South Carolina Trial Law Blog

I live 20 minutes from my office. That means I spend 167 hours a year going to and from work (20 x 2 = 40 minutes a day; x 5 = 200 minutes / 3 1/3 hours a week; x 50 weeks = 167 hours a year). This doesn’t include any trips for depositions, court hearings or other travel. Here’s some good ways to make use of the time:

• Dictation – Every morning, I run through the things I have to do that day. The most important tasks, the most time sensitive and urgent tasks and other issues that are running through my mind. I have the number and code for YouDictate on speed dial of my cellphone. I can leave a message of the tasks I want to do, notes on a case or anything else. When I get to the office, I’ll have an e-mail with the information waiting for me. I can then cut and paste the information into the appropriate case, or add the appropriate tasks on to my case management program.
• Learning – I have over 50 hours of ATLA presentations on my mp3 player. Everything from better presentations to discovery and storytelling. You can get a bargain if you get some of the older presentations. I picked up a year old copy of Overcoming Juror Bias for $99 instead of the $295 price tag for the new Overcoming Juror Bias tapes.
• Laughing – I’m a big fan of comedy. I have over 70 hours of comedy on my mp3 player. About half of the comedy is from regional touring acts, the other half is from established comedy giants (Bill Cosby, Bob Newhart, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Phyllis Diller, Don Rickles, Jackie Mason, Shelly Berman, Buddy Hacket, Burns and Allen, Abbott and Costello…). Amazon and Laugh are great places to get comedy material.
• Catch up on Reading – Whether you enjoy popular fiction, business books or anything in between, you can listen to the books on your mp3 player. Audio Books Download, Audio Books Online and Amazon have an extensive collection of books on cd that can be downloaded down to your mp3 player.
• Mood Changers – Use music to help get you in the proper frame of mind. If you want to get pumped for the day, try high energy music. If you want to mellow out after a rough day, try new age or alternative music. Consciously pick music that will match the mood that you want to get the most out of your day.
• Stay up on the News – You can use satellite radio to stay up on the national news, or you can download podcasts of the news to your mp3 player. ABC News to Go or Podcasting News are good places for podcast news.
• Stay Up on Your Favorite Podcasting Blogs – A number of bloggers have audio versions of their blog posts. This is known as podcasting, so you can keep up on your blogs while driving to and from work. Evan Schaeffer and Kevin Heller have a great site Blawgcast that collects legal podcasts and also explains what it’s all about. Tim Stanley of Justia also has a round-up on legal podcasts. I have to admit that I haven’t been enamored of the whole podcasting phenomena, but a lot of people really love it.

If you notice, most of these are ways use an mp3 player. It amazes me the number of lawyers that I talk to that don’t have an mp3 player yet. Apple’s iPod is the most popular player. I have a 5 gig Rio Carbon that I love. The Rio has more memory, twice the battery length (18 hours), slightly smaller and it costs less.