This is the time of the year many of us attend conferences.

We attend continuing education programs, bar association meetings, industry conferences, and other events that involve lots of people.

Attending events--any event--is a good thing. It’s good to get out of the office and talk to other humans. It’s good for business. It connects you with other people.

It’s good to attend conferences, even if the only thing you accomplish is exchanging business cards with the woman in the Starbucks line in Macau. She might refer your next big case.

Today I want to talk about how to make the most of attending a conference.

Pick a good conference

I’ve attended some weird events. Most recently I attended the National Association of Broadcasters. I was surrounded by vendors selling satellite trucks, commercial drones, and television transmitters.

That conference was huge. More than 100,000 people attended, but I had little in common with anyone I met.

But I still managed to meet a lot of people. I continue to interact with people I never would have met otherwise. I learned quite a bit about things I never thought I’d know.

Sometimes attending something totally unrelated to your work is mentally stimulating. It helps you access different ideas and approaches to business.

Was the NAB the right conference for me? Probably not. It was interesting, but not efficient.

Your first step is to put yourself in a target-rich environment. You want be in a place where you’ll be well-received and have a chance to meet other people.

Pick something rational for the growth of your business, like an association event that relates to your practice area. Check out events that relate to your clients and referral sources.

Attend educational events, too, especially around topics like marketing, management, technology, or your specific area of the law.

Oh, attend the pertinent bar association meetings, too.

Set your objective

Before you attend an event, ask yourself why you’re attending.

What do you expect to get from the conference? How will you measure your effectiveness? What are the short-term and long-term goals?

Most of us register for a conference when the advertisement catches our eye. We book the flight and hotel and promptly forget we're going until the week before. Then we rush around like a crazy person to catch up on work so can be out of the office for a few days.

By the time we get on the plane, we still haven’t looked at the conference agenda or planned our time. So we frantically study the conference’s program materials while we fly.

At the conference, we’re overwhelmed by the session options and confused by the crowd (which seems like chaos to us, but probably has its own order).

Many of us spend two days trying to figure out how to wear our lanyard with the name tag facing out, trying to connect to the Wi-Fi, and struggling to find the bathroom.

Don’t show up at a conference without an agenda. Organize a plan in advance so you can spend your time at the event being an efficient, effective, people-meeting machine.

Go in with people targets

If the event organizer shares a directory of attendees and vendors, get a copy. Some conferences resist giving out the list, but small events (bar associations, in particular) don’t care.

Create two lists: People you’ve met before and people you’d like to meet.

Browse the vendor list, too. Look for businesses offering something interesting or companies that represent dynamic forces in your industry.

You want to show up having already identified the players and the people you need to meet.

Research each person you’d like to meet. LinkedIn and Google are your friends here.

Read whatever they’ve written recently, what’s happening with their business, and anywhere they were mentioned in the news. Check them out on Faceb…

Being a control freak has served you well. You built a thriving practice with a bunch of employees that generates a healthy revenue because you're firmly in control.

But your control-freak ways mean you have to show up. You're the one employees turn to when a decision needs to be made. You're the leader they’ve been trained to follow. Very little happens in her law firm without your input and seal of approval.

Uh oh. You built a business with yourself at the center. You're the star your team orbits. When you take a day off, the team defers making decisions or calls you. They can’t move forward without your input.

On December 26, 2004, the ocean floor ruptured beneath the Indian Ocean, just off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia.

It was the second largest earthquake ever recorded on a seismograph. It had the longest duration of faulting ever observed. It lasted between 8.3 and 10 minutes.

The people on the beach didn't recognize the disaster as it was happening. In fact, some thought the fish left on the beach by the receding water--just before a monstrous wave came through--were a gift from god.

What happened next could not have been worse.

The resulting tsunami killed between 230,000 and 280,000 people in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India.

The wave washed whole families away. It was one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded human history.

I spent the past five months in those four countries. I walked and drove by more memorials and graves than I can count.

When I sat on the beach in Sri Lanka with my wife and one of our children on December 26, 2017, it was impossible not to think about disasters.

Many people had been in that exact spot 14 years early. As we walked down the beach, we passed their graves.

Disasters strike unexpectedly. They are unpredictable.

