In the Information Age (which we are now living in) there's a lot of information to keep track of. Most of it is useless, but some of it is powerful. The trick is to separate the signal from the noise, and having "information sherpas" will help you do that. Information sherpas are people who pay close attention to particular areas of interest. In this episode I'll share some of the best sherpas to help you learn the principles and best practices for becoming more productive. am Show Notes The Tim Ferriss Show (his podcast) 5 Bullet Friday (Tim Ferriss' weekly email blast) Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers, by Tim Ferriss Tribe of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World, by Tim Ferriss Michael Hyatt website Podcasts by Michael Hyatt Focused (podcast by David Sparks) Mac Power Users (Mac-focused podcast by David Sparks) Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, by James Clear The 3-2-1 Newsletter, by James Clear The Sweet Setup (productivity courses for Mac users) General Resources The 80/20 Principle (my email newsletter) The 5 Pillars of a Tech-Powered Law Practice The Inner Circle (an online community for law firm owners) Thanks to Our Sponsors SweetProcess is a great way to document your important workflows. Doing so will help make your practice run more smoothly, and require less involvement on your part to keep things running smoothly. The best way to understand how SweetProcess will help streamline your firm is to start using it. The company offers a 14-day free trial, but as a loyal listener of this podcast, you can try it for 28-days free of charge. And you don’t even have to enter a credit card to get started. Just navigate to SweetProcess.com/ernie to start your 28-day free trial today. And thanks to the other sponsor of this podcast… Smith.ai is an amazing virtual receptionist service that specializes in working with solo and small law firms. When you hire Smith.ai you’re actually hiring well-trained, friendly receptionists who can respond to callers in English or Spanish. If there’s one great outsourcing opportunity for your practice, this is it. Let Smith.ai have your back while you stay focused on your work, knowing that your clients and prospects are being taken care of. Plans start at just $140 a month for calls or chats. And they have a special offer for podcast listeners where you can get an extra $100 discount with promo code ERNIE100. Sign up for a free trial now (and learn more) at www.smith.ai.  EPISODE CREDITS: If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment. He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world. Find out more at EmeraldCity Pro.  

Lawyers who fully understand what's known as "megatrends" will thrive. And those who ignore the megatrends or (worse) resist them, will probably struggle to survive. The megatrends we'll discuss are ones that are inherent in the shift from an industrial society to one based on the flow of information —specifically, digital information. Show Notes Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives, by John Naisbitt Creating Online Courses (a video session by Joey Vitale, which was part of the 2020 Virtual Bootcamp conference) General Resources The 80/20 Principle (my email newsletter) The 5 Pillars of a Tech-Powered Law Practice The Inner Circle (an online community for law firm owners) Thanks to Our Sponsors SweetProcess is a great way to document your important workflows. Doing so will help make your practice run more smoothly, and require less involvement on your part to keep things running smoothly. The best way to understand how SweetProcess will help streamline your firm is to start using it. The company offers a 14-day free trial, but as a loyal listener of this podcast, you can try it for 28-days free of charge. And you don’t even have to enter a credit card to get started. Just navigate to SweetProcess.com/ernie to start your 28-day free trial today. And thanks to the other sponsor of this podcast… Smith.ai is an amazing virtual receptionist service that specializes in working with solo and small law firms. When you hire Smith.ai you’re actually hiring well-trained, friendly receptionists who can respond to callers in English or Spanish. If there’s one great outsourcing opportunity for your practice, this is it. Let Smith.ai have your back while you stay focused on your work, knowing that your clients and prospects are being taken care of. Plans start at just $140 a month for calls or chats. And they have a special offer for podcast listeners where you can get an extra $100 discount with promo code ERNIE100. Sign up for a free trial now (and learn more) at www.smith.ai.  EPISODE CREDITS: If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment. He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world. Find out more at EmeraldCity Pro.  

