Time Tracking with Chrometa

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a copy of The Opportunity Maker, which was written by noted networking and business development expert Ari Kaplan.  This year I’ve had the good fortune to get to know Ari personally.  So I picked up the book out of curiosity – though I have to admit I’m usually not a fan of “how to” advice when it comes to networking, because often the insights are at a very obvious, high level (think Dr. Phil).

In fact, I’d almost go as far as to say that most of the networking advice out there ranks right up there with most time management advice – easy to say, much harder to do, as if delivered by Captain Obvious himself!

Well the beauty of Ari’s book and approach is that it’s very practical and down-to-earth.  It’s full of real-life stories, which makes it a fun, fast-paced read, with success stories that can be easily absorbed.  To be honest, I don’t know how Ari possibly pulled together all of the people that are quoted and mentioned in the book – over 100 in total!

His main point is that, in law school, you learn about the law, but you don’t really learn about the business of law.  And more specifically, you don’t learn how to build a successful career.  This is a task you must take upon yourself – to build your own personal brand, rise above the noise, and take responsibility for advancing your own career.

Make no mistake about it – Ari is a one-man public relations machine.  Go ahead and Google his name, and you’ll see what I mean.  If there’s anyone in the legal industry who knows how to build a personal brand, land press coverage, and establish thought leadership, it’s Kaplan.  And that’s the cool thing about spending 210 pages with him – he shares inside tips on such topics as finding a mentor, connecting with people in creative ways, and getting published – amongst others.

This is NOT a book to read once, and put on the shelf.  Instead, I’d suggest reading through it a first time – as it’s a pretty quick read – and then going back to it and working on implementing the tips that Ari shares, one chapter at a time.  It’s been shown that the best way to learn a new skill is by doing it, in parallel with reading about it, and that’s exactly how I’d recommend you use this resource.

Though I am not a lawyer (nor do I play one on TV), I did find this book to be extremely useful.  As the leader of a self-funded legal software company, Chrometa, I’m always on the lookout for ways that we can “rise above the noise” as a company.  We do not have the extensive sales and marketing resources that the bigger vendors do, so we must be more creative.  And there are no shortage of creative promotion tips and ideas in this book.

It’s the same for most individuals – since you probably don’t have extensive marketing and public relations team tasked with advancing your career, you need to get creative.  So I’d highly recommend you consider making an investment in The Opportunity Maker, as I have little doubt it will pay for itself many times over.

Additional Links:

• Ari Kaplan interviews Brett Owens about The ROI of Time Capture

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While on a support call today, a new Chrometa user asked about how to choose an Email server for a small firm. Afterward, I thought I’d share our company’s story on picking an email service.

When we started Chrometa, one of the first things on our to-do list was to set up email address for everyone. Previously, when we worked at other firms, we used Exchange Server. This nifty email server from Microsoft also synced everyone’s contact list and calendars. But now things are different. We were a small company that didn’t have the time, dollars, and IT staff to maintain our own Exchange Server. Also, our needs didn’t warrant such an investment.

So off we went to find a bare-bones email service. First, we signed up for Yahoo Small Business Email  — after all, our domain name was already hosted on Yahoo so we were all set to go. During the early days of product development (read: coding and testing), we didn’t really need any advanced features, like contact sharing. For shared calendars, we synced our Google Calendars to Outlook — all in all, everything was fine. But for most businesses, Yahoo Mail just doesn’t cut it. This brings us back to Microsoft Exchange Server.

Microsoft Exchange Server

Let’s start with the top 5 reasons companies run Microsoft Exchange Server:

1. Outlook. Exchange Server was designed for Outlook.
2. Shared contacts. Need to get in touch with someone? Just do a contact search and you’ll get the details as long as it’s in the Exchange Server’s Active Directory. Neat.
3. Shared calendars
4. Shared resources. Need to book that conference room?
5. Webmail (run a web version of Outlook from your browser. Weeeee! It’s just not the same as Outlook for desktop)

This used to get pretty expensive, fast. Companies bought and ran their own Microsoft Exchange Server infrastructure. This meant that someone (and often more than one person) had to monitor it, upgrade it, and administer it. Their job was pretty important, as we all know what happens when either email or the Internet goes down (insert episode from the Office).