Yet they occur with some frequency. It’s wise to assume disaster will strike at some point. It might happen soon. It might be devastating. It's better to be prepared.

Had the people in Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and India been prepared, there would have been more of them on the beach with me this past December.

Are you ready for disaster?

I talk endlessly about systems. Many of us have done a pretty good job of documenting our procedures, but only for normal days.

We don't, however, consistently document systems for terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad days.

Our systems are valuable on a typical day, but when the going gets tough, a disaster system can literally save the day.

On days when everything goes wrong, there's no time to ask a question, look it up, or figure it out. When the waves of disaster crash around us, we need systems that tell us what to do based on plans made before the stress of the situation took over.

When the water level rises, or the winds howl, you simply turn to the ready-made checklist and start executing. You don’t need to panic because you mapped out the whole plan (the right things in the right order with the right people) when things were calm and under control.

Disaster preparation minimizes the disruption to your business. It puts you back in control when unfortunate circumstances occur around you.

You need a system for handling disasters because one will strike eventually. It’s hard to say when, but the types of disasters that impact law firms are fairly predictable.

Here are some of the types of disasters you might encounter.

1. Flood, Fire, Earthquake

I once watched the smoke rise as a lawyer's office in Raleigh burned down.

The firm had purchased an old Southern mansion and spent years rehabilitating and decorating it. It was gone in an hour, along with all of the computers, paper files, books, records, and everything else.

We have Rosen Institute members in Houston. They survived the recent hurricane and then got walloped by the flooding.

Hurricanes, tornados, floods, fires, and even earthquakes strike with some frequency. There’s always a law firm caught in the mix.

The disaster makes the news for a cycle, but when it’s gone there are still lawyers on the scene sorting out the remains of their business.

The disaster’s impact goes beyond the damage to the firm’s physical presence. The firm’s employees struggle with their own hardships and injuries. They might be unable to help repair the business because they’re so busy repairing their lives.

2. Sabotage

Employees go berserk sometimes.

It might be subtle and hard to detect, like…

Whenever I browse the web from this Airbnb in Bangkok, a message from the internet provider pops up. Apparently my landlord isn’t paying his bills on time. Unfortunately, his current financial situation may impact his future financial situation. The same could happen to you.

One day during our first week here, the Internet shut off for four hours. The owner paid the bill and the service was restored a short while later, but the interruption was disconcerting. I suppose his bill-paying habits are irrelevant to our stay in his apartment, but this message popping up on my screen makes me wonder about his financial stability.

When we were in Bali, we hired a driver for a tour. At one point, she stopped unexpectedly and the next thing we knew, we were trapped in a sales pitch.

She tried to sell us bags of coffee beans.

If this has never happened to you, I’ll warn you that it’s a common thing in many tourist areas. The drivers get a small commission for delivering warm bodies to salespeople.

We bought something because the entire scenario was awkward and hard to escape without spending a few bucks. The cost of these unexpected stops is trivial, but they substantially damage the relationship between tourist and driver.

An unclear path makes us nervous

When you’re touring a foreign country, it’s natural to place a great deal of trust in your guide. You don’t know the area, so you’re counting on the guide to show you interesting things and make your day enjoyable.

You want to believe that you’re safe and that you’ll return comfortably to your hotel after a good day.

When the driver does something suspect, like selling you out to a vendor, you get suspicious. You start wondering what’s coming next. You get anxious when the driver pulls up to the next stop and you internally question whether this is a scenic vista or another tourist trap.

When our drive in Bali stopped to sell us coffee beans, she changed our perspective and undermined our confidence. We suddenly saw the tour experience through a different filter.

Had the guide explained things in advance, we would have seen the stop in a more positive light.

Had she said “This coffee is excellent, they have a beautiful garden and view, and they give you free tastings” we would have been interested.

She could have gained our trust if she had said “They will try to sell you some coffee if you’re interested and you can choose to buy it or not.” If she added “I get a small fee for bringing you, but it’s up to you whether we stop,” we would have trusted her even more.

Had the driver been upfront, there’s a good chance we would still have opted to stop. I’m not opposed to some coffee. I’m not opposed to buying stuff while we’re on vacation.

The whole thing could have left a very different taste in my mouth.

The right detour, well-handled, enhances the experience

The coffee stop was pretty interesting.

