As they juggle their daily workloads and case assignments, paralegals often have to adhere to competing priorities, attorney requests, handling a barrage of telephone calls, conflicting deadlines, and reacting to the inevitable emergency or crisis.

A helpful solution is to prioritize and maximize your productivity by developing and following "best practices." A best practice is a new technique in business and management to establish a process for an efficient and effective way to accomplish a task. It can help increase your productivity while reducing stress levels and enhancing your work performance.

Here are some best practices that work for me.

1. Follow a daily "action plan" or "to-do" list. At the start of your workday, develop your plan to include tasks that must be done and tasks that you want to do, and allow a buffer of reserve time for emergencies or crisis deadlines. Prior planning is the only way to tackle those urgent deadlines that always come up. Re-evaluate your priority list daily.

2. Delegate. Paralegals typically work in a team environment. When you are on overload, ask another paralegal who may have more time or flexibility to help with a task or project. For tasks that are clerical, legal secretaries can often perform entry-level projects, such as filing court papers, or Bates-labeling documents.

3. Use an electronic calendar system. Routinely track important dates and deadlines utilizing your e-mail program. Microsoft Outlook and other software programs allow you to manage deadlines through reminders of deadlines, tasks and events. Most e-mail programs feature a tagging system to help remind you what e-mails or tasks you need to complete and prioritize by various sorting capabilities.

4. Conquer procrastination. All of us are guilty of this - the temptation to work on the nonessential non-billable work first. We gravitate toward the administrative or easier tasks rather than focusing on the substantive billable work. If you squander your day completing nonessential tasks instead of tracking your billable casework, then you will never meet your goal hours each day.

5. Deal with distractions. Drop-in visitors, work friends, Web surfing and computer games are likely to take you away from focusing on your workload. There are other work distractions too. Flip-flopping between responding to e-mails and telephone calls adds to distraction, and prevents you from focusing on getting the tasks done. Set limits. Allow certain times of the day for returning e-mails and telephone calls. Use your time wisely and devote unbroken concentration to complete your tasks and projects.

6. Be a good communicator. Communication is a key element to successful interaction with others and effective time management. If you do not understand a task, instead of wasting time pondering what to do, ask questions. Be clear and concise.

7. Adapt to your "peak time." Each of us works differently - some people have their highest energy flow in the early-morning hours, while others have a power surge in the afternoon. Save clerical tasks for your low energy periods. When you are at your best, work on projects that take concentration, such as writing, analyzing and digesting, and give them uninterrupted time.

8. Be realistic about limitations. All of us have strengths and weaknesses. Know your limits. Do not accept a project or task to accomplish that is not within your capabilities. Communicate with the assigner and offer another option for getting the task done. But there will be times when people's expectations are not realistic. Take a proactive approach and communicate what is truly realistic to complete the task.

Take it from a veteran paralegal with many years of experience: The tips offered here can help you create best practices to manage your time and workload productivity as a paralegal.

- By Laura Szychowski, paralegal at Phillips Lytle LLP, WNYPA first vice president for programming and bar liaison