According to Bloomberg Business, the top selling iPad2^® app over the Christmas holidays wasn’t Angry Birds, it was an app named Quickoffice. What’s Quickoffice have to do with Certified Legal Nurse Consultants? Easy – with more and more of my CLNC^® amigos turning to the iPad as an auxiliary device, you need a way to view and edit your Microsoft^® Office documents and Quickoffice provides it.

Using Quickoffice, CLNC^® consultants and their attorney-clients can open and edit documents from Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It also has the ability to store, access and share documents in the “cloud” with a functioning tie to Dropbox^®. At $19.99 it’s not a cheap app, but then your business isn’t cheap and neither is the cost of missing a deadline because you couldn’t get back to your computer to correct a document.

When I get my iPad3^® this spring (hint, hint), Quickoffice will be one of the first apps I install and I recommend you do the same. It’s also available for phones but who really wants to edit documents on a phone? I sure don’t and I’ll bet you don’t either.

Keep on Techin’,

Tom

As we move into the holiday season, our role as CEO becomes even more pronounced. Sure we’re CEOs of our Certified Legal Nurse Consulting businesses, but you might be the “Chief Everything Officer” of your family as well, in charge of your business and housekeeping, childcare, homework, shopping, meal-planning, cooking, carpool and finance, to name just a few departments.

So how do you juggle your career and family without going insane, and still enjoy the holiday season? That’s the million-dollar question and here’s my million-dollar answer: stop being the Chief Everything Officer and learn to say no. That might mean saying no to the people you love the most and no to doing all the laundry, all the housework and all the errands. Learning to say this one word, the most powerful word in the dictionary, can have a revolutionary effect not only on enjoying the holidays but also on your CLNC^® business.

For example when Edie, who was very career driven, got married, her husband said “I don’t do laundry.” She smiled and said, “That’s okay, neither do I.” In her 14 years of marriage, she has raised their son, gone back to college and risen to an executive position.

It’s okay for your spouse and kids to do some of the housework. It’s not going to kill them, but it is going to kill you if you keep doing it all. Get your family behind you and your career goals in the same way that you’re behind each of them. That’s the best way to handle your legal nurse consulting business, the holidays and the day-to-day we call life.

And while you’re at it, stop saying yes by default. Too many nurses fall into the traps of “if I don’t do it, it won’t get done” or “it’s faster to do it than explain it.” When you agree to say yes to an additional chore or project, think about what you’re saying no to as a result.

You’ll have a much happier life, holiday season and productive CLNC^® business when you learn to say no, delegate some of those myriad responsibilities and initiate on-the-job training programs for your spouse and children. As long as you’re the CEO, you may as well put those skills to use!

Success Is Inside!

Whether your goal is to launch a legal nurse consulting business or to grow your CLNC^® business, now more than ever you must have a consciousness about whether you are on or off focus.

I am blessed to be passionate about my business, and because I grew up in New Orleans, I am equally passionate about playing. I just spent four days hiking in a remote part of Utah and am already planning the next trip. Most people can’t believe I take 12 weeks off every year, but the big reasons I am able to do so are not only that I have 23 awesome employees and great subcontractors and vendors who do just fine (and often better) without me, but also because when I work, I work with focus.

Today it is so easy to get caught up in all the superficial, time-sucking distractions of the Internet, email following you everywhere, YouTube, Facebook, texting and Twitter. But to succeed big, you will want to get on focus and stay on focus.

To find time to launch or grow your business and still have quality time for yourself, try these four strategies for working with focus.