But wait, what’s all this ruckus I hear about Hosted Exchange?

Hosted Exchange

Hosted Exchange is a pretty good idea, and it really took off with the all the advancements in virtualization technologies. In plain English, virtualization means splitting a perfectly good computer into many little computers using software, and each one of those little computers can do its own thing independent of the others.

Hosted Exchange meant that your company can now *rent* the right to use an Exchange Server owned and administered by another company. That means you don’t have to buy the hardware, upgrade it, maintain it, or hire someone to look after it. Instead of spending $1,000’s/user/year on email, you’ve just cut that cost to $100’s/user/year. Pretty Awesome.

The other option you may not have considered is Google Apps. Last summer, we switched our company to Google Apps — and to this day I consider this one of the best decisions we’ve made.

Google Apps for Business

Why Google Apps? It does almost everything that Microsoft Exchange does, and a lot more! Plus it’s even more cost effective than Hosted Exchange.

1. Outlook: check
2. Shared Contacts: kind of, but it’s a hassle. You can easily share all your internal contacts (people within your company), but your company needs to maintain a separate LDAP server if you want shared address books. In other words, you can’t have a “universal address book” out-of-the-box just yet.
3. Shared Calendar: check (Google Calendar sync to Outlook)
4. Shared Resources: not really… but if you’re a small company, you probably don’t do a lot of conference room booking
5. Webmail: well that’s a given.

What else do you get? Let’s drill down:

1. Extremely simple email account setup and administration. This is really important if you’re a small firm. Wouldn’t it be nice to add accounts, forward email from one account to another, and set up “catch all” emails, without needing to call IT support?
2. A better webmail experience. It’s Gmail, plus you get 25 GB’s of storage.
3. Mobile access to Gmail on the iPhone. BlackBerry PUSH, Gmail Apps for BlackBerry and Android phones.
4. Continuous improvement. Google Apps are constantly adding new features and improvements. Microsoft Exchange does not.

Finally, let talk economics. Google Apps charges $50/user/year. That’s <50% the cost of Hosted Exchange.

In the lawyer community, there has been much debate about the security and privacy of Google Apps. I have to agree that web security is very important. But do realize that your Hosted Exchange server is also on the web, as is your computer when it is connected to the Internet. As with any technology, the best security algorithm sits between your ears. Log out of web apps if you’re using a public terminal. And please check the recipient list before hitting reply-all :-)

Conclusion

For most small businesses, I’d recommend Google Apps. You’ll get all the key functionality of Hosted Exchange at a fraction of the cost. More importantly, you’ll enjoy far simpler setup and administration. Last but not least, you’ll gain access to Google’s expanding suite of continuously-improving products.

Everyone’s needs are different. If you don’t mind paying extra for complete control over your own mail server, and if you can’t live without a “universal address book”, go for hosted Exchange.

Special thanks to Andrew for inspiring this post.

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In this issue:

• New features (and user shout-outs)!
• The Chrometa Badge: a new way to impress your clients
• 5 ways to get a complimentary license
• 2 interviews with Brett Owens

View our January newsletter in your browser

You can also subscribe to our email newsletter.

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Time management, in and of itself, will not really help you be more productive.

You’re probably wondering what kind of lettuce I’ve been smoking to write this in a blog focused on productivity and – hello – time management.

I’m talking about time management in the classic sense of the word. Getting through your “to do” list faster. It’s a complete waste of time.

What you really need to do is to look at everything that you have on your list – and pick the single most important thing. Then work on it, uninterrupted, until it’s completed.

The uninterrupted part is the toughest, by far. It’s SO easy and tempting to check your email, answer the phone, respond to an instant message, or click over to a website.

But if you can master this ability, you’ll boost your productivity significantly, and you’ll be able to work the same, or even less, hours.

This is possible because you’re assuring two things. First, that you’re working on the single most important task at hand. Not the most urgent task, or the easiest one – but the most important one. So often, we plow down our “to do” lists, with our heads down, without seriously questioning whether it makes a difference if we even do most of the items on it.

And the sad truth is – it doesn’t. The 80/20 principle tells us that 80% of our results will come from 20% of our inputs. By picking the single most important task to work on, we’re making sure that it falls within the critical 20%.