Kerry Wallis practices family law in Los Angeles California, and aspires to spend more time traveling the world. She's been working on building systems by documenting workflows, and she's been traveling Europe with her family during the pandemic. How is she able to do this? Listen to this episode and find out. Show Notes Gray Law Corp (Kerry's law firm website) Slack (tool Kerry uses extensively) Otter.ai (free transcription tool) Otter transcript of this episode Evernote (online note storage) Google Docs (online doc storage) SweetProcess (online process documentation service) Link to Ernie's 28-day free trial of SweetProcess Loom (free video creation tool) The E-Myth, by Michael Gerber (seminal business book for small business owners) General Resources The 80/20 Principle (my email newsletter) The 5 Pillars of a Tech-Powered Law Practice The Inner Circle (an online community for law firm owners) Thanks to Our Sponsors SweetProcess is a great way to document your important workflows. Doing so will help make your practice run more smoothly, and require less involvement on your part to keep things running smoothly. The best way to understand how SweetProcess will help streamline your firm is to start using it. The company offers a 14-day free trial, but as a loyal listener of this podcast, you can try it for 28-days free of charge. And you don’t even have to enter a credit card to get started. Just navigate to SweetProcess.com/ernie to start your 28-day free trial today. And thanks to the other sponsor of this podcast… Smith.ai is an amazing virtual receptionist service that specializes in working with solo and small law firms. When you hire Smith.ai you’re actually hiring well-trained, friendly receptionists who can respond to callers in English or Spanish. If there’s one great outsourcing opportunity for your practice, this is it. Let Smith.ai have your back while you stay focused on your work, knowing that your clients and prospects are being taken care of. Plans start at just $140 a month for calls or chats. And they have a special offer for podcast listeners where you can get an extra $100 discount with promo code ERNIE100. Sign up for a free trial now (and learn more) at www.smith.ai.  EPISODE CREDITS: If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment. He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world. Find out more at EmeraldCity Pro.  

If you’re need to hire an associate but don't have enough work for a full-time person check out a legal outsourcing service called Lawclerk. In this episode Kristin Tyler (one of the founders) explains how their service works, and talks about their new subscription program. Show Notes LawClerk.legal home page Details on Associate Subscription Program (features & pricing) 50-State Review of Rules re: Outsourcing for Lawyers YouTube video discussion of program (featuring the two founders of LawClerk legal) Example of work product of attorney freelancer (a memo I outsourced the creation of for a talk I gave to the Texas Bar Assn) General Resources The 80/20 Principle (my email newsletter) The 5 Pillars of a Tech-Powered Law Practice The Inner Circle (an online community for law firm owners) Thanks to Our Sponsors SweetProcess is a great way to document your important workflows. Doing so will help make your practice run more smoothly, and require less involvement on your part to keep things running smoothly. The best way to understand how SweetProcess will help streamline your firm is to start using it. The company offers a 14-day free trial, but as a loyal listener of this podcast, you can try it for 28-days free of charge. And you don’t even have to enter a credit card to get started. Just navigate to SweetProcess.com/ernie to start your 28-day free trial today. And thanks to the other sponsor of this podcast… Smith.ai is an amazing virtual receptionist service that specializes in working with solo and small law firms. When you hire Smith.ai you’re actually hiring well-trained, friendly receptionists who can respond to callers in English or Spanish. If there’s one great outsourcing opportunity for your practice, this is it. Let Smith.ai have your back while you stay focused on your work, knowing that your clients and prospects are being taken care of. Plans start at just $140 a month for calls or chats. And they have a special offer for podcast listeners where you can get an extra $100 discount with promo code ERNIE100. Sign up for a free trial now (and learn more) at www.smith.ai.  EPISODE CREDITS: If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment. He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world. Find out more at EmeraldCity Pro.  

