How do you keep track of all the work you’re doing right now? What about the tasks you’ve assigned to others? Do you ever forget important details or miss deadlines or find yourself double-booked for meetings?

Welcome to Gimbal’s Tip of the Week, where you get practical, actionable advice you can use right away to start building a more productive and profitable legal practice.

Running your practice without efficient systems in place to track your work means you’ll constantly be frustrated. David and I were in a similar position years ago and we knew there had to be a better way. We implemented a visual matter management system and haven’t looked back.

If you’ve followed us for a while, you’ll know how we feel about matter management —or kanban—boards. Every time we talk about them, we get asked the same question: “what platform do you recommend?”

This week’s tip is simple: The platform doesn’t matter.

The key is to choose a system that:

• Meets your particular needs;
• Fits within your existing tech stack and your budget; and
• You and your team will enjoy using.

We've used Microsoft Planner, Trello, Smartsheet, Legal Boards, Click-up and Rindle. We know firms using and loving Monday.com, Asana, AirTable, and HighQ Collaborate.

Right now, we manage our own team using Trello. We manage client projects in Planner or Smartsheet, depending on which one they’re more comfortable with or which on they already own.

We don’t promote any one system (David likes to say we’re platform-agnostic). What we do promote, in fact what we strongly urge you to do, is to find a system that works for you.

Never discount the systems you’ve already got. Most of us use our legal tech like we use our smartphones: we use the basic features but many others go unused or undiscovered. You may discover that you’ve got something in your existing tech stack that provides all or most of what you need.

Remember that no single system is going to have all the features you want. None of them does. Go for the system that ticks most of your boxes, rather than hunting for the perfect system (bonus tip: there is no perfect system!).

Your action item: Make a list of the most important things you want to track, so you can start to create a set of business requirements you can use to compare potential platforms.

The best matter management system isn’t the one with the most bells and whistles, it’s the one you and your team will actually use.

To get started, download our free Matter Management Quick Start-Guide. It will help you set up your own matter management board in minutes, and give you a head start on building your list of business requirements.

Thanks a lot everybody! If you’re not on our mailing list, sign up here so you never miss a Tip of the Week.