Good organisation is all about planning ahead and preparing effectively. When we organise things well, we make the best and most economic use of our time and skills and we also have the satisfaction of having dealt with things with clarity of thought and purpose.

The Space Race

Most people do not read minutes particularly carefully. They were either at the meeting and so only need a quick reminder of the discussions and action points or they were not there and therefore just need an overview and, once again, action points. So it is essential that the minutes can be skim-read and understood at first reading. Here are the top 10 tips to make your minutes understandable:

We’re all guilty of either saying or thinking this once or twice in our careers (present company included). The boss asks us to perform a task that we feel is a bit ‘beneath’ us and the phrase magically pops into our brain. However, what happens when the thought becomes an attitude, and how much truth is there in the comment in the first place?

There are times when it can be hard to focus on your studies. Sometimes the subject material might be particularly challenging, or sometimes there are unwelcome distractions or activities which appear to be more appealing than studying. It could be that it is simply not easy to concentrate at times. But you want to complete the course and do well, and you want to be able to look back after completing the course and know with a sense of satisfaction that you have achieved your best. So how can you best build and maintain that focus?

Have a really clear goal and remind yourself of it

The ILSPA Legal Secretary Jobs Board is the UK’s largest niche recruitment site for Legal Secretaries and PAs. It was specifically designed to help our Members and Students secure employment by aggregating Legal Secretary jobs from across the web as well as enabling law firms and recruitment agencies to post jobs directly. If you are presently looking for a Legal Secretary job, register on our jobs board to gain access to around 2,000 vacancies across the UK. 

Registering on the jobs board will allow you to:

If you are working as a Legal PA and would like access to another good resource to help you in your career, look no further than http://www.personal-assistant-tips.com. This informative website includes tips and advice for junior and senior PAs alike. There are many beneficial articles on checklists for meetings, managing your boss, event planning, minute taking, business writing and more.

You will find a comprehensive set of PA tools and links for organising and planning corporate travel on the site. They include embassy information, inoculation requirements, visa requirements, airline and airport codes, world holidays, international driving licence requirements and a worldwide Wi-Fi locator.

Negotiating skills come into play whenever we are contact with others, whether professionally, personally or socially. Improving these skills allows us to be at our best in order to achieve successful mutual outcomes.

The three main keys to success are effective handling of ourselves, handling of others and dealing with the problem.

Let's look at each of these in turn:

1. Effective handling of ourselves

Dropbox

Dropbox is the best way to back up your files and keep your files synced between multiple computers. Once installed, Dropbox creates a folder in your Documents or Home folder. Anything saved to this folder will be backed up online and can be synced to any other computers that have Dropbox installed on the same account. You can also share folders with your friends who use Dropbox. The basic account is absolutely free and gives you 2 gigabytes of storage space. It is cross platform and runs on Windows, OSX and Linux.

Avast Antivirus

The scrapping of training grants for legal aid lawyers has come like a bolt out of the blue for many in the legal profession, especially those who have grown used to the largesse of the Legal Services Commission.

The scheme, which was launched in 2002, provided awards to a maximum of £20,000 to legal aid firms. The funds could be used to pay the whole of the tuition fees of the Professional Skills Course, as well as a significant contribution to Legal Practice Course fees. Additionally, the salaries of trainee Solicitors were paid for the two years of their training contracts.

Organise

Use folders or labels to organise and manage your email. If you have a good reference system set up, you won’t ever have troubles looking for mail. Paper documents are filed for ease of use, and email should be treated the same way.

Archive

Keep your correspondence; you never know when you will need it. Most modern email systems provide plenty of space, so it’s good to get into the practice of saving any mail that isn’t junk. That way you can’t be accused of not sending somebody something when you have actually sent it and vice versa. During my career I have referred back to old emails on many occasions and have resolved a few disputes by looking in my archived mail.

Create filters/rules