With the sheer frequency and variety of notifications, meetings, and other commitments that legal professionals have, it can be hard to keep track of your to-do’s. Thankfully, technology is available to help. Here are some software solutions and tips to keep you on top of your responsibilities.
Automated Reminders
While you may already be using some kind of digitized calendar software, an important thing to keep in mind is to make sure to set a reminder! Adding an event to your online calendar will enable you to see the date, but a reminder will better prepare you ahead of time.
Free iPhone Apps
If you have an iPhone, Apple has already equipped you with free apps that can help you stay ahead of the game:
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Notes App
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The Notes app is a great place to jot down quick ideas, create checklists, save photos, and organize your thoughts. The Notes app can also be used to scan, name, and save documents to pdf or other file formats and offers an automatic high-contrast scanner that looks almost as good as a printer. It will even scan your document automatically once you’ve focused your camera.
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Voice Memo app
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Voice memos are a great place to easily and quickly take down thoughts that you have floating around. Voice memos are automatically labeled with the date and time of capture, but you can also rename each memo to organize them by topic or idea.
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Free and Paid Third-Party Apps
If you’re looking for third-party software that does more than Apple’s basic apps, below are a few options to consider. These apps are available for iPhone, Android, Mac, Desktop, and on your web browser – meaning you can sync your reminders across any and all of your platforms to ensure you don’t miss a deadline.
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Todoist (free, paid subscriptions available)
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The Todoist app comes in both paid and free versions. The free version allows you to create reminders for morning, afternoon, and evening tasks, set priority levels for commitments, and filter events by category. In Todoist, you can see today’s tasks and a calendar view simultaneously. Unfortunately, Todoist does not automatically send notifications for each event without upgrading to a paid version. Todoist prices its premium functionality at $5 a month for individuals. There is also a “business” level priced at $8 a month, which integrates team features like shared goals/priority lists, as well as Google Calendar.
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Any.do (free, paid subscriptions available)
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The Any.do app also comes in free and paid versions and includes the ability to create calendar commitments, schedule events, and set custom notifications. You can designate the location of an event and set it to repeat. Any.do also allows you to create custom tags and assign subtasks to help you organized tasks. A team “Workspace” feature is included, similar to a shared calendar on Outlook or Google Calendar. Premium pricing comes in around $10 a month and includes unlimited daily planning, “AI-powered features,” and “custom themes,” among other features.
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Monday (free, paid subscriptions available)
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The Monday app is only one product available through Monday.com, which is a complete workspace management system. The Monday app lets you create events and commitments like the other apps, but also incorporates a visual “dashboard” or timeline to track the deadlines and progress of projects. The app even allows collaborators to update the progress–or “status”–on different tasks and add commitments to a shared calendar. The app also provides for “automations,” which can automatically send emails or create events on a calendar when a certain specified event occurs within the Monday app system. In addition, it integrates with a variety of other software you might already be using, including Gmail, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Microsoft OneDrive.
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While countless software solutions are available to legal professionals to help you stay organized in your work, these are a few that are easy to use, quick to integrate into your existing planning, and relatively inexpensive. For additional help, remember that you can always reach out to a PLF practice management attorney for assistance and guidance. Contact them on the PLF website, osbplf.org, or call 503.639.6911.
PLF Intern