1. Focus on one Big Thing at all times. When you always have something big on your agenda and touch it most days, you have the constant reminder of what it feels like (and how good it feels) to be productive. There is nothing like the momentum of momentum to keep your momentum going. This is one of the reasons successful people achieve big over and over again.
2. Stop being the fastest email responder. There is no greater blow to productivity than email. No matter how good it feels to empty your email inbox, you don’t have to keep it open 24/7. You can check email every two hours and still be perceived as responsive by your attorney-clients. If you’re too quick to click they may even wonder whether you’re really working on that important case. I am not saying email isn’t important. I am just saying that email is not important every second of the day and that success isn’t defined by how quick you click.
3. Stop being social. It feels good to hang out on Facebook, but don’t let social media become an obsessive compulsive disorder. I know a woman who spends her entire working day on Facebook and Twitter and has lost a client or two because of it. Social media has changed the way we communicate and connect and can even be used to market your CLNC^® business. But if you find your first and last calls of the day are Facebook, and not your significant other – the last time I checked, there’s professional help and prescription drugs for that
4. Interrupt the interrupter. I personally think there’s a secret alarm or flashing green light that goes off the moment I shut my office door to focus. But there’s one person who is responsible for more interruptions than anyone else. Who’s that? That’s right – you. All of the things I talked about above – email, Facebook, Twitter – are interruptions you invite into your mental space. It’s also easy to interrupt yourself with the whining, complaining and negativity that derail your productivity. Pay attention to your most intimate companions and how they influence your productivity.

In today’s busy world, it’s more important than ever to work with focus. Guard your time carefully. It’s a precious gift, not to be wasted. When you begin to work with total focus, you’ll miraculously find time to grow your business and also get to go outside and play.

Success Is Inside!

I just mentored a very successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. Her issue: she loves being a CLNC^® consultant and the freedom that comes with it, but the operational part of her business sometimes takes the wind right out of her sails. The parts she enjoys include the marketing, working with her attorney-clients and locating experts, but the processes necessary to keep her CLNC^® subcontractors and employees on track can suck her spirit dry.

Every business is made up of thousands of details and if I or my staff try to manage those details without processes and systems, the wind goes right out of our sails. I want as many things to be automatic as possible. I don’t want to be thinking about something small when I can be thinking about something big. I don’t want to be searching for a lost file because someone misfiled it – I want to focus on important projects.

In the early years of my legal nurse consulting business I woke up one morning and had a reality check: my lack of systems and processes were kicking my ass. My office looked like a shipwreck with the debris and detritus strewn about everywhere by the tide of day-to-day business. I was so busy working cases I had completely ignored my business and the systems necessary to manage it properly. I could no longer afford to take 10 minutes to locate this file, that file or the standards I’d carefully researched and just as carefully misplaced.

I needed to act fast to avoid drifting out to sea and I tackled the problem with a vengeance and determination equal to that of Captain Ahab’s in his pursuit of the great white whale. My goal: to be as fast and sleek as a sailboat. Today if you walked into my office you would think I have no work to do, but that is just an illusion, one that has accelerated not only my productivity but my team’s as well.

Your CLNC^® business should run like a state-of-the-art sailboat. Sleek and built to run with the wind. Look at the way a sailboat is constructed. Each part is there for a reason and each part is necessary. Not only does each part (the mast, boom, boom vang, fairlead, hiking straps, thwart, main sheet and even the centerboard) need to be in working order, all the parts need to work together. The failure of one part of the boat, for example a mainstay tearing loose, could lead to the failure or even sink the entire boat.

The same is true for your legal nurse consulting business. Just like the success of the sailboat depends on thousands of details, so too does the success of your CLNC^® business. This includes all the details that some people might find tedious (filing or organizing medical records), not just the details that we enjoy (high-fiving your favorite attorney-client after a favorable settlement or depositing retainer checks).

Like a sailboat, if you neglect one part of your CLNC^® business you run the risk that the part might fail. Your enterprise might not sink right away and might float along with the wind or current for some time. It may not even be obvious that your ship is sinking until you wake up one day with water lapping at your ankles. If something major happens, say you lose a big client, that could be the equivalent of a main sail tearing loose. But something less obvious, like failing to retie the connection with prior clients while you’re busy marketing to new attorney-prospects, might be like not doing the regular maintenance of cleaning and oiling the pulleys or cranks you need to raise your sails. While your main sail is up you’re able to make headway, but if you need to hoist the jibs later or fly your spinnaker you may not be able to and may end up floundering in the wind.

Successful people create systems to make taking care of those details as simple and easy as possible. Successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultants know that creating checklists, policies, intake forms and shared calendars for staff and subcontractors goes a long way toward easing their workload. The more systems you have in place the less time you spend reinventing the wheel or recreating each detail when a new case comes along, you get a new attorney-client or hire a new CLNC^® subcontractor.

