This is officially my last post as part of the Blawger Survivor challenge and I am so excited to have been able to get a post in every single weekday the last three weeks. Sure, half of them came in a mere hour or less before the day’s deadline, but evenings are my quiet work time, so that just was convenient!

A big congrats to the other blawgers who completed the entire challenge:

• Connecticut Employment Law Blog
• Employment Law Blog
• Jeff Krause’s Practice Management Blog
• Leadership, Women, Lawyers
• No Reins Girl
• Taxgirl
• The Connected Lawyer
• The Nutmeg Lawyer

The challenge I think really did get me in the habit of blogging daily and I hope I can stick with it into the fall. Setting aside specific time probably is the solution, although in all honesty I just fit it in wherever worked (as mentioned, usually last thing before shutting down my computer at night!)

Oh, before I go, a huge thank you to one of my biggest supporters during this challenge – and writer of a fabulous “blawg”, Lynne of the Practical Paralegalism blog – thanks Lynne!!!

I love summer, but I have to tell you how glad I am that the school vacation part of it is almost over! Besides, fall colors are so pretty, it’s a great season to look forward to. This summer, my multi-tasking abilities were definitely put to the test and my biggest tip for getting everything done: time blocking.

photo credit: wwarby

That’s because while I say I “multi-task”, there are times when too many things going on at once just means you do everything poorly. So I may multi-task when I get a sandwich for the 7 year old, while starting dishes and listening to a story from the 4 year old, I don’t think multi-tasking while actually doing client work is effective.

There are multiple ways to use time-blocking in your work, whether your are a virtual assistant, a lawyer or even a student. I like the suggestions over at Croll Organizing, because it is similar to how I manage my day.  Meredith of Yellow Highlighter VA has a good method as well.

I personally spend time on my email first thing in the am, then I pick a project and spend dedicated time on it. Then I take a Twitter break, then another work project, etc. Of course I also block in time for fun with the kids – today we walked to the park!

I like to use the timer on my stove for measuring time blocks, the kids then know when the buzzer sounds that it is the end of work time for that block and they can have my attention. Doesn’t help much with the toddler yet – but at least the older two get it!

I readily admit that one of the driving factors behind my having started my virtual legal assistant business is to be more available to my children. And especially in this first year of business, I’m growing slowly enough not to have needed much in the way of childcare, and yet I can still meet my clients’ needs. I love how the internet can help me do this!!

As I get busier and busier though, I am faced with the types of concerns that plague work from home parents everywhere. How do I manage things like phone calls when I have a toddler underfoot? I’m lucky in that my older two kids will be in school shortly and that gives me 2 days a week where it’s only the toddler at home with me. I’ve even, finally, begun the process of finding some childcare for him, but full-time care isn’t really in my plans right now and that means there are going to be times when I must either find a way to keep him busy while on the phone with a client or during an interview, or risk looking very unprofessional.

Thankfully the same beautiful internet that offers me so many opportunities and so much information doesn’t come up short with suggestions for how to work around this problem. There’s the list of 94 ways to keep kids busy over at Sparkplugging, 15 activities from the At Home Mom Blog, 10 independent play activities from About.com and a great general advice article on working from home with kids from Jonathan Lane at Canada.com.

Of course if I could ever just find that mute button that actually works on kids, that would be the ideal solution….in my dreams anyway!

I’ve been thinking about becoming part of a Mastermind group or mentor/mentee relationship for some time now, and last night (when I should have been sleeping!) I read a great post from the Build a Solo Practice Blog over at Solo Practice University about why solo practitioners need a mastermind group. Whether you are a lawyer, a virtual assistant or any other kind of business owner, there are good options available for you. For example, if you are a virtual assistant there is a colleague I really respect, Alyssa Gregory, who has just started an intriguing looking program at VAHub, called the VAHub Club. Definitely worth looking into, especially if you are a new or aspiring VA!

I’ve personally looked at a variety of options for a mastermind group, ideally with other virtual legal assistants. There are some paid options, but my personal preference is for a small group with no fee, where everyone in the group would be treated as equals, although some members are likely to be more experienced than others.  I think a better group dynamic will be achieved without paying a fee. But I could be wrong and some people may not take it seriously without paying. Any thoughts from my wonderful readers on this topic?

I am definitely going to include this in my development plan – to help grow Halo Secretarial into my vision of what a virtual legal assistant business can be, a mastermind group surely can only help! Now, to figure out exactly how to get started…

I’m starting a bit of a personal mission right now, to improve my health, and a couple of the books I’m reading  that are intended to give me advice on being a healthier person, actually have some great advice that is applicable whether you are concentrating on self-improvement, weight loss or growing your business. I love that ideas for one part of my life can really help me in other areas.

For example, one of the big pieces of advice was about positive affirmations. I know affirmations can be powerful. I’ve read about it before, but have not ever gone really far in implementing what I’ve read. Silly, huh? I work hard on growing my business, I believe in myself, but I need to go one step further. I’m adding some great affirmation blogs to my reader right now, and I’m going to have the right affirmations for me, and for Halo Secretarial, set by the end of this week.

