After much research…. 5 things lawyers can do today to improve productivity
Since starting this blog I have spent a lot of time thinking about how lawyers can improve their daily productivity.
The first thing to note is that I think we are at a key inflexion point in legal practice.
Law firms and chambers are scrambling to unveil AI solutions but at the same time the day to day work on a big transaction or a large dispute actually looks very similar to the last 10 years: constant emails, calls, document management and admin tasks wedged in alongside the need to produce very high quality substantive work which requires deep, focused attention.
The tension between constant responsiveness and the need to apply thought to cognitively demanding tasks has never been more acute.
But if AI solutions continue to improve at pace that current tension might rapidly shift.
In a recent article for counsel magazine (Personal productivity – the missing piece in adapting to AI | COUNSEL | The Magazine of the Bar of England and Wales) I noted that if the billable hour model is under threat for document-heavy tasks, because of the power of LLMs to do the same work quicker, and much of the Shallow Work associated with connectivity and responsiveness may soon be able to be automated by AI, modern legal work needs to be increasingly cognitive.
AI may start to teach lawyers a valuable lesson: Email is not a job.
In order for lawyers to continue to offer real value to their clients and to compete in a cost-conscious legal market, lawyers need to focus on the value of Deep Work; work which is not easy to replicate, which is differentiated from a competitor, and which offers genuine human expertise and insight to complex problems.
The problem is that from a personal productivity perspective, the current working culture in the legal industry is often not designed to facilitate this type of work. Lawyer’s time has never been more fragmented, interrupted and reactive.
So what’s the solution? Well the answer is to start local and small. After a lot of research, thought and conversations, here are the 5 main personal productivity tips that I think all private practice lawyers and barristers should start applying today.
1. Time block checking your email
This might sounds like sacrilege in a law firm but the single biggest challenge to daily productivity is the habit of unnecessarily checking your email inbox every few minutes. Specifically perhaps the most common non-productive habit we all have is checking our email without even acting on it, i.e. re-reading sent items or glancing at our inbox to see what has come in without responding.
This habit is highly addictive but it is a disaster for our prefrontal cortex’s need to focus on one thing at a time in order to work properly.
The average knowledge worker sends and receives 126 emails per day — that’s one every 4 minutes.
Another study found people check email or messaging tools like Teams once every 6 minutes.
The problem? Our brains can’t multitask, no matter how much we try.
Your prefrontal cortex — the part that controls focus — can only handle one task at a time.
If you stop mid-draft of a document to check an email, part of your attention stays stuck on the unfinished task. Neuroscientists call this lingering distraction attention residue.
It reduces your sharpness both on the email and the task you go back to.
Worst case? When your train of thought is broken every few minutes, your output suffers. You’re more prone to errors and mental fatigue builds up. By the afternoon, your willpower is shot.
The fix:
📌 Block fixed times in the day to check and respond to emails. Check your inbox in 5 set time blocks (e.g. 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm). Try to limit automatic glancing in between.
📌 Make email a scheduled task — not a constant distraction.
📌 Tag emails as Urgent vs. Maintenance:
Urgent = reply promptly in scheduled window.
Maintenance = handle in a batch at day’s end.
📌On days when you obviously need to check email more frequently, block more time for it. The key aid to productivity is that you have blocked the time specifically as opposed to checking email randomly on autopilot. It is the integrity of the blocked time which is important.
Clearly you have to be sensitive to the demands of individual matters and circumstances but email does not have to run your day (every single day) . In order to offer quality work product you need (at least occasionally) to choose when to focus on things other than email.
2. Schedule calls and meetings together (if you can)
You sit down at 9am. Someone asks for a call.
You check your diary and say: “I’m free anytime between 9 and 12.”
The problem? You’ve just fractured your best hours for focused work.
Scattering meetings across your day kills momentum for Deep Work.
Cognitive science shows that every time you switch tasks, your brain pays a “switching cost”—it takes at least 15 minutes to fully refocus after an interruption.
It’s why you rarely get meaningful work done in the 30-minute gap between meetings.