My advice to the Certified Legal Nurse Consultant was to hire a “first mate” to engage in those pesky details for her. To paraphrase Yoda, “Details, engage them you must.”

Business isn’t always smooth sailing, but with the right systems for taking care of the details in place, your journey will be more like crossing the “Drake Lake” than rough, category 7 sea swells of the Drake Passage that Tom and I experienced on the way home from Antarctica.

Success Is Inside (and in the details)!

I believe in dragons – at least the Dragon Naturally Speaking^® software on my laptop and the accompanying app on my iPhone^®. I’m so in love with my Dragons that I can’t imagine life without them. If you’ve ever had a “eureka” thought but no paper to write it down, you’ll appreciate the mobile Dragon. The app allows me to dictate up to a minute of pure brilliant thought or instructions, save them and then, if necessary, edit or add onto them. Once I’ve completed my “voice memo” or idea for the day, I’ll email it to myself or the responsible staff member and have an electronic paper trail to keep them (or me) on track.

As a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant the mobile app gives you the ability to send your own brilliant thoughts to yourself or to an attorney-client as an email or a text message, or even to simply update your Facebook status about the new attorney-client you’ve just acquired. The beauty of the Dragon is now, no matter where you are, you can record the “big idea” that you know won’t last until you find paper. You’ll never again have to worry about reading your scribbled handwriting or decoding the cocktail napkin notes from the 2-martini lunch with your legal nurse consulting mastermind group.

The Dragon software for your computer is an expanded version that allows you to dictate reports, letters, memos or just about any other document. It does require a headset which tethers you to your computer (a minus). You also have to train your Dragon, a more complex procedure than training your Dragon app but once trained you’ll love it.

I highly recommend the Dragon app to any Certified Legal Nurse Consultant with an iPhone. You’ll wonder how you ever lived without a Dragon at hand.

Success Is Inside!

You read the first 11 strategies yesterday; here’s 15 more to keep your CLNC^® business busier than ever.

Eliminate Distractions and Focus on Your Priorities

12. Develop a routine just as you would in nursing. Triage cases and keep a priority list. Focus on important deadlines.
13. Focus on the task at hand. Screen your calls during business hours. Be available for your attorney-clients, but use caller ID to prevent marketers, family and friends from taking up your valuable time. Turn off the TV. Keep the office door shut.
14. Save personal matters for lunch time, after work or the weekend. Let friends and relatives know that just because you work from home does not mean you are available to play or chat during business hours. You have to set boundaries just as you would if you worked in someone else’s office, so you want to treat your home office with the same respect.
15. Call a family meeting. Communicate positively to your significant other and children the importance of your CLNC^® business and how their support during your work hours is essential to having more family time together. Working at home is a privilege that you and your family will want to continue.
16. Enforce rules about interruptions. This can be tough, but generally everyone respects the rules. When the office door is shut, that means work is in progress.
17. To maintain focus during intense case work, play soft classical music or sounds of nature.

“I set ‘working hours’ for myself each day and during that time do not allow myself to be distracted. The television is off, the landline phone ringer is off and I do not check personal email, social media or surf the web. No catching up with my girlfriends or mom on the telephone and absolutely no household chores! These ‘working hours’ may vary from day to day, but they are hours devoted specifically to my CLNC^® business and my attorney-clients.”

Julie Somen-Becker, RN, BSN, CLNC

Manage Your Work Space and Your Paperwork for Maximum Productivity

18. Create an organized, functional work space dedicated to your CLNC^® business and use it only for business. This makes it easier to walk away from your business at the end of the day. Also keep the office your office and not part of a shared family meeting spot if at all possible. This practice allows for fewer distractions, less background noise and promotes information security.
19. Make sure the layout of your office supports your productivity. For example, are the phone and office supplies within easy reach? Do you have enough room to work? Can you find things easily? Because you’ll spend a great deal of time in your office, make sure you enjoy the environment. Invest in file cabinets to avoid things stacking up on your desk.
20. Before you end your day, organize your priorities and work space for the next day. This ensures your important case will be front and center for your review when you return to work.
21. Take advantage of the latest home-office technology products to maximize your efficiency, decrease stress and save time. Purchase the best computer and word processing software that fit your business needs and budget.

