Where Does the Time Go?
by Barbara Lewis MBA and Dan Otto MBA

 Problem:

 Ever get the feeling that the hours during the day slip away and that feeling turns to reality when you review your time sheets and see how low your billable hours are?  You worked all day doing various tasks, yet those billable hours just aren’t there.  This is a problem that many of our clients faced. 

 Solution:

 Several of our clients have successfully experimented with a methodology to increase daily billable hours.  Examine your most productive times during the day.  Are you a morning person or a night person?  If you are a morning person then early morning time is when you are probably the most productive and if you are night person, you probably find that you have lots of energy at night.  Use those hours as your “closed door” time during which you are not disturbed except in case of an emergency.

 For three to four hours each morning, several of our clients close their doors hanging a “Do Not Disturb” sign and work on billable matters.  Before the day begins for most people, these attorneys have already logged several hours of billable work.

 Benefit:  

 The result has been an increase in daily billable hours bringing weekly and monthly production time to an acceptable level.