Worth a Look: Five Keys to Better Time Management

4 Comments

If it is true that everything has a cost, it might be just as true that time itself is very expensive.  Wasted time can have a financial cost (what we pay employees) as well as an opportunity cost (we could have been working on another project or task that would have yielded a better return on the time we invested).

Several years ago when I got assigned as a homicide detective, the best advice I received came from a veteran detective who told me that everything revolved around time management, and he was absolutely correct.

Tom Clark’s article, Five Keys to Better Time Management, is an excellent piece that lays out tips for improving time management skills.  Better time management leads to more efficient operations, reductions in costs and reduced frustration.

While reading Tom’s article, I also realized that his five keys would be helpful to a police officer or police supervisor completing a promotional process, particularity during the assessment center exercise.

What are some examples of areas in policing where time management is critical, or could benefit if time management were improved?

Time is money. Wasted time means wasted money means trouble.

Shirley Temple

© 2014 David A. Lyons

4 thoughts on “Worth a Look: Five Keys to Better Time Management”

  1. “Mr. Henry” New York
    retired NYPD, secretary NYS FOP Memorial Lodge 100

    Time is money, but in some cases the real problem is being an equal opportunity employer. When the NYPD had to reduce sworn employees doing administrative work, they hired civilians. The needed 2 or 3 civilians to replace each cop, so the cost with benefits was higher than the one cop. Supervision was out the door as the civilians wouldn’t listen to the police supervisors. So in the NYPD, what they save in police administrative expenses they spent a lot more for the civilians and got poorer service.

    my computer, my opinion
    .
    1 month ago

  2. David Lyons, MBA
    Author of PoliceBusinessAdvisor.com

    Holy cow! That is the kind of math that just doesn’t seem to add up right! Can’t say I’m surprised; they should have forecasted that and thrown the breaks on it.

    1 month ago

  3. “Mr. Henry” New York
    retired NYPD, secretary NYS FOP Memorial Lodge 100

    David, here is the real problem and why they called it a solution. Say there werre 100 sworn officers working administratively and they replaced them with at least 250 people from welfare, they changed the pocket the money came out of. The pencil pushers/bean counters said we reduced welfare by so much money, we hired so many people to replace the cops at half the pay. They just failed to count the number of people required to replace the sworn employees.

    Of course when they said half the pay, they didn’t include the benefits. Now they were paying around 2.5 times the cost for benefits. Tell the public half the truth and they smile and are happy. They just don’t get kissed when they are screwed.

    Remember when you are dealing with a liberal mentality, only half the truth is what they want.

    my computer, my opinion
    .
    1 month ago

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