Know When to Quit and Take Care of You

22. If you’re going to work at home, you need strong boundaries between home and office. Make sure your office is just for work. When you leave work, it should be like leaving an outside office and going home. If you choose to work late hours or on weekends, that’s fine. But when you walk out of that office, close the door and GO HOME! Sometimes you have to turn your back on the cases piling up. This makes your work day more productive and your home life more pleasant.
23. Be realistic. Don’t plan eight billable hours per day and get discouraged because you only worked six. When scheduling your work, include fun, family and quiet personal time. Allow for taking the kids to school, helping with homework, preparing meals, taking breaks and unscheduled interruptions. Use your time wisely. Always maintain good communication with your attorney-clients to avoid rush jobs.

“Your biggest challenge will be to not work 16 hours a day. Achieving balance when the work is in front of you 24/7 takes effort and commitment. Set a time each day to turn the computer off and get away from the office. Stay connected to your family and friends. No matter how long you work from home, this will always be a challenge. Even after seven years of being home based, my husband will come into my office space in the middle of the afternoon, and I’m still in my PJs, haven’t had breakfast or even washed my face. But I’ve gotten a lot of work done!”

Anne Koepsell, RN BSN, MHA, CLNC

24. Make a commitment to own the business and not allow it to own you. Don’t allow work to flow over into family time. Walking away from a project can be difficult, but keeping on schedule allows you the freedom to do this. Develop a business plan and follow it, stay organized and allow yourself plenty of time to play.
25. Have an office door you can close at the end of the business day. The ceremonial opening and closing of the door is important. Otherwise you’ll become addicted to the space and find some reason to be in there at all hours, including the weekend.

“I installed a glass door in my office. This enables me to treat ‘my space’ like a real office. I can close the door at night (and not feel too guilty) and open it in the morning when I want to start my work day. It also helps having glass because I can see what is going on in the rest of the house when the door is closed.”

Dorene Goldstein RNC, CLNC

26. This is your business; no one is going to set your boundaries for you. Use rituals to differentiate between work and personal time. Work out, change clothes or leave to run an errand to transition from work to play. Take days off, enjoy the weekend and take vacations. Put them in your calendar at the beginning of the year and stick with this. Schedule a family day. Above all, have fun!

“Working from home has also allowed me to take better care of myself. I start my day with a walk with my dog, then I retreat to the basement to do my workout. After my shower, I am refreshed and ready to start working. Granted this usually isn’t until about 10:00am sometimes, but that’s the fun of working at home. If I had to go to an office or the hospital, I’m not sure if I would get a workout in.”

Dorene Goldstein RNC, CLNC

Use these 26 strategies for working effectively and efficiently from home, and you might outgrow your home office like Larry Frace.

“I love my 800 sq. ft. man-cave basement office which has served me well over the past 10 years. However, it is starting to get a bit cramped in the cave these days, so now I have my eye on a 3,200 sq. ft. cave right next door (through the woods and across an open field). Working from home has been great, but most great things seem to evolve into yet greater opportunities. Being a nurse is great, but becoming a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant evolved this caveman down a path of unlimited opportunities!”

Lawrence H. Frace, RN, CLNC

What a fun problem to have. Congratulations, Larry! Here’s wishing all CLNC^® consultants a successful home office and a problem like Larry’s.

Special thanks to the CLNC^® Pros Suzanne Arragg, RN, BSN, CDONA/LTC, CLNC; Dale Barnes, RN, MSN, PhN, CLNC; Joanne Fox Boschi,RN, MSN, CPNP, CLNC; Nikki J. Chuml, RNC, CCE, FMC, CLNC; Larry Frace, RN, CLNC; Margaret Gallagher, RN, BSN, MSN, CLNC; Dorene Goldstein, RNC, CLNC; Debra Good-Zeiner, RN, BSN, CLNC; Sandra Higelin, RN, MSN, CS, CWCN, CLNC; Jane Hurst, RN, CLNC; Annmarie Johnson, RN, BSN, CLNC; Camille Joyner, RN, CCM, CLNC; Anne Koepsell, RN, BSN, MHA, CLNC; Mildred Mannion, RN, BSN, CNOR, CLNC; Julie-Somen-Becker, RN, BSN, CLNC and Linda Turner, RN, MSN, NNP-BC, CLNC who have shared the strategies they use to work more effectively from home.