Our brains aren't built to toggle between Deep Work and quick calls.
The fix?
📌Batch your meetings and calls together (preferably in the afternoon)
📌Protect your Deep Work hours by clustering focus time together
📌When scheduling calls, proactively suggest times that align with this rhythm rather than accepting any open slot.
Of course, this won’t work perfectly every day, especially early in your career or for time sensitive work, but even small changes can help. It starts with just being more deliberate about when you meet and when you work.
Next time someone offers a wide range for a call, pick the time that keeps your focus intact.
3. Use 25 minute timers to work in focused sprints
The key to productivity is the value of Deep Work—uninterrupted, high-focus effort on something that matters. A practical way to do this in a law firm is to set 25 minute timers to work in short, focused sprints with zero interruptions.
The beauty of a clock timer is that it forces you to get to the end of the time period rather than breaking focus early at random intervals. The timer removes the mental debate of ‘can I just check my email quickly?’ because you have told yourself you can’t do that until the timer goes off. Your dopamine addicted mind will be screaming at you to seek the stimulus of novelty to check your email or phone but the timer prevents that.
Pick a task from your to-do list (ideally one you can complete in an hour) and follow this simple routine:
1. ⏱️ Set a timer for 25 minutes.
2. 🚫 Eliminate distractions: email off, phone flipped, IM paused, browser closed, headphones in.
3. 🧠 Work deeply on one task only.
4. 🔔 When 25 minutes is up, check email/messages only if urgent, pause for 1–2 mins.
5. 🔁 Set another 25-minute timer and finish the task.
It sounds simple—but most of us vastly underestimate how often we’re interrupted, and how badly it fragments our thinking.
4. Set 3 tasks not 30
Most days start like this:
You open your inbox.
You start replying to any email in front of you.
You glance at your endless to-do list.
And before you know it, your day is off and running with no real direction.
Here’s a better way:
Set just 3 key tasks for the day.
After reading your email and before you dive in, fast-forward to the end of the day and ask:
“What are the 3 main things I want to have accomplished?”
Write them down, separate from your long to-do list.
The Rule of 3 is simple but powerful:
It forces prioritisation of what can actually be accomplished in a day.
It makes you decide what you don’t intend to do.
It helps you say no to a random incoming request it might be tempting to divert your attention to.
These three tasks should be realistic and substantive:
🟢 “Finish advice note”
🟢 “Review 50 disclosure docs”
🟢 “Comment on draft CMC letter”
You’ll do more than 3 things, of course. But by naming your top 3, you focus your energy where it counts and reduce the chance that reactive tasks hijack your attention.
5. Identify your Biological Prime Time and Defend it
Your time isn’t your most valuable resource.
Your energy and attention are.
We each have a window every day when we’re mentally sharp, focused, and capable of deep, high-quality work. That’s your Biological Prime Time, and protecting it is one of the smartest productivity moves you can make.
We have all been in the scenario where you are trying to read a dense document at 2.15 pm and you are being incredibly inefficient because you are tired after lunch. But if you do the same task at 9 am or 5pm you would fly through it.
The problem?
Most lawyers let the day happen to them — led by emails, calls, and interruptions — instead of planning around their natural energy peaks.
The fix:
▶ Identify when you do your best thinking (e.g. 9–11am).
▶ Schedule your deep, high-value legal work during that window.
▶ Push routine admin and lower-stakes tasks to slower periods (e.g. post-3pm).
If possible (and clearly it’s not always possible), block this time in your calendar and protect it — use it for drafting, strategy, or analysis.
Your best legal thinking deserves your best hours. Don’t waste your Biological Prime Time on email/ Shallow Work.
A small request…
I’m trying to build a clearer picture of how lawyers really work. What gets in the way of focus, which tools genuinely help, and how we should work in the future.
If you’ve got 2 minutes, I’d love your input in this survey: https://forms.gle/ZuUcM8zSqWft3DQo7
Your responses are anonymous, and I will share the high-level findings with readers in a future article so we can learn from each other and surface what’s actually working.