They had a great garden of spices set in the rainforest. We got to see coffee beans growing, as well as  cinnamon, vanilla, turmeric, galangal, cacao, durian, mangosteens, papayas, pineapple, lemongrass, ginseng, pandanus, and torch lillies.

The setting was beautiful and the young salesperson gave us fifteen small cups of different beverages to test.

The coffee was delicious, but I nearly didn’t try it because I was annoyed with the way we were deceptively delivered to the salesperson. I don’t like surprises that involve selling me things in a hard-to-escape environment. I don’t like the pressure.

It’s sad that I ended up annoyed with the driver and the coffee place when it could have been handled differently and had a much better outcome for everyone.

I might have become a big fan of the driver and the coffee place, but instead I’m hesitant to recommend either.

Do your clients expect what’s coming?

We truly are the tour guides for our clients.

We take them by the hand and guide them through a complicated process. We know the way and we understand what’s coming. We’re in a position to manage their expectations.

We can earn their trust by warning them before things happen.

Our experience gives us the inside information. This isn’t our first rodeo. We already know what’s likely to happen as we move forward, even though our clients don't.

It’s important to tell your clients what to expect right from the beginning. If they have trouble processing or remembering that information, communicate it repeatedly.

You might need…

Hotels, like law firms, make promises to their prospective clients. Those promises aren’t always articulated. Often, they’re implicit. It wasn’t until the first time I checked into a hotel room without a window that it occurred to me that "windows" were optional. Your clients probably have their own beliefs about what's included in their representation, whether or not you say it.

Once upon a time, the days right before the beginning of a vacation were the most productive of the entire year. We would focus, push ourselves, and get things done.

Those pre-vacation sprints used to be incredible. We knew that if we didn’t hit the deadline, we’d have to either cancel our trip or accept the consequences of being late.

But the internet and our portable devices have diminished that effect.

Now we can work at the airport, on the plane, and even at the beach. We’re connected all the time. The deadlines have become portable, too--they follow us even when we're away, so we use our precious vacation time to work.

What if you could get everything done within normal work hours?

What if you could reserve downtime for actual rest?

What if you could take a vacation without bringing those deadlines along?

You can. You can get it all done by the end of the day.

You can allocate specific hours for work and take the rest of the time off. It's possible if you're willing to implement these techniques.

Here's my advice for being more productive, more efficient, and limiting your work to work time.

1. Make a list

I can't believe I'm saying this because it seems obvious, but I also can’t believe how many lawyers don’t have a list.

I’m serious. These lawyers often use a "pile" system.

They operate from piles of paper on their desks or piles of emails in their inbox.

Their priority is whatever’s urgent right now. They don’t take time to organize their approach because they have a deadline right now.

They don’t see any point in changing their system because the pile system has "worked" for a long time. They may be miserable, but they can meet the deadlines (mostly).

A list changes things in several ways:

It takes tasks out of your head, freeing up mental space. You're immediately more productive when your brain doesn't have to keep track of everything.

It lets you evaluate tasks and push the higher value/bigger opportunities to the top.

It gives you a sense of control and reduces anxiety and stress, which makes your effort more effective.

It helps you identify tasks that can be delegated or outsourced in advance, so you don’t have to handle trivial tasks at the last minute.

A list can be simple or complicated. I use something really simple. But I know people who use sophisticated systems with sorting, prioritization, ranking, and sharing features.

Anything is better than a pile. Make a list.

2. Keep the list on top

I used to be great at list-making. That was the easy part for me.

Then I’d lose the list.

Early in my career, I kept my list on a legal pad which would immediately disappear into the pile of legal pads stacked on my desk.

Later I kept it on my computer, but failed to check the list because of my addiction to email and messaging. I repeatedly made lists only to forget about them. Making a list you never look at is pointless.

Keep your task list up front where you can see it. Everyone finds their own way to keep the list front and center, so you’ll need to find yours.

Maybe you could…

Check the list first thing in the morning (instead of Facebook).

Put reminders on your calendar to check it at certain times each day.

Block calendar time daily to work on whatever is on the list.

Have your assistant review it with you first and last thing.

Have Siri mention it when you arrive at the office and when you return from lunch.

Tattoo "check the list" on the back of your hand.