Success Is Inside!

Read Part 2.

As Anne Koepsell, Certified Legal Nurse Consultant says “the phrase ‘working from home’ creates images of total freedom from structure and time commitments. And that is the challenge – there is no structure, no office hours, no peers to watch what you are doing and how you spend your time. Those of us who have worked at home rarely want to trade it for a structured job or office setting. But successfully working from home requires the right attention and intention.” I asked 16 CLNC^® Pros to share their best practices for working from home, guaranteed to deliver the attention, intention and effectiveness to succeed.

Set Regular Office Hours and Stick to Your Schedule

1. Whether it’s laundry or lunch out, there is potential for distractions, so it’s in your best interest to establish regular business hours. Your schedule may vary from day to day and week to week, but have a written goal for start and end times and how many billable hours you want to achieve each week.

“I do as much as possible between 9:00am-3:00pm while my husband is at work and my children are at school. No interruptions, no questions, no needs. This is the best time for me to work. If I have to work at night, I make time for my family and for dinner. Once I’ve taken care of them I can do what I need to do in my office with a clear head.”

Nikki Chuml, RN, C, CCE, FMC, CLNC

2. Include regular lunch hours and days off in your schedule.
3. Communicate your office hours to your family. This reminds them that you are not available every second of the day.

“On a weekly basis I make certain that my household is aware of what commitments and expectations I have involving my CLNC^® business. I accomplish this with a few simple steps including a calendar posted in my home office, an Outlook^® calendar that is shared with my husband’s email accounts, and syncing my calendar on my smart phone with my husband’s phone using our MobileMe account. When my spouse is aware of my work load and commitments in advance, he can work with me to successfully keep my CLNC^® business and my family and home environment in balance! This also allows me to stay organized and use my time wisely.”

Julie Somen-Becker, RN, BSN, CLNC

“When I left the hospital and was no longer sleeping during the day, my family thought they hit the jackpot – I was home all the time (not sleeping) and I had so much free time. I needed time to adjust to this new lifestyle. There were a lot of potential distractions, especially with three kids and a husband. In the beginning, I found that creating a calendar for myself and scheduling office time worked for all of us. I posted a big calendar on the refrigerator and wrote in everyone’s appointments and schedules including my own. When I did this, they all knew that from 1:00-4:00pm on Tuesdays I was working and not available for any errands, homework or laundry. This tactic helped make me accountable and it worked.”

Dorene Goldstein RNC, CLNC

4. You might have to walk past the dirty laundry to get your office. Just imagine you are working in someone else’s office until you develop the discipline needed to ignore that laundry. Would you report to the office late to do laundry? Would you watch TV, play Farmville, shop or run errands in the middle of the day? Do whatever it takes to get into “work mode.” Close your office door, don’t answer your home phone and designate a time to handle personal tasks.

“Just as my multiple professional duties and many personal interests create an exciting and ever-changing lifestyle, they can often conflict. In a home-based office setting, home ownership and family responsibilities can infringe on your CLNC^® business unless a clear delineation is established. For me, it is imperative to do whatever it takes to simulate ‘going to work’ in a home office. On days when I work in my home office, I get dressed for ‘work,’ put a do not disturb sign on my door and answer only my office phone. I resist the urge to do household chores but allow myself the luxury of slippers. Through trial and error I have found what works for me.”

Debra Good-Zeiner, RN, BSN, CLNC

“Drawbacks to working at home include that the neighbors tend to forget you are ‘at work’ when they see your car in the driveway and bang on the door or call (because they just know you are in there)! For awhile, my brother-in-law had a habit of dialing every separate phone line we have until I finally gave in and answered one. This happened pretty much any time he had a medical question that demanded (in his opinion), an immediate answer. The fact that I was ‘at work’ didn’t seem to be as important to him as his problem. We had a neighbor on sabbatical who kept knocking on our front door to chat or borrow things during my CLNC^® business hours. We had a house guest for a few weeks. She would tap on my office door several times each day and say, ‘Sorry to bother you, but…’ Another drawback was my initial urge to work in my bathrobe or in sloppy clothes. I took more breaks when I did that and got less done.