And secondly, by focusing 100% of our energies on this item, we’ll accomplish it much faster than we would have if we’d allowed ourselves to be distracted by interruptions, or worse, tried to multi-task and complete two or three items at once.

Interruptions are the real killer. It’s amazing how fast you can get something done, if that’s all you do.

I hadn’t realized this until I started using our time management software to measure the amount of active working time I was spending on work items. Sadly, items would often sit on my “to do” list all week, where’d I’d get to them on the weekend.

And with the benefit of no incoming interruptions (because the rest of the world was out having a life), I was able to focus, and get the thing done.

The real surprise came when I checked my elapsed time spent on the task after the fact – I realized that I could get A LOT done under an hour. Like, basically anything on my “to do” list would be accomplished in an hour or less – provided I just sat down and did the work.

So try this exercise tomorrow – pick one thing, and work on it until it’s done. No distractions, and no excuses. You’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish.

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On Tuesday, January 12, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti. Estimates of the numbers killed in the catastrophic earthquake range from 50,000 to 200,000. Read more about how to quake unfolded (BBC)

Haiti Struggles With Death And Destruction After Catastrophic Earthquake

Our Commitment to Assist Victims of the Haiti Earthquake

As a little software company far removed from the disaster, we want to do our part in supporting the relief efforts. This past weekend, we’ve donated 20% of sales to assist earthquake victims through the Red Cross. And starting today, through January 31, we’ve pledged to donate 10% of new sales to the Red Cross. Our donations will be made at the end of each week.

If you’ve purchased a Chrometa license since last Friday, you’ll be pleased to know that a portion of your purchase has gone to support those most in need at this moment.

Other Ways You Can Help (via Google)

Also accepting cash and in-kind donations are the following sites: Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, UNICEF (1-800-4UNICEF), Direct Relief, Yele Haiti, Partners in Health, Red Cross, World Food Program, Mercy Corps (1-888-256-1900), Save the Children,Lambi Fund, Doctors Without Borders, The International Rescue Committee, Care, William J. Clinton Foundation, Meds & Food For Kids, Feed the Children, Habitat for Humanity, Mayor’s Fund for NYC

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Hi, my name is Brett.  And I have a serious email problem.

I just learned that I spend a quarter of my working hours staring at my Inbox.

You may be wondering – how is that even possible?  Brett, what are you – braindead?!

Sadly…I may be.  Here’s the shocking proof – captured by Chrometa itself:

Note that in this sample, I have 37 hours of active time (so that does not count phone or meeting time – only active time on my PC).  This was recorded over a 2+ week span.

Due to product testing and such, Chrometa was not running all of the time (though my co-workers may scoff and say that I’m busted for putting in 20 hour weeks!)

AND here’s the really sad part – individual emails are recorded separately, by their subject line, and are therefore not even included in this massive number!

So the 8+ hour entry under Microsoft Outlook – Inbox is solely due to time that I spent looking at Outlook, without an individual email open.  There are a limited number of things I could have been doing, and none of them are particularly productive:

1. Checking for new email
2. Reading an email through the preview pane
3. Looking at my calendar

I’d like to look at the bright side of this finding.  Like you, I often consider myself way too busy to get everything done that I’d like to.  So in a sense, this underperformance is a good thing, as there’s a lot of room for improvement!

In fact, I know that productivity experts often assert that any time you waste is not limited that time itself, but also encompasses the “switching cost” of diverting your focus.  So if my Inbox time is in fact due to obsessively checking for new email, then I’m losing a lot more time than is even displayed here!

Since it is a new year, and a new decade to boot, it’s a perfect time to look at this area as some real “low hanging fruit” for improving productivity.  It’s safe to say that checking email every 5-10 minutes is a disastrous approach – but what is the right approach?

Personally I’m used to being on the “front lines” from a sales and support standpoint, so a once or twice a day checking of email wouldn’t suffice.  But what would the optimal frequency be?  Every hour?  Longer?  Shorter?

What email best practices would you recommend?

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1. Split Away Time (Zane’s idea) — split an away time entries into multiple pieces.

