close to 20% of your network. Well, that means it's time to really double down and focus on those relationships, that 20% of your network the most, and identify the commonalities between these people, what makes them so wonderful, right? So that you can more easily identify who else could easily become part of this group and identify them when you meet new people.

When Not To Use The Pareto Principle (& How Best To Apply It)

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So let me just note, this is not the best productivity technique for to-do list prioritization. It's a lot better, though, when looking at your bigger picture goals and trying to figure out which strategies to focus on and which ones to drop. It is especially helpful for business development and figuring out where to put your time on business development.

Because one of the things I hear a lot from clients who first come to me is they have a billion different things they want to do. They want to speak. They want to write. They want to get on LinkedIn. They want to go all these network events. Well, you only have so much time. And it's important for you to really focus in on what's going to give you the biggest bang for your time and money investment. The Pareto Principle will help you narrow that down.

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All right, let's get to the next one.

#4: Eat the Frog

The fourth prioritization principle is one I'm certain you've heard of before. It is eat the frog. This is about tackling the most challenging, time-consuming, or unpleasant task first, when you have the most energy to focus.

So the idea behind Eat the Frog is that once you've completed that thing, you gain emotional energy and feel more energized for getting past the thing so that you can then feel more motivated for your day ahead and all the other things to do.

What Eat the Frog Isn't Good For (& When To Use This Method)

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The thing I would tell you about this is it does not help you identify what's truly important versus what feels urgent or what's a priority to someone else, yet not for you. So it is best used when you've already determined true priorities through another method, and it's something you seem to be procrastinating on or having trouble starting.

Eat the Frog is one of those things that if you notice, I keep putting this off, and you know you need to be the one to get it done, and it really is a priority, then try it.

Remind yourself, look, I just need to tackle this. And one thing I would say is sometimes it helps if you look at it and go, okay, I don't have to do the whole thing. I can break this up into three steps or two things. Let's just do the first and get started on it. Let's just spend 15 to 20 minutes getting started.

Procrastination Tip

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Something that helps with the brain is once you get started on it, you're more likely to finish it. So that is something to tackle on to eat the frog to make it really effective for those things that you keep procrastinating on.

Prioritization Method 5: The MIT Method

All right, final prioritization method. This is called the most important task or the MIT method. Now, this is best used as a daily prioritization method for choosing what to focus on that day.

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So the concept is simple. After identifying your top few priorities, we always have more than one, right? Choose one thing to start with based on what will have the biggest impact for you and your overarching goals of what needs to get done, where you need to be at the end of the day or week.

So this is great for getting started on something, so you can move the needle. It's best used when you have several things you have trouble choosing between, to just get you moving in the right direction.

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It isn't great for identifying what's urgent versus what is important. And be careful because you can get caught up in short-term stuff using this and leaving long-term goals out of the mix. But it is really good for minimizing distractions so you can focus on something.

So an example, choosing to finish drafting the brief that's been on your mind for several days, even while other tasks are still pending. Because once you get that off your plate, you can get to all those other things.

My Top Prioritization Tips To Stay Out of Overwhelm

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Okay, so let's move on to my top tips for prioritization and staying out of overwhelm.

Tip 1: Be Present

So tip one, be more present to what you're doing. Take time daily to think through, where is my time being spent, right? What am I actually working on?

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When am I doing BD and what is it? What administrative tasks am I doing? How am I managing others? Team building, professional development. There's so many different things that we do in a day. Take some time to really think through it and look back. And I would say at least weekly to look back to the week and analyze. And don't just log it, but take 10 minutes to go, hmm, how did this week turn out? Where did I actually spend most of my time?

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And is this what I had planned for? If it wasn't, why? What happened? And ask, okay, what have I continued to put off? Why do I put those things off? Identify ways to delegate the things that you keep putting off or you don't like doing, or at least pieces of it. Ask how you could eat the frog for those things that you must do that you keep putting off. So it's not just about using these methodologies. It's also about using

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Getting more present and paying real close attention to what you're actually doing and learning from it. Because that is what will help you to create better habits moving forward.