This is going to be great!

Working from home as a virtual legal assistant is not all work – no play! In fact, one of the best things about working for myself from home is the ability to have flexibility in my day. Today I have had quite a varied day already and it’s not even 2pm yet! I’ve done some client work, reviewed next week’s schedule on my calendar, bought buspasses for my kindergarten/grade two kiddos and had the pleasure of a phone conversation with Vicki Voisin of The Paralegal Mentor.

Next up in my day is a very rare evening out with my best friend and then a weekend of about half work and half fun.

If you want a little bit of relaxation this Friday afternoon, here are a couple of fun links for you:

Want to see a fun little graph of how the Internet sees You? Try this link (my graph is below, and semi-accurate, lol)

Some truly hilarious quotes over at The “Blog” of Unnecessary Quotes  (hat tip to @RandallMoeller)

And a couple of my favorite little jokes from a recent forwarded email. I never even READ forwarded joke emails normally, but this had me laughing hysterically (ok some of the funnier ones turn out not to be blog post appropriate, sorry, but still these are good!):

Is it just me, or are 80% of the people in the “people you
may know” feature on facebook people that I do know, but i deliberately
choose not to be friends with?

I like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it’s on
shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my itunes.

It really pisses me off when I want to read a story on
CNN.com and the link takes me to a video instead of text.

Have a great weekend!!

This morning I was involved in a wonderful webinar all about finding and working with a virtual legal assistant. Larry of Rocket Matter included some poll questions, including one about support staff to lawyer ratios. This is an interesting topic to me, as I’ve actually got a really wide range of experience with respect to staffing ratios. My very first legal assistant position was one where there were three assistants and one lawyer. Then I worked in a firm where the ratio was generally two lawyers and one legal assistant and finally I worked somewhere where the official ratio was three staff to one lawyer, but due to general shortages, vacations and set-up there frequently was only one staff to every four lawyers or so.

Now, obviously I’m only talking about my experience but I can say that I think the first two firms were far better run than the last. In the first the lawyer kept very busy with clients. His staff could do everything else. In the second, a ratio of two to one actually kept the assistants both busy and happy, as they had more variety in their daily work routine. But when there are three or four lawyers to one support person? Things get missed, balls get dropped, lawyers do a lot of their own admin work. It was inefficient and created some serious morale issues for staff and lawyers alike.

Consider this when wondering whether a virtual legal assistant is right for your practice. If you get extra help will it make you more efficient? If you already have staff, could providing supplementary assistance make them more efficient? Correspondingly though, if you already have good processes in place and excellent administrative staff, don’t consider switching to a VLA to reduce costs. Depending on the size and style of your practice a virtual assistant may in fact not be necessary, or only needed on an occasional basis.

I read a post with some good points and law practices and efficiency over at The Virtual Lawyer.  Roger notes that to truly be efficient lawyers must leverage their time appropriately, whether by utilizing other people’s time, using appropriate technology or finding ways to package your services. Kathleen Brady shares some great suggestions about improving the productivity/efficiency of your law practice in her Law Practice Today article called Achieving Life/Work Balance Through Effective Time Management and in her post Read These 10 Secrets To (Fill in the Blank) Susan Cartier Liebel points out that good processes and choices will lead to a productive law practice, but also notes one of the most important points when it comes to growing your business: It Takes Time.

So if you want to improve the efficiency of how your practice is running, look at what you have in place, evaluate what tasks and work you need help with and then see if a virtual legal assistant might just be the perfect solution!

I was reading over at The Lawyerist this morning about the Ten Great Rules of Client Service, which reminded me that I want to order something to maybe give as a client gift and to use for promotional purposes in general. I’m planning on ordering some travel mugs with my logo on them, but I can’t decide! I’m probably ordering from this website, they are a Canadian site (easier for delivery to me) and have decent prices.
So far these are my top two choices, I’d love some input on your fave!

I like something with color, rather than a plain silver mug, as I think it may be slightly more attention grabbing!

Thanks to Rocket Matter, I’m participating in a webinar with Andrea Cannavina where you can learn all about choosing and working with a virtual legal assistant.

The webinar will be this Thursday at noon (EDT), which is 10 am if you are on mountain time like me!! It’s a free webinar, so if you have the time you should definitely join us. And if you don’t have the time but want to know more about partnering with a VLA, feel free to check out my series all about choosing and working with a virtual legal assistant, I have lots of great tips for you!

This weekend I was asked to do a job profile for a friend who is thinking about a career as a paralegal. Although my answers are somewhat atypical, being a self-employed legal assistant/paralegal, it was still an interesting experience to really take a few minutes to do a broad overview of what I’m doing, what I’ve done throughout my career and if I would do it again if my choices were different today.

I should have pointed the friend to a great blog that often profiles paralegals as a resource for learning more about her potential career path. Lynne DeVenny offers tons of helpful information and news items relating to the paralegal world, but my favorite posts on her blog are the paralegal profiles. It’s a great way to show the various choices within the profession that are available to someone who thinks that this is the career for them! Hmmm, think I better go shoot off a follow up email!!