2. Manual Entry (Jason’s idea) — need to add a custom entry (ex. “client meeting, 30 minutes”) after the fact? With Manual Entry, Chrometa will be the only time management tool you’ll need.

3. Keyword-based Categorize (Juliet’s idea) — ever wish you could create a rule to categorize all entries containing a keyword?

4. Expanded My Categories view (Zane/Jason) — expand My Categorize panel to the full height of the Chrometa window. Easier drop-and-drop. Less scrolling.

Have a brilliant idea? Share it with us!

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Want to get the most out of Chrometa?
Have a burning question?

On Thursday and Friday each week, Brett and I will be sharing our top tips and tricks, and fielding your questions — live!

Please reserve your seat today. Often we see users invite a colleague or two, so we appreciate you inviting anyone who you think would benefit.

Webcast schedules and sign up

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1. Export to Excel (print, share, and analyze your data)

Our users Jason, Wes, and Sanjay first requested to transfer Chrometa data into Excel back in September. Since then, many others have chimed in, and Export to Excel is now a standard Chrometa feature!

If you haven’t tried this out, just go to File > Export, and your data is off to Excel. Now you can easily print out reports, share your reports with clients/colleagues, and slice/dice your data however you like!

2. What did I do in Quickbooks?

Chrometa user Louise was a Quickbooks power-user, and needed to track time on each screen in Quickbooks. Sounds easy, right? Problem was Quickbooks doesn’t update its window title as you interact with it, making it difficult for Chrometa to decipher which screen the user’s on. Our solution involved creating a super-advanced component that taps directly into the Quickbooks application. Tada! Quickbooks users: check it out!

3. Snappier categorize and delete activity

The one aspect of Chrometa that’s not fully automatic is categorizing your entries to clients and projects. It was important to us to make this task as easy as possible. Although drag-and-drop has been around since launch, it definitely could use some improvements.

You asked for easier drag-and-drop, multiple item drag-and-drop, and bulk delete… and we delivered!

Drag and Drop:  drag and drop to save you a click each time you categorize. These days, you won’t have to click to select an item before drag and drop. With a simple drag motion, you can categorize any Active Time entry.

Multiple Entry Drag-and-Drop: Same deal — select the entries (using shift and ctrl keys), and drag away. Wasn’t that easy?

Bulk Delete (Mark’s idea): Select the entries (using shift and ctrl keys), right click on a selected entry, and choose “Delete Activity.”

4. Oh Chrometa… how do you watch yourself like that?

That’s right — Chrometa can now track itself (Gary and Peter’s idea)! Ever wonder how much time you’re spending each day reviewing and categorizing entries? Now you can view time spent on Chrometa just like for any other application.

5. Faster, smarter, more reliable

We were just talking about you… kidding! Since Chrometa runs in the background whenever you’re working, we put on our serious face when it comes to stability and performance. Under the hood, we’ve added several data preservation and run-time optimizations to ensure that Chrometa works reliably and stays invisible until you need it. We’ve also recently added support for Windows 7.

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We’re hosting a free webinar next Wednesday, October 28th, that will feature a live demonstration from a practicing attorney about how he uses Chrometa 2.0 to capture and reconcile his billable time.

Our last webinar in June was a big hit – we received a lot of great feedback that folks wanted more nuts and bolts about the product itself.  So that’s what we’ll be sharing this time – some tips and tricks from one of our users in the legal community.

Specifically, you’ll learn how to:

• Fill in missing gaps in your time
• Quickly categorize your time by client/matter
• Export your time for billing

Featured presenters will include:

• Ari L. Kaplan, Esq. is the author of the Amazon.com bestseller The Opportunity Maker: Strategies for Inspiring Your Legal Career Through Creative Networking and Business Development
• Brett Owens, Chrometa CEO and Co-Founder, to share what’s new with Chrometa.
• Adam Tope, Esq. and Chrometa User, who will demonstrate how he tracks and reconciles his billable time using Chrometa.

Who should attend?

• Current Chrometa users who would like to get further acquainted with the 2.0 release
• Anyone who has to track their time, but hates doing it

The webcast will take place on October 28th at 11am Pacific, 2pm Eastern.  Please sign up here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/430072387

For more information on Chrometa, please visit: http://www.chrometa.com/what-is-chrometa.php

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