What a great question! Tools and best practices! Fire for effect! Good news at the bottom.

For straight XO resources, this old post has some awesome products. Follow the instructions to access the digital dropbox.

For time management resources, your commander may have provided you counseling similar to the attached. The important part is the specified tasks. If  you don’t have this guidance from your boss, ask for clarity specifically on the expectations for your specified duties and any associated internal suspense dates. That will go a long way to helping to establish priorities. I also attached sub-hand receipt holder counseling as a template that may pull some burden from your shoulders.

For determining my own priorities, I like the Eisenhower Box method, described in Steven Covey’s bestseller. In particular, I like to combine the Eisenhower Box with some creative “leading up” techniques. First, put an E-Box prominently on your XO whiteboard (you DO have a whiteboard in your office?!?). Second, practice/rehearse the right tone so you don’t sound insubordinate or condescending. Finally,  when along comes a new additional duty or “project” or “hey XO…” say, “too easy, boss, I can do it, but I need to adjust some other priorities, can you show me where I should categorize this new idea on my to-do chart? How to video here. Lots of good tips on productivity from Thomas Frank, too.

Now the good news! I have found that being a Company XO has, thus far, been the busiest I have been in the Army. I have had more responsibility, and I have been just as busy as when I was an XO, but I have never had MORE tasks to accomplish than as an XO. That position seems to be about the high-water mark for task saturation. I hope that makes sense. What I’m saying is, the systems you develop for time management will make this same volume of tasks much more reasonable as you gain experience. So, hang in there. You will have that same number of tasks as a staffer and as a commander, but it will seem more reasonable because by then you’ll already know what’s important and what is a distraction.

~Jeff