Tip #2: ID What You Never Seem To Have Time For

Tip number two. Identify what you want to do that you never seem to have time for. And ask, okay, why are these important, now?

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You need to challenge that. Are these really important? Am I putting them off because they're not really that important to me and I feel obligated? You know, what's going on?

And if they are priorities, get clear about why. What's the bigger picture why? How does that relate to your bigger vision, your goals, what you want out of your life, how you want to be showing up? This will help light a fire underneath you to prioritize those things.

There Are Things That Come Before Your To-Do's

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Something to note, there are things that come before your to-do list. Before that to-do list ever comes into play, things like basic self-care, sleep, healthy eating, time for stress management, connection with family and friends, exercise, those are not to-do list items. Those things need to be calendared in and time should be blocked off for them.

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The non-block time is what's available for all the other things you're prioritizing. Maybe I should include this as another tip, right? Like it's a bonus tip. But these things are not part of your to-do list. They come before of a to-do list, okay?

Tip #3: Know What Drains You & Sucks Up Your Time

Tip number three, as you're doing these look-backs, as you're analyzing and asking these questions on a weekly basis, think through what's draining you dry, what just feels so unmotivating, like lacks energy, makes you feel like I don't want to ever do this again, right?

And also the things that suck up a lot of your time. Now note those things that are, they're not the same thing. So with the things that really drain you, minimize them by delegating or letting go. And think also through what tech or other resources could assist you in decreasing the amount of time you have to spend on them.

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Because sometimes we do have things like administrative things that we must do that are technically priorities within the business that we just don't like doing. So how can you help yourself? How can you delegate some of it? What tech and resources could assist you? For the things that are super time consuming, but don't necessarily drain you, yet they're not where you should be spending a lot of your time, you want to identify those so that you can start delegating more of it.

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You can maybe systematize some of it to make it quicker, even if you want to keep doing it. And also ask about what resources in tech could help you reduce the time spent.

Tip #4: Challenge Your Assumptions

What happens if you don't get this thing done - ever or in a timely manner?

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Be honest. Some things can just go. Some things never really truly have to get done. Maybe somebody else will pick it up. Maybe nothing happens. Maybe it's not that important. Challenge your assumptions. Make sure you really are honest with yourself about what's truly important and what the consequences are if things don't get done your way, by you, in a specific manner. These are the types of assumptions we often make.

Tip #5: Adopt "Good Enough"

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Which leads me to my final tip. And this is the one that's going to shave a ton of time off of your busyness if you actually implement it. Adopt a good enough standard. We lawyers are perfectionists, let's just be honest. And perfectionism is often taking up a lot of time. I'm serious about shaving hours of time off per week. Good enough by definition is good enough.

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Stop holding yourself to a perfectionist standard. It's a huge time suck. It's a huge waste for no real reason. And the same goes for work that's delegated and handed off. What could you do to assist them to do their best that's good enough? This is where systems, proper instructions, check-ins come into play. Systems and processes can help make the work product really good, which is good enough, not perfect, but really, really good, and can help you trust the work product better. So think through, okay, what could be delegated and how could we systematize or create a process around this to ensure that the standards are met?

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And by the way, I have a whole podcast about putting systems together that you probably need to listen to if you haven't. So it's episode 117, Why You Need Business Systems. And I will put a link to that episode in the podcast. I even have a free resource for this too inside of my success vault, which by the way, everybody who joins my weekly newsletter, Success Without Sacrifice, gets access to.

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So if you are not a part of my newsletter and you'd like to be and you'd like to get weekly tips from me in your inbox and also get access to that Success Vault, then I recommend that you join it. I will put a link for joining that as well. That's it for today. I hope you learned a lot and are able to implement one or more of these today. Bye for now.