I learned a lot while I was in command of a TTP. It’s a struggle to say the least when you are a commander in the USAR. My position was unique considering I was the only officer in my unit, so everything really did fall on me to complete. But I learned a lot on what I should be spending my time on. There are few things I suggest a commander really dig deep into so they are successful in a command position.

1. Create a commanders policy – this is one I never did but as I look back, it would have saved me some time communicating repetitive issues. Having a standard Soldiers can read and follow will make your life easier. It’s your own fall back so your downtrace leaders can give an answer to their Soldiers without you being there. It’s helpful if you spend a great deal of time making the right policies and thinking it through so all the bases are covered. Put it in place at the latest three months into command and review it in a year to see if you need to add to it.

2. Take good notes – you can’t be there for everything and you can’t remember everything that happens each day. Having a log of all the actions that you witnessed while at drill weekend will pay dividends when your evaluating your unit and Soldiers. This will help you track progress of your training initiatives and build salient information on the NCOs you rate. I split my notes up by half, 0800-1200 day 1, 1300-1700 day 1, 0800-1200 day 2, etc.

3. Conduct quality performance Counseling’s – it would be unfair to your Soldiers to rate them when they don’t understand your expectations. I see this often and I have never been counseled by my leaders in the USAR. This has to change, but the reality is you’ll need to performance counsel your leader if you expect performance to change. Schedule an hour on a Sunday to do it or early morning Saturday to go over last month. You should do it monthly; if you wait to quarterly you may forget the actions taken each month. It’s your opportunity to list your expectations. I big one I have is being available between months from you NCOs. You can’t do this job alone and making that expectation clear early will prevent a lot of headaches later on.

There’s an exhaustive list of things you could do to manage your time. So many I think you can create another post on DTMS, RCMS, and GCSS army initiatives you should be following. But if you can nail down these three things during drill weekend, you’ll be better for it. I hope this was helpful and you find some progress with your unit here.

One last tip, milsuite is your best friend. All the questions you may have can be answered there. You can always post there too.