The Atlanta Lawyer December 2018 / January 2019 | Page 18

TECH TALK Essential Tech for First-Year Attorneys By Casey Holloway Cushing, Morris, Armbruster & Montgomery, LLP, Associate Attorney [email protected] It seems like every speech about “Things I Wish I’d Known as a New Attorney” includes at least a few minutes of the speaker focus- ing on how important it is to be organized. Organization is even more important for new attor- neys, as most of us do not have an exclusive receptionist (or a new associate) helping to manage and organize our workload. The great news is that technology is really all you need to keep yourself or- ganized. What follows is a brief description of a few technologies that will help you get organized and stay organized in your first of practice. Microsoft OneNote. Nearly every- one who has ever used a computer has likely used some form of Mi- crosoft software-be it Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.; however, the hidden gem of the Microsoft platform is OneNote. OneNote is essentially a digital notebook that you control. You can add and remove as many pag- es as you need, organize it based on your preference, and you can even include images, audio, links to emails, and nearly anything else 18 December 2018/January 2019 you can imagine. You can upload a photo of text into OneNote and convert it into editable text. There is also an option to “tag” items, and after you’ve tagged an item, One- Note will create a to-do list for you, displaying only the items you’ve tagged. If you’re on a document- heavy case, having an automati- cally created to-do list could be invaluable. The best part? You can invite anyone to collaborate on your so-called digital notebook and you and your invitees can work in the document at the exact same time. OneNote is included in the Microsoft Office Suite, so if you have access to Microsoft Word (and I’d be willing to bet you do), you likely have access to OneNote as well. If you prefer to use it on your iPad or other tablet, there’s an app and OneNote syncs across all of your devices. Todoist. Todoist bills itself as “the best to do list app & task manager” and works the way we think. For example, in a traditional calendar (like iCalendar) when you input tasks, you have to describe the task, then select a date, then se- lect a time, then set whether you or not you want the task to repeat. In Todoist, you can simply write “conference call with team every other Tuesday at 11:00 AM #clos- ing” and Todoist will automatically set a recurring task (and reminder) for every other Tuesday at 11:00 AM. You can even organize the tasks you set into “projects” via a hashtag. In the preceding example, the reminder set for every other Tuesday would be stored under the project titled closing. This way, once you set tasks for certain proj- ects, you can sort by the project and see everything you have to do and when. Todoist is designed to be collaborative-you can share projects and then delegate tasks to your invitees. Todoist file sharing allows users to upload files from a multitude of other platforms, including Dropbox, Google Drive, and of course, your computer’s hard drive. These files are saved right in your tasks for easy access. Fun Fact: the company behind Todoist, Doist, is a fully remote company. Todoist is free (with an option to upgrade to Todoist Pre- mium) and is available on nearly any platform.