Time management is a conscious attempt to control and allocate limited time resources (Purkey & Siegel, 2002). It has to do with time and speed. Effective time management has many benefits. It ensures that the most important tasks get done. Proper time management promotes creativity. Studies have shown that time pressure usually kills creativity. This implies that individuals should use every time available optimally to avoid cases of time pressure. Time management helps an organization or an institution achieve the set objectives. Time management is even much more important in military field. This is a field that needs a lot of commitment and sacrifice. Sailors needs to balance their personal time and the career time effectively. In military environment, "getting inside the enemy's decision cycle" is one of the ultimate goal of any group. Getting inside the enemy's decision circle purely relies on efficient time management. The paper will demonstrate that proper time management is a principal requirement to any sailor. The paper will also demonstrate how time management can help the sailors achieve their different missions as indicated in the Sailor's Creed.
Effective time management is a sure way of achieving the set objectives or goals. The Pickle Jar Theory can help in demonstrating how time management can be effective strategy for a achieving the set goals or objectives. According to this theory, a person's life should be occupied by prime life goals, the hobbies, daily chores and should have minimal or no distraction. Distraction take away focus and bring about failure. Utilizing this theory, a person or an institution or an organization is expected to identify prime goals, hobbies and daily chores and focus on time. The prime goal of the sailor is to support and defend the United States constitution. This should be the main focus. If all sailors can focus on this goal, it means that their mission of defending and fighting for the United States will be successful.
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This means that a sailor must organize his life such that he can focus on his prime goals of serving and defending the United States Constitution. A sailor should acknowledge the fact that Naval activities forms part of important and urgent needs and hence deserve more attention and more time. A sailor who is not good in time management can easily experience stress and burnout. Unlike other professions, military profession entails a lot of sacrifice and commitment. A sailor can apply a number of time management technique. Some of these technique include promodoro technique, time boxing technique. These technique can enable the sailor to balance the personal life and the professional life.
Showing up to work on time enables the sailors prepare themselves for the mission. Marine missions are often risky and requires proper preparation. Diving is not an instant activity. It requires meticulous planning (Nardo & Puffer,2013). Many things need to be done before a diver is allowed to dive. Before diving, the diving team must meet with the supervisor so that they are given handy instructions related to diving. This means that divers must always show up to work on time so that they can get such instructions and at the same time get the diving gear. It should also be noted that the diving gear should always be in the right conditions. Showing up to work on time will enable the divers to check the equipment and ensure that they are all in the right condition. It also enables the supervisors give orders and instructions on how the mission should be conducted. Marine mission requires proper planning. Sailors needs to plan such things as : Who should do what, how a given activity should be carried? and also the time the mission should start. This means that all the sailors must be around during planning.
Showing up to work on time gives a sailor an added advantage of defending the United States Constitution. The Sailor's Creed indicate that one of the key functions of a sailor is to support and defend the constitution of the United States. supporting and defending the constitution of the United States is not an easy task. Sailors have the responsibility to offer highest possible level of naval war fighting. To do this, they need to understand their environment, utilize appropriate attributes such as honor, courage and commitment, develop operational concepts, tactics and procedures that can match any threat to the United States (United States 2015). To be able to do this, time management is a crucial requirement that sailors must include in their day to day activities. It should be noted that an enemy is always a good schemer and always look for a loophole. US Navy should always be ready for any kind of uncertainty. Enemies such as terrorists uses any slightest weakness of the defense team to penetrate and carry out their activities. Terrorist study the behavior of the defense and identify their weakness. They then use such weakness to carry out their mission. This means that Naval defense should always be ready for any uncertainty by managing time. "Getting inside the enemy's decision cycle", as stated earlier is all about doing things swiftly. In order for the US Navy to get inside the enemy's decision cycle, it needs to gather and process information, make decision, and swing into action while the other side is still trying to understand the battle field situation. This means that victory and time goes hand in hand.
Showing up to work on time prepares the sailor for unexpected orders. The Sailor's Creed expects the US sailor to obey the orders of those appointed over him or her. Naval orders are always made anytime. In most cases, naval orders are not planned or predetermined. Sailors operate in a very volatile environment where anything can occur at any time. Orders are, therefore, issued any time (United States 2015). This means that for one to be able to obey naval orders, he or she must be always available. Naval orders should not come as a surprise. A sailor who get unexpected orders is more likely to fail in fulfilling such orders. Sailor should always be positioned at the right place any time so that any order given is just but a confirmation of an ongoing plan. Fighting is not an easy task and fighting orders should not get a fighter unaware. This means that the best way of obey the orders is to always be at the right place at the right time. During the time of war, a sailor should even sacrifice some of the basic activities such as eating and spend most of his or her time at the battle ground.