You can learn to be more persuasive, but if you want to learn the most important elements then you should read the short book discussed in this episode. You'll also learn why polarization is persuasive even though it's usually immoral and improper. Episode Notes The One Sentence Persuasion Course - 27 Words to Make the World Do Your Bidding, by Blair Warren General Resources The 80/20 Principle (my email newsletter) The 5 Pillars of a Tech-Powered Law Practice The Inner Circle (an online community for law firm owners) Thanks to Our Sponsors SweetProcess is a great way to document your important workflows. Doing so will help make your practice run more smoothly, and require less involvement on your part to keep things running smoothly. The best way to understand how SweetProcess will help streamline your firm is to start using it. The company offers a 14-day free trial, but as a loyal listener of this podcast, you can try it for 28-days free of charge. And you don’t even have to enter a credit card to get started. Just navigate to SweetProcess.com/ernie to start your 28-day free trial today. And thanks to the other sponsor of this podcast… Smith.ai is an amazing virtual receptionist service that specializes in working with solo and small law firms. When you hire Smith.ai you’re actually hiring well-trained, friendly receptionists who can respond to callers in English or Spanish. If there’s one great outsourcing opportunity for your practice, this is it. Let Smith.ai have your back while you stay focused on your work, knowing that your clients and prospects are being taken care of. Plans start at just $140 a month for calls or chats. And they have a special offer for podcast listeners where you can get an extra $100 discount with promo code ERNIE100. Sign up for a free trial now (and learn more) at www.smith.ai.  EPISODE CREDITS: If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment. He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world. Find out more at EmeraldCity Pro.  

Learn how to recover 5 more hours of your time per week. Dina Cataldo is a criminal defense lawyer turned coach who helps lawyers master time-management, grow their businesses, and have more fun. In this episode, she and Ernie talk about getting leverage in your law business and gaining margin in your life. Episode Notes Dina's business website Dina's Be a Better Lawyer Podcast Dina's downloadable PDF guide: the Busy Lawyer's Guide to Getting 5 Hours Back Dina's Instagram page General Resources The 80/20 Principle (my email newsletter) The 5 Pillars of a Tech-Powered Law Practice The Inner Circle (an online community for law firm owners) Thanks to Our Sponsors SweetProcess is a great way to document your important workflows. Doing so will help make your practice run more smoothly, and require less involvement on your part to keep things running smoothly. The best way to understand how SweetProcess will help streamline your firm is to start using it. The company offers a 14-day free trial, but as a loyal listener of this podcast, you can try it for 28-days free of charge. And you don’t even have to enter a credit card to get started. Just navigate to SweetProcess.com/ernie to start your 28-day free trial today. And thanks to the other sponsor of this podcast… Smith.ai is an amazing virtual receptionist service that specializes in working with solo and small law firms. When you hire Smith.ai you’re actually hiring well-trained, friendly receptionists who can respond to callers in English or Spanish. If there’s one great outsourcing opportunity for your practice, this is it. Let Smith.ai have your back while you stay focused on your work, knowing that your clients and prospects are being taken care of. Plans start at just $140 a month for calls or chats. And they have a special offer for podcast listeners where you can get an extra $100 discount with promo code ERNIE100. Sign up for a free trial now (and learn more) at www.smith.ai.  EPISODE CREDITS: If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment. He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world. Find out more at EmeraldCity Pro.  

