The Lohn BOER Time Management System

Here’s a confession:  I consider myself a timeImage may be NSFW.
Clik here to view. management guru.  I think about time management and ways to improve efficiency and effectiveness all the time.  It drives my wife crazy.

It all started when I read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People about 10 years ago.  Then one Saturday when I was single, I had a ton of stuff to do/wanted to do – so I made a list of everything.  I then prioritized it, crossed some items off, added a couple of related items and to my shock, I got most of the list completed.  I really couldn’t believe it, so that really got me thinking about how to do the mundane things quickly, so I can have time to do fun stuff.

Naturally working as a DBA for the last 13..14 years, I’ve been in many time crunches.  I think to survive as a DBA, you need to have some strategies for dealing with time crunches.

Here’s a method I came up with a while back.  I use it all the time, especially when I’ve got a bunch of work to do.  This is more for the “let’s get stuff done because we’ve got a lot to do” time rather than the “let’s sit down and figure out what needs to be done” time.  It’s called the Lohn BOER Time Management System and it’s a process that is done once per day for about 10  minutes, first thing in the AM.

B – Brainstorm

1. No holds barred brain dump
2. Look at Yesterday’s tasks to remember
3. Look at meetings coming up
4. Ask yourself, what do I really want to accomplish today?

O – Organize

1. Move and delete brainstormed items to things that fit together and create your list for the day
2. This is a combination of prioritizing and linking tasks
3. Keep in mind what you really want to get done – those move to the top of the list
4. Balance between big rocks (tasks you want to complete) and low hanging fruit

E – Execute

1. Things are simple at this point – just follow the list
2. Stuff will come up, try to stick with your list, but it is flexible, so you may have to go back a step to the organizing phase

R – Review

1. Either at the end of the day or the beginning of the next day, take a couple of minutes to review your list.
2. Some tasks won’t get done, others will need to be followed up on and others will also need follow through

So there it is.  I actually presented this system in a class I took a couple of years ago.  Some of the benefits of following this system are:

1. Following through on tasks – some task are listed as complete, but need the follow through
2. Marketing yourself by showing what you’ve done
3. Do things more efficiently
4. Do things more effectively
5. Accomplish more

Give it a try – let me know if it works out for you.