Showing up to work on time increases the strategic ability of sailors to fight the enemy. The fourth line of the Sailor's Creed expects every sailor to represents the fighting spirit of the Navy and those who have gone before him or her and to defend freedom and democracy around the world. Fighting spirit requires faster and timely decision making. A fighter must always occupy the strategic location in the battle ground (United States 2015). The history of wars reveals that fighters always fight and struggle to position themselves at strategic place even before the war started. The battle of Hamburger Hill during The Vietnam War and the Battle of San Juan Hill during Spanish–American War is an example of wars where the victory is determined by how strategic the fighter is in comparison to the enemy. In these two battle, the fighters had to fight for a strategic location first. In both wars, the successful fighter is the one which was the first to occupy the hill. This is an indication of how proper time management and the fighting spirit goes hand in hand. For a sailor to represent the fighting spirit, he or she must be the first to understand the environment and take strategic position. A sailor cannot understand the battle field within limited time. A sailor needs enough time to acclimatize with the possible battle field and position himself at the right place. Stealth is another crucial fighting technique used by Navy. Stealth cannot be effective if it is done under limited time. Stealth technique requires proper planning, which may take weeks or even months. This implies that for a sailor to represent a true fighting spirit, he or she must always be available and ready for a fight. During fighting, getting information at the right time is very important. Gaining information in advance of one's adversaries is an important strategic consideration in military. This is how the Spanish guerrillas fighting Napoleon's army gained their advantage, when they did not have the advantage of controlling their own country. A fighter should always try to enter into the enemy's decision cycle before the enemy makes the decision. Entering the enemy's decision cycle entails swift action. It entails effective use of limited time.
The sixth line expects the sailor to proudly serve his or her country's Navy combat team with Honor, Courage and Commitment. This shows that the sailor's mission requires a lot of dedication, commitment and sacrifice (Nardo & Puffer,2013). As far as US Navy is concerned, every new recruit be trained to adopt the culture ingrained in the Sailor's Creed. The words in the Sailor's creed should be instilled in every marine from initial training or boot camp onwards. Showing up to work on time is an essential requirement as far as meeting the Sailor's Creed is concerned. Showing up to work on time is an indication of how committed a person is. Sailors are expected to be good in time management. Right from training, sailors are expected to use the shortest time possible to accomplish tasks. Sailors are often trained in an hectic and swift situations. They are given tasks that are impossible to accomplish in time allotted. In fact those who do not have motivation or desire or who are unfit for the service, are gone by the end of the first week. Sailors requires high level of discipline and conformation to the set rules and standard. In Navy, teamwork is very important. Teamwork and time management is often stressed during training. If one sailor fails, the whole team will fail.
Combat mission entails a lot of teamwork (United States 2015). All sailors must work synergistically towards a given combat mission. Communication should flow easily from one area to another. In any combat mission, a failure of one sailor or one department is a failure of the team. This implies that all the sailors should be available and ready for the task at any given time. Teamwork is possible only when all the sailors are prepared and ready for the task.
The analysis has demonstrated that time management is indeed a crucial requirement for any sailor. The analysis also reveals that sailor's life entails a lot of professional commitment. Sailor can succeed in balancing personal life and professional life by employing appropriate time management approaches. It is also clear from the analysis that the fighting mission, which is one of the Sailor's main objective, requires proper use of time. This justifies why the sailor must always show up to the work on time. The paper identify some of the approaches that can be used to manage time. The Pickle Jar Theory can help in demonstrating how time management can be effective strategy for a sailor. According to this theory, a person's life should be occupied by prime life goals, the hobbies, daily chores and should have minimal or no distraction. Distraction take away focus and bring about failure. This means that a sailor must organize his life such that he focus on his prime goals of serving and defending the United States Constitution. A sailor should acknowledge the fact that Naval activities forms part of important and urgent needs and hence deserve more attention and more time. A sailor can also apply techniques such as promodoro technique, time boxing technique in managing time.
References
Nardo, D., & Puffer, R. L. (2013). Today's U.S. Navy . North Mankato, Minn: Compass Point Books.
Purkey, W. W., & Siegel, B. L. (2002). Becoming an invitational leader: A new approach to professional and personal success . Atlanta, GA: Humanics Trade Group.
United States. (2015). How we fight: Handbook for the naval warfighter .