Because of those and other experiences, I learned to do certain things differently. Whenever I was busy, I’d tape a laminated note to the door for the house guest, that said, ‘At work. Please do not disturb unless house is on fire.’ For my brother-in-law, I finally asked him to leave one message and I would call back after business hours, but not before. I put another sign on the front door that said, ‘At work. Please come back after 5:00pm.’ Our neighbor on sabbatical has our house key for emergencies (we also have theirs for the same reason). I asked him to just use his house key to borrow whatever he needed and lock up behind himself whenever he saw the sign on the door. The only people who have ever been given my office phone number are my clients, my accountant and my husband. With respect to dressing for work, I have learned to wear nice casual clothes to the office, and of course do my hair and make-up, so I am always ready to drop in on one of my clients. Of course, for our administrative law judge hearings, I step it up to the clothes suitable for a courtroom.”

Camy Joyner, RN, CCM, CLNC

Manage Your Time to Save Money and Your Sanity

5. Create a weekly schedule based on your business plan. Allow flexibility for unforeseen changes. Keep your plan visible at all times. Schedule time for working on strategic goals.
6. Power out for 50 minute increments to enhance your productivity. Evaluate your use of time often to see where you can gain efficiencies if you are not meeting your billable hours goal.
7. Reviewing medical records, researching and writing detailed reports require intense concentration. Take a 10-minute break every hour to walk away from the project and watch your productivity soar.
8. Structure your routine to take advantage of your peak performance times. You can finish big projects and those that require intense focus in half the time when you do them during your most creative and productive time.
9. Save administrative tasks such as correspondence, returning phone calls, checking email and easy projects that don’t require your full attention for your non-peak times and break periods.
10. Keep a running shopping list of office and marketing supplies so you can easily see when supplies are low. You never want to run out of paper.
11. Plan your out-of-office time. In the beginning it’s easy to take a quick trip to the post office or office supply store on a whim. As you become busier, these trips will zap your focus and take time away from productive (billable) activities. Shop online when possible and group errands and appointments for efficiency.

Success Is Inside!

All Certified Legal Nurse Consultants love their electronic gadgets and rarely go anywhere without them. I’ll bet few of you can remember life before smart phones, email everywhere and the connectivity we all take for granted. I’m not sure if it’s good for us. I do know I love having my iPhone^® in the car, especially since the CD player (not my 8-track) in the old “global warmer” crapped out. I have a Monster iCarPlay Cassette Adapter that lets me play my iPhone/iPod^® music through my cassette deck. This of course runs down the iPhone’s battery and gets to the weakness of all electronic devices – battery life.

Any CLNC^® consultant who has ever charged an iPhone, Blackberry^®, Droid^® or iPod using the USB port on a personal computer knows that charging times can be incredibly slow, especially compared to the short charging times of a “wall wart” charger.

Why is that? Well, sparing my CLNC^® amigos the geeky details, the USB ports on your computer put out a lower power level than does a wall charger. If you’ve been in your car and your iPod died during your favorite Justin Beiber song or your phone died in the middle of a legal nurse consulting case discussion with your favorite attorney-client, you’re now probably smart enough to carry a car charger that plugs into your cigarette lighter socket.

It’s one of those immutable rules of life that the longer the drive the quicker your battery will give out. If you use your phone’s GPS, you know how quickly that drains the battery and many car chargers will simply maintain battery level, not charge the battery if the device is on while charging. Likewise if you’ve ever simply tried to charge your phone in the car, you know it’s not a perfect science. Car-charger power levels can be just as low as a USB port.

So what is a savvy Certified Legal Nurse Consultant to do? Easy, buy a Scosche reVIVE II Dual USB Car Charger. It’s advertised for an iPad but here’s the beauty of this particular charger – it has both a 5 watt (1 amp) and a 10 watt (2.1 amp) output which will kick-start just about any device that can be charged through a USB port! You simply plug in your cable and device and baby, you’ve got the power! You can even charge two devices, like your headset and phone at the same time. SMALL PRINT WARNING: Check your device’s documentation to be sure it can handle a 2.1 amp charge BEFORE charging your device. You’ll also need to buy your own USB cables but that’s not an issue.

