I had a great time at the global CLOC meeting a couple of weeks ago in Las Vegas.  It was an impressive event.  Huge thanks to the good folks at CLM leader SpotDraft for inviting me to speak on their panel and for making 50(!) copies of my new Showing the Value of the Legal Department book available for free.  I enjoyed the two book signings we did, and I especially enjoyed meeting so many of the CLOC attendees.  I can highly recommend SpotDraft, CLOC, and the global conference for all in-house lawyers.

One question I got a lot from people I met there was “How are you able to get so much done?”  And, as usual, when someone asks me a question, I ponder it and try to answer right away (e.g., being married to the awesome “Mrs. Ten Things” helps a lot when it comes to my getting things done).  I also let questions cook inside my brain for a bit because I know there is usually more to the answer I just gave.  Sure enough, I have been thinking about it a lot over the past two weeks.  And as I sit here on AA Flight 1626 at 30,000 feet, I settled on one skill in particular that I think is truly helpful to me in terms of being able to crank out blogs, books, work, or whatever the case may be; I am really good at making use of small increments of time.  For example, if I have ten minutes before my next work call or meeting starts, I try to find something productive I can accomplish in those ten minutes, i.e., I don’t worry about the hours when there are minutes to be picked up!  As I look back on my time in-house (and now as CEO and Senior Counsel of Hilgers Graben), I see that there are lots of things that I consistently do in ten minutes that add up to a lot of progress (in Latin this is known as “getting shit done”).  Finding ways to productively use small windows of time can be incredibly valuable to you, the department, and the company.  This edition of “Ten Things” shares my list of top things in-house lawyers can get done in ten minutes:

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