When pursuing a career at the Bar it is easy to become overwhelmed and stressed out trying to keep track of everything. Having a good system for managing productivity is important – that’s why we have a Study school with plenty of resources to make things easier as you balance the Bar Course. We also have a Study Shop filled with products like our Civil and Criminal Litigation Updated Syllabus Spreadsheets and ou Legal Skills Journal. These products are designed to help you track information in a cohesive manner, set goals for yourself and monitor your progress.
However, you may have a side hustle or creative outlet that you are working on outside of your legal career. If you are multifaceted then how do you manage it all without burning out? Our Founder Blessing Mukosha Park is an example of a multifaceted person as she balances her legal work with her work as a Creator and Artist. In Blessing’s recent video she talks about what it’s like to have a legal and creative brain – and mentions some of the tools she uses to maintain her productivity and creativity.
In this post we talk about some of the systems that you can use to help with managing productivity and creativity alongside your legal career.
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Asana – for managing your to-do list
Asana is a great app to manage not only your own work, but also a team’s work. It allows you to assign tasks, organise tasks based on the level of importance, set deadlines and many other features. The app is useful for remote working and managing your projects easily from anywhere, tracking progress on projects you are working and plan projects according to your workflow.
With Asana, we have found that it has made keeping track of what tasks are a high priority. This helps ensure that you meet the deadlines you set, as well as helping to keep you aware of upcoming tasks quickly. It really does help nudge you to starting and completing your to-do list without overwhelming you with everything all at once.
It’s easy to feel daunted by large amounts of work and not know where to start so this helps break it up into smaller, more manageable chunks. It’s great place to start when it comes to managing producitivity and creativity.
Notion – for mapping out the information in your brain
Notion is also a great workflow app that can help you manage large amounts of information in a cohesive manner. Think of it like a large spreadsheet that you can use as a database of as much information as you choose, formatted in the way that you want. By being able to break data down and view it as a calendar, list, timeline etc. it is much easier to keep a clear and structured overview of your work.
This is an app that every creative and professional should consider having if you manage multiple projects. With an app like Notion, it is easier managing productivity without any confusion because you don’t have to go searching for what you need to complete your work.
The best way of getting started with Notion is to think about what it is you want to do with the information you use to work, and how you want to lay it out. Below is an example dashboard of how we manage our content calendar for BATB:
We create a content calendar database that has each piece of content, and we can switch between viewing it as a calendar or as a list. We can attach to each database item a date, the type of content it is, links to the media assets and a drop down status update. This is all completely custom and you can create a completely bespoke dashboard for you work.
Surfshark – to staysafe online as you work
As great as it is to be creating new and exciting projects, it is of course important to make sure that you keep your information secure and protected. Well, luckily Surfshark exists to help you do just that. As young professionals and creatives, you will handle sensitive information that you will be required to keep private and not easily accessible to just anyone.
With this mind, we need to ensure that we are taking every measure we can to do this. Surfshark is an app designed to protect your information through encryption. It helps secure your identity, prevents tracking and protects your identity. We need to make sure that we are protecting our information as well as anyone else’s and this is an easy way to make sure!
To get started with Surfshark, use Blessing’s code “BLESSINGMUKOSHA” to get 83% off and your first 3 months free.
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