“Time management is really a misnomer. The challenge is not to manage time, but to manage ourselves.” Stephen Covey
Every time management course, these days, opens with the reminder that ‘you can’t manage time’. We know this to be true – you can’t take this 5 minutes and put it over there – all you can do is utilise time to the maximum …… with a caveat.
A later time management expression is ‘attention management’. This could be defined as making plans so that you can maximise the attention being given to any task at the time in which you are doing it. It means avoiding distractions such as social media, the ping of constant email deliveries into your in-box, the television in the background, or Popmaster on Greatest Hits Radio now that the BBC stupidly disposed of it.
And a subset of that definition is that of Appropriateness.
The original time management writers often accidentally implied that if you weren’t ‘doing something’ then you weren’t being productive. The second set didn’t imply that you had to be on the go 24/7, but still suggested that activity should be taking place when your biorhythms were up and not down.
The smaller subset allows for inactivity, because, quite frankly, what you should be doing at any one time is not necessarily producing for the sake of producing, but doing what is the right thing in the right way at the right time. Which means if having a break and a walk about is the best thing to do right now, even if you ARE in the middle of an otherwise productive activity, then walking about is the appropriate thing to be doing.
Except – in the police service, appropriateness must be subordinate to attention management when you’re on a 999 call. You might feel a walk about is called for, but in the moment you really need to have all your managed attention on the task at hand.
The biggest challenge to attention management is – distraction. Distractions are the result of external and internal triggers that point your mindful focus away from what is in front of you, to the other things that your brain is storing. “Must get the cat to the vet; oh yes, cat food; and while I’m at it, a disc cutter from Aldi’s centre aisle, which reminds me that the wall needs fixing by Wednesday because I’m off on holiday – sugar, tickets!!!”
What to do? How do you get your attention back?
The perceived and effective wisdom is – write down what it is that just popped up, and then get back to the task at hand. Your brain is now settled – it knows you know, and doesn’t feel the need to remind you.
But you MUST make that note, if you can. If you don’t, the brain will resume shouting ‘OY!’ at you until you either acknowledge its input, or take the action that it is begging you to take. Which, in mid-fight, is inconvenient. And one might suggest that, occasionally, this distraction – and the frustration it creates by not being able to address it – is what causes the impatience that causes mistakes to be made, including the inappropriate use of force.
Think about the last time you lost patience about anything – was it because you had other things on your mind? If so – follow my advice; pause whenever you can, and then note the distraction for later attention.
Yes, folks – time/attention management can save you from making the big mistake that costs you your job through a momentary lapse of judgement.
Police Time Management 