Make the list a big part of your life. Use it to start the day and focus on what’s due. When your first task is done, check it off and move to the next.

Add incoming tasks to your list as they come in instead of scrawling them on random scraps of paper. Keep your list active all day.

3. Pick one thing the night before

Scan your list each n…

The first time we outsourced our bookkeeping, we hired a woman in Texas. She explained that our books were a mess and promised to “clean them up.” We knew our books were messy before we hired her, but it was manageable. Our doors were open, payroll was processed smoothly, and the bills were being paid. Let’s face it. Accounting is made-up nonsense. It’s arbitrary, random, and often illogical. But we have to do it. I had to get the bookkeeping done or face the consequences, so I pushed on with the wacky Texas bookkeeper and hoped for the best.

I loved/hated owning a law firm.

The team, the clients, the other lawyers, the judges, the clerks, the expert witnesses... I loved/hated them all.

It was awesome when I loved them.

I loved finding ways to work with opposing counsel to settle a complicated, emotional mess.

I loved when an associate brought me a brilliant idea that wasn’t just outside-the-box, but actually blew the box to smithereens.

I loved when a judge did something unexpected, something neither side had proposed, and brought a creative resolution to a conflict that might have smoldered for years.

I loved the clerks and bailiffs and their helpfulness and perspective.

I loved the clients who reminded me of why I did the work when their shining eyes revealed the difference we made in their lives.

I loved our team when they spoke up, took me on, told me how it should be done, and then showed me it could be done their way.

I ended many of my days inspired and lifted high.

But sometimes I hated them all.

There were days when I hated opposing counsel, my associates, the judges, the clerks, my team, and especially the clients.

They wore me down, tired me out, made me cry, and destroyed my optimism.

I finished many of my days broken and discouraged.

I know wouldn't have loved it all as much if I hadn’t hated it sometimes. The good only comes with the bad, I suppose.

But it's easier to remember the hard days I hated than the days I loved. Maybe it's just me, but the tough times are what stick in my brain.

My fantasy was always to run a business with a very small team. I felt like the employees were the factor had the biggest impact on me.

Sure, they filled me with love on many days, but I couldn't help fantasizing about steady revenue and profit with a team of zero.

We have rigid ideas about law firm structure

Most of us have a fairly specific idea of what a law firm looks like.

We imagine a lobby with a receptionist. We think of partners in corner offices handing work to associates. We see paralegals and administrative assistants scurrying about, doing their part.

There’s a bookkeeping team cranking out the bills and reports. Across the hall is a pair of marketers and an intake assistant screening prospective clients. There's a room full of people filing documents and making copies on a big copier.

Of course, everyone in the law firm has a computer on their desk. Hourly employees clock in on their devices while the lawyers come and go early and late. Everyone else spends their time heads-down, cranking out work.

The toil is only punctuated by the intermittent stress-fueled meltdown of a partner throwing a stapler at an associate.

That’s just law firm life--a model that’s kept a lot of people living comfortably for a long time.

If the law firm is successful, the headcount grows. Each year there are a few more full-timers. New clients get added to the mix, which means new employees for the firm.

Most law firms grow their payroll along with their revenue. More clients, more employees, and hopefully more profit.

That's the traditional approach.

Is that structure an outdated, cumbersome, bad idea?

What if we did it differently?

What if we grew revenue using an outside marketing consultant, a website design firm, a freelance graphic artist, and independent copywriters?

What if a pay-per-click guru managed our advertising?

What if a virtual assistant arranged our lunch-and-learn programs and our speaking gigs at civic groups?

What if the assistant also booked our lunches and coffee dates with other professionals, to help us build our network?

The phone would probably ring more often.

What if we turned those callers into clients by having them meet with independent, commission-based sales representatives (maybe lawyers, maybe not) who only work when and how they want so long as…

Nobody wants the slow fix. We want the magic bullet. We want the secret. We want to get-rich-quick. I always wanted to get rich quick. I still like the idea. I also want to lose 20 pounds by next month, read five times faster in five days, get the girl, and go all night long without losing my erection.

Buy the search engine optimization, the leads, the landing pages, the new website, the review management software, and the online efficiency webinar. But be careful not to spend five years trying to get rich quick and end up with nothing when you could spend those five years getting rich slowly and end up with actual money in the bank.