Consider one of these for your CLNC^® Batmobile and you won’t regret it.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

I once described a wine to Vickie as being “not entirely intolerable.” After about a month supporting Windows^® 7 on Vickie’s spiffy new laptop, I’d describe Windows 7 as “not the best, but not entirely intolerable” and I think that any Certified Legal Nurse Consultants running Windows 7 would agree.

Vickie always jokes that she’s the early adopter in our family. She went from paper Daytimer^® to Palm^® PDA, she had the first cell phone, the first Blackberry^® and now is the first to dip her toes into the wild world of Windows 7. In point of fact, her new laptop is so fast and glorious that I’m having a hard time not liking it. It runs circles around my XP machine and has caused me no small amount of hardware envy. That being said, I’m not in a hurry to leave my old, comfortable shoebox of an XP machine for Windows 7 and neither should you.

If you’re a CLNC^® consultant who’ll be buying a new computer for your legal nurse consulting business (or family), you’ll be saddled with Win7. Once you get done tweaking it, you’ll be happy with it. Win7 combines the best of Vista (if there was any) and the stability of XP to good effect. I’m having a little difficulty navigating the options for filing documents (but we work with networked storage so it’s not a real issue for us) and will muddle through it with the help of a Windows 7 for Dummies book. You’ll probably get Office 2010 at the same time so that book will help.

Vickie works in two worlds: with her XP desktop at the office and her Win7 laptop she uses at home and on the road. To her credit, she goes back and forth between the two without a problem and once you’re on Win7 you’ll like it too.

Back to the question of the day from one of my CLNC^® amigos: should you upgrade today, tomorrow or next week? I’d say only if you’re upgrading because you’re buying a new computer for your legal nurse consulting business. The average life of a computer, laptop or otherwise, is about three years. If you are a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant with a fairly new computer running Windows XP, there’s no need to put yourself through the upgrade and data transfer process.

With Vickie, we built her Win7 machine from scratch and all I had to do was move her iTunes^® library, photos, documents and other settings, etc., from her old computer to her new one. Trying to upgrade to Win7 on a box running XP or Vista will be more problematic and much more laborious. In fact, I have a Win7 laptop that I’m going to do a “Tom” build on (in my spare time) and then one day just transfer over to it, sort of like we did with Vickie.

So, stay with XP until you’re forced to Win7. Once you’re there, you’ll enjoy it.

Keep on techin’,

Tom

Over the years I’ve run into students at my CLNC^® Certification Programs who can’t easily answer a simple question. When you ask them what time it is, they proceed to tell you how to build a watch before they can say “It’s 11:15.” When this happens I want to shout, “Objection, non-responsive!” in the middle of a long, obviously rambling answer that has nothing to do with what I’ve asked them. I’m sure you all know someone like this. Hopefully that person’s not you.

The ability to “answer the question asked” is a quality successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultants must possess. Attorneys are crazy-busy people and don’t have the time to listen to unnecessary details or rambling communications. Attorneys are like the police on the old Dragnet TV series: they want “The facts ma’am, just the facts.” The next time you’re in an interview with an attorney-prospect and he says “Tell me about yourself” he’s not asking you to regurgitate your autobiography; he really wants to know what you’re going to do to help him win his cases.

If you veer off, even just occasionally, start today to retrain the way you think. Consciously observe if you are making a simple question or issue more complex than it really is. Pay attention to not only how you communicate but how you think. Assess for yourself how you analyze your day, a problem or a case. Do you quickly get to the essence or are you cluttering unnecessarily? Do you come up for air while answering a question? Do you occasionally pause to receive feedback or clarifying questions or do you go on until the person you’re talking to starts looking for a way out of the room?

The bottom line is that in your legal nurse consulting business and in your life, simplicity sells. When someone asks you a question answer it succinctly. Attorneys want information and they want it fast. Make sure what you tell them is what they need.

Success Is Inside!