Leveraging strengths and conquering weaknesses is vital to your success. When you harness strengths you can make big improvements in your practice that make your life a lot easier. The key to doing this is with a well-known 4-step analysis called S.W.O.T. which many business managers find to be indispensable.  In this episode, we'll delve into what the SWOT analysis looks like for a solo or small firm lawyer. Episode Notes Click here to download a 1-page S.W.O.T. worksheet (PDF) Click here to fill out my online S.W.O.T. form General Resources The 80/20 Principle (my email newsletter) The 5 Pillars of a Tech-Powered Law Practice The Inner Circle (an online community for law firm owners) Thanks to Our Sponsors SweetProcess is a great way to document your important workflows. Doing so will help make your practice run more smoothly, and require less involvement on your part to keep things running smoothly. The best way to understand how SweetProcess will help streamline your firm is to start using it. The company offers a 14-day free trial, but as a loyal listener of this podcast, you can try it for 28-days free of charge. And you don’t even have to enter a credit card to get started. Just navigate to SweetProcess.com/ernie to start your 28-day free trial today. And thanks to the other sponsor of this podcast… Smith.ai is an amazing virtual receptionist service that specializes in working with solo and small law firms. When you hire Smith.ai you’re actually hiring well-trained, friendly receptionists who can respond to callers in English or Spanish. If there’s one great outsourcing opportunity for your practice, this is it. Let Smith.ai have your back while you stay focused on your work, knowing that your clients and prospects are being taken care of. Plans start at just $140 a month for calls or chats. And they have a special offer for podcast listeners where you can get an extra $100 discount with promo code ERNIE100. Sign up for a free trial now (and learn more) at www.smith.ai.  EPISODE CREDITS: If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment. He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world. Find out more at EmeraldCity Pro.  

The less paper you handle the more freedom you have in your practice. David Sparks is a California business attorney who teaches others how to use technology to shed paper and be more productive and less stressed out. While he focuses on Mac-based technology in terms of the tools he uses, his systems are platform-independent. In this episode, he talks about how he created his paperless practice and the challenges he faced. He also explains how modern lawyers should go about making their practices as devoid of dependence on paper as possible. Episode Notes MacSparky website (David’s personal website, with links to his books and courses on using Mac-based technology) SparksEsq website (David’s professional website for his law practice) Paperless Field Guide (David’s course on Mac-based tech tools and general systems for being less dependent on using paper) Drafts (Mac-based tool for iPhone, iPad, and computers that is a launching-off point for text automation that works with other apps). Drafts Field Guide (David’s free course on how to get the most out of Drafts) How I Name Files (David’s MacWorld article on the system he uses for naming files ) Evernote (cloud-based PC & Mac note-taking, storage tool) NotePad (cloud-based note-taking tool) Dragon Dictate (PC based Hazel (an amazing Mac-based automation tool) Hazel Field Guide (David’s course on how to use Hazel most effectively) Adobe Acrobat (Mac & PC software for editing and working with PDFs) PDF Pen (Mac-based PDF editing software used by David) Liquid Text (innovative PDF viewing, editing, note-taking tool) Scanner Pro (iOS app for scanning docs with an iPhone ScanPro (iOS, Android app for scanning with a smartphone) The Pen Addict (a weekly podcast about pens, paper, ink, and stationery) Rhodia notebooks (classic orange notebooks in various sizes) General Resources The 80/20 Principle (my email newsletter) The 5 Pillars of a Tech-Powered Law Practice The Inner Circle (an online community for law firm owners) Thanks to Our Sponsors SweetProcess is a great way to document your important workflows. Doing so will help make your practice run more smoothly, and require less involvement on your part to keep things running smoothly. The best way to understand how SweetProcess will help streamline your firm is to start using it. The company offers a 14-day free trial, but as a loyal listener of this podcast, you can try it for 28-days free of charge. And you don’t even have to enter a credit card to get started. Just navigate to SweetProcess.com/ernie to start your 28-day free trial today. And thanks to the other sponsor of this podcast… Smith.ai is an amazing virtual receptionist service that specializes in working with solo and small law firms. When you hire Smith.ai you’re actually hiring well-trained, friendly receptionists who can respond to callers in English or Spanish. If there’s one great outsourcing opportunity for your practice, this is it. Let Smith.ai have your back while you stay focused on your work, knowing that your clients and prospects are being taken care of. Plans start at just $140 a month for calls or chats. And they have a special offer for podcast listeners where you can get an extra $100 discount with promo code ERNIE100. Sign up for a free trial now (and learn more) at www.smith.ai.  EPISODE CREDITS: If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment. He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world. Find out more at EmeraldCity Pro.  

