“My last officer was the worst,” the firefighter said over lunch at the conference. “He would be in his office all day, doing who knows what, and then suddenly around 3 p.m. he would suddenly want to go out and get stuff done — inspecting, or testing hydrants or whatever. Here we’ve had the whole day just sitting around, and now at rush hour, we’re trying to find places to park, or flowing water when there’s all this traffic, or going in to inspect a restaurant just when they’re gearing up for dinner. I can tell you, we didn’t win any popularity points for the fire department with that guy in charge.”
“That’s better than my officer,” said another firefighter. “She was one of those people that had to be busy all the time. She’d start a dozen projects and just when we’d be making progress on one thing, she’d have us go start something else. Of course, nothing ever got finished, and all we did was run ourselves ragged all day long, and never get anything done.”
Time management skills are not key components of most officer development programs, but they should be. Managing a crew over a 24-48 hour work shift takes skill and preparation by the leader, and failure to do a good job with time management results in more than just inefficiency. Poor time management is a leading complaint of crew members about their supervisor, and if the problems are not addressed, morale and the ability to function as a team can be seriously damaged.
Time management begins with recognizing that time is a finite commodity — there are only so many minutes in any given day. Sometimes a 24-plus hour shift can seem infinite, and this feeling can allow people to always feel there is more time “later” to get things done. Time management may actually be more challenging at slower stations for this reason.
The first step in time management is to analyze how you are currently using your time. This is best done by keeping a time log — a table that is divided into blocks by hours of each work shift. At the end of each hour, that box is filled in with a note of what the primary activity was for that hour. For example, if you spend 45 minutes doing an inventory on the truck, then go in for coffee, that hour would be listed as “truck inventory.”
The only way a time log can generate useful information is when it is filled out honestly. If you spend the first hour of each day talking around the coffee table with the off-going shift, then write that down. If you spent the better part of an hour looking for something that was lost, then record that. The time log is strictly for your own use — you don’t even need to tell anyone you are doing it. To get the best results, keep the log for at least a couple cycles of work shifts.
Once you have the data, consider the implications. Some problems might be obvious —such as spending four hours a day checking e-mail. In addition to looking at what you do all day, pay attention to when you do it. What seem to be the hours of greatest productivity for you? Why is that? There may be many reasons — because you work at a station that tends to have many emergency calls in the afternoons but not the mornings, for example.
Consider the environment in which you work — what are the traffic patterns on a typical day? When is parking most available in your inspection district? When does your crew normally go to training or take the truck in for service?
For example, maybe your crew always goes to training in the mornings, but mornings are also the best time to get out to do things like inspections or hydrant testing because of parking problems. As a result, you tend to fall behind with inspections, not really from lack of motivation, but just because the timing is bad. In such an example, switching your training slot from the morning to afternoon could make a big difference.
The great thing about an honest and complete time log is that it provides factual information that can be used to make informed decisions. Are you waiting until late afternoon to do your PT each shift, and half the time not doing at all because of interruptions? Do firefighters from the other shift hang around for hours in the morning, delaying the start of your work day? Do you find activities constantly interrupted by phone calls? Are you an e-mail junkie? Do your days have a sense of cohesion to them, or are activities randomly scattered and as a result, often left incomplete?
Being a good time manager does not mean being busy every single minute of the day. On the contrary, when you have a conscious plan in place and bring tasks to completion before starting on new projects, including down time is a sensible part of that overall plan.
Good time managers combine a sense of purpose and flexibility that allow them to react to the unpredictable while still getting routine tasks done in an efficient manner. Achieving this balance brings credibility to leadership. Using a time log to clearly understand how you currently use time and set priorities is only the first step. Next month’s column will include specific tips for being the best possible time management leader.
