Articles By Dr. Judi Craig

Increasing Your Utilization Rate
Judi Craig (San Antonio Lawyer Magazine, January/ February 2005)

Do you find yourself at the end of your workweek thinking “Where has all my time gone?” If I’m working this hard, why am I not making more money?”

The answer can be found in your utilization rate: the number of hours you billed divided by the number of hours you worked (including nights and weekends) over a set time period (weekly or monthly). The resulting percentage is an effective way of tracking just how productive you—and others in your firm—really are. Eighty percent means you’re being efficient. If the percentage is lower, you’re probably feeling overworked and underpaid. And you’re not using your time efficiently. But how can you raise that percentage?

Controlling interruptions is critical. The average interruption takes approximately seven seconds—with three additional seconds added to recover. That means that if you have 10 interruptions a day (average), that’s 100 minutes a day lost in productivity. If that happens five days a week, you’ve lost 500 hours—or eight hours in that week!

So a first step in upping your productivity is to track your interruptions for a few days. Then analyze the pattern: Are they internally created (surfing the internet, personal calls) or externally created (staff asking questions, colleagues dropping by to chat)? Of course, about 20% are likely to be important and necessary—those aren’t the ones that are causing the problem. Once you have a realistic assessment of where those unnecessary interruptions are coming from, you can create a procedure or system to eliminate or reduce them.

A second step is to schedule production time in your calendar, palm pilot or day planner. Such time should be sacrosanct and only rescheduled for genuine emergencies. Perhaps it is an hour, perhaps more. The point is that you do everything possible to eliminate any interruptions during this time. You don’t read email, answer the phone, listen to voice mail or chat with colleagues. And you close your door, perhaps having a sign on the outside that says “Power Hour” or some other message.

For this plan to be effective, you’ve got to get your support staff on board. This means providing for someone to answer the phone during this time and put through only your very short-list of “exceptions.” He or she should be able to tell the caller “Ms. Jones is behind closed doors right now; may I be of help? Or, if you’re the only one who can answer the caller, “May she call you between 11:30 and noon? Or would 4:30 to 5 this afternoon work better for you?”

If you’re worried that your colleagues may interpret your closing your door as a not very friendly thing to do, some up-front education can help. Let them know that you’re experimenting with a new procedure to work more effectively and that you’ll certainly be available to them at other times in the day. Once they see how much more successful you are in getting your work done, chances are they’ll begin having their own Power Hours!

For most attorneys, the best time for production is during the morning. In fact, a schedule that works well for most attorneys (if not in court) is to come into the office, review and prioritize their day, make any calls that need to be made first thing and then settle into their Power Hour (or two). Immediately afterward is the time to return calls and emails.

If your staff barrages you with questions, create a form that has them write down questions as they occur. Then when your door is open, they can bring the form to you and get their answers. Or if you have several staff, consider having a brief five-or-ten-minute meeting after your production time to answer their questions.

You may find it helpful to schedule clients in the afternoon when you may feel more like interacting with people (and know that you’ve gotten in some good production time that morning). Of course, you may prefer to see clients in the morning and do your production time after lunch or in the late afternoon. The point is, schedule your production hour(s) at the time of day when you feel the most energetic and focused.

If you have a trial, obviously you’re not going to be able to observe your schedule. But when the trial is over, revert to your “default” schedule immediately.

Simply by blocking out the time you need for production and keeping it sacred (free from all but absolutely necessary interruptions), you’ll go a long way to raising that utilization percentage!