You want your practice to run better, with less involvement on your part. But there are several challenges to making this happen. One is finding the best tool to document, refine, and optimize all your workflows. The more workflows you document the less involved you can be. The better those workflows are described (and optimized over time) the smoother your practice will run. In this episode, we will delve more into this important topic with Owen McGab Enaohwo, the creator of SweetProcess, one of the best tools for documenting systems and workflows. Here are links to resources mentioned during the episode: SweetProcess (workflow documentation company run by Owen) Four Hour Workweek, by Tim Ferriss (2007 book that discussed the use of virtual assistance) Mixergy (Andrew Warner’s podcast)  Zapier (interconnect cloud services to automate more effectively) Ernie’s recipe for Christmas cookies (documented with SweetProcess) Ernie’s Process Consultant page on SweetProcess website. General Resources The 80/20 Principle (my email newsletter) The 5 Pillars of a Tech-Powered Law Practice The Inner Circle (an online community for law firm owners) Thanks to Our Sponsors SweetProcess is a great way to document your important workflows. Doing so will help make your practice run more smoothly, and require less involvement on your part to keep things running smoothly. The best way to understand how SweetProcess will help streamline your firm is to start using it. The company offers a 14-day free trial, but as a loyal listener of this podcast, you can try it for 28-days free of charge. And you don’t even have to enter a credit card to get started. Just navigate to SweetProcess.com/ernie to start your 28-day free trial today. And thanks to the other sponsor of this podcast… Smith.ai is an amazing virtual receptionist service that specializes in working with solo and small law firms. When you hire Smith.ai you’re actually hiring well-trained, friendly receptionists who can respond to callers in English or Spanish. If there’s one great outsourcing opportunity for your practice, this is it. Let Smith.ai have your back while you stay focused on your work, knowing that your clients and prospects are being taken care of. Plans start at just $140 a month for calls or chats. And they have a special offer for podcast listeners where you can get an extra $100 discount with promo code ERNIE100. Sign up for a free trial now (and learn more) at www.smith.ai.  EPISODE CREDITS: If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment. He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world. Find out more at EmeraldCity Pro.  

Your intuition is a vast repository of life experiences, insights, and deep knowledge. There are times you should trust your intuition, and times when not doing so will put you in peril. In this episode, you'll discover when and how to tap into the immense power of your subconscious knowledge to get more good clients more easily. General Resources The 80/20 Principle (my email newsletter) The 5 Pillars of a Tech-Powered Law Practice The Inner Circle (an online community for law firm owners) Thanks to Our Sponsors SweetProcess is a great way to document your important workflows. Doing so will help make your practice run more smoothly, and require less involvement on your part to keep things running smoothly. The best way to understand how SweetProcess will help streamline your firm is to start using it. The company offers a 14-day free trial, but as a loyal listener of this podcast, you can try it for 28-days free of charge. And you don’t even have to enter a credit card to get started. Just navigate to SweetProcess.com/ernie to start your 28-day free trial today. And thanks to the other sponsor of this podcast… Smith.ai is an amazing virtual receptionist service that specializes in working with solo and small law firms. When you hire Smith.ai you’re actually hiring well-trained, friendly receptionists who can respond to callers in English or Spanish. If there’s one great outsourcing opportunity for your practice, this is it. Let Smith.ai have your back while you stay focused on your work, knowing that your clients and prospects are being taken care of. Plans start at just $140 a month for calls or chats. And they have a special offer for podcast listeners where you can get an extra $100 discount with promo code ERNIE100. Sign up for a free trial now (and learn more) at www.smith.ai.  EPISODE CREDITS: If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment. He helps thought leaders, influencers, executives, HR professionals, recruiters, lawyers, realtors, bloggers, coaches, and authors create, launch, and produce podcasts that grow their business and impact the world. Find out more at EmeraldCity Pro.