Time management is very important for a profession that typically bills at an hourly rate. Lawyers have to know when they should do something, for how long, and with what degree of resources. It’s not surprising then that law firms are constantly searching for tools that will help them improve their time management. One of the key tools of time management is Google Calendar. Google Calendar allows you to schedule meetings and events, get notifications about future activities, share schedules, and create multiple calendars. Here’s how you can use it.

Improve Productivity

At the California Law Firm, Google Calendar is particularly appreciated for its ability to improve productivity. One understated driver of productivity is the ability to prioritize events and tasks.

Google Calendar allows you to organize tasks according to priority. This will allow you to ensure that vital tasks are done first. Before using this feature, you will need to have a clear idea of the events and tasks you have to do. Thereafter, you have to prioritize them in some fashion. One powerful tool is the Eisenhower Matrix, used by Dwight. D. Eisenhower. He divided tasks into four:

Having determined what has to be done now and what can be deferred, or what can be left for a decision at a future date, you can then organize your tasks accordingly. The productivity gains are enormous.

Shift Time Management to the Cloud

Google Calender’s data is stored in the cloud, allowing you to access it anywhere. This is important for law firms as the world shifts to digital. Google Calendar will allow teams to access data from a variety of devices and from any location in the world.

Lawyers can share each other’s calendars to make it easier to schedule joint events and collaborate more effectively.

Google Calendar is especially useful for improving sharing. It can be used across a firm. If, for example, there is a team meeting, email invites can be sent to all relevant persons, and at a click of a button, their calendars can be synced with the main calendar.

Calendars can be shared so that everyone can see everyone else’s calendar. This makes it easier to arrange meetings and other events and tasks. Settings can be changed so that calendars can be edited by many people iof not everyone.

Leverage Google Calendar’s Tools and Features

Google Calendar comes with a number of tools and features that you can use to enhance time management and productivity. For instance, you can create events for a specific time in the future and have alerts notify you at a time you select. So let’s say you have a meeting between 1400 and 1500 with a client at a certain address. You can input all that data and create an alert for, say, 0800 that day. If you have recurring events or tasks, you can create recurring notifications on those events and tasks.

Events can be color-coordinated. So, for example, billable events are in blue, non-billable in yellow, etc.