As logisticians, we often talk about conserving things: money, parts, food, fuel, etc. Many of us have most likely seen or been part of an hour-long conversation about how to save the unit money or other resources. For many officers, the days are long. Not to disrespect President Dwight D. Eisenhower, but if you read his memoirs, you may be surprised to learn that as a general, he regularly left the office in the early afternoon to play golf on post. What time does the average maintenance control officer leave? 1900? What about the forward support company commander? 1930? What would it take to return to a time like Eisenhower’s? This may be impossible due to the advancement of technology, but is there anything that can be done to mitigate our waste of time? It just might take intentional direction from a general. Even battalion commanders are limited in how much they can change an organization’s culture. They are only in the seat for 24 months, while many Soldiers stay in the unit for three to four years and see two to three battalion commanders per contract.
I had a mentor at my last duty station who was a retired colonel. Like many retired colonels, he enjoyed mentoring lieutenants and satisfying his curiosity about how the Army has changed. He invited me and a few other lieutenants to dinner at 1800. I arrived at his house after 2000 and was not the last person to arrive. He was not upset but asked me to walk him through my day. I immediately started talking about having to conduct a missing Soldier battle drill. He did not know what that was. When he was a platoon leader, if a Soldier was missing, he would give the military police the Soldier’s identification and do the same with the finance office. Two phone calls. He would be home by the mid-afternoon. While tragic incidents have created a more complex process, the point we are trying to explore is that things take longer than they used to take.
This is not anyone’s fault. It is just the nature of the modern world. Technology has taken away from and added to the amount of time things take. Out of curiosity, during a training meeting I timed how long the first sergeants talked about personnel management processes and how to make things right. It took almost an hour. The next week another meeting was called to discuss meetings. A meeting about meetings. My wife thought I was making a bad joke. One point of the meeting was to discuss adding another meeting. We could not do this due to all the preexisting meetings, so leadership scheduled it for 1800. I did not see much of my rater during most of the time I spent as a platoon leader. Either he was in a meeting, or I was, and we only interacted for a brief moment before morning physical training. At one point he apologized for not being able to mentor me as much as he intended. I also did not see much of my family for a while.
Let us do a little math. If I am a company commander in a group chat that has 40 people in it, and I ask Staff Sergeant A at 2000 if he did Sergeant B’s NCO evaluation report (NCOER), how much time have I wasted? It takes five seconds to pick up your phone, open a message, determine that it does not need to be actioned by you, and then put down your phone. Thirty-six people were not directly involved, only me, the first sergeant, and the two NCOs. Thirty-six people multiplied by five seconds equals three minutes collectively. That number is per message. Staff Sergeant A responds; Sergeant B chips in; and then someone sends a meme, followed by another meme and then another. That tangent would lead to roughly 18 minutes of total time wasted before bed. It would be more efficient to send one message before morning physical training that those three NCOs needed to meet at the conference room at 0925 for a quick update.
Several commanding generals of units have established policies stating that people must stop sending messages between 1800 and 0500 unless it is urgent, with criteria outlined. These policies have been met with generous approval.
Recently, I asked a fellow Captains Career Course student from Singapore how our armies are similar and different. He said a lot of things were similar. One thing that surprised him, though, was how we talk versus how we write. He explained that when we brief, we speak in long paragraphs and try to display our knowledge and experience, while our NCOERs are written in brief and concise bullet points. Even our essays at the career course have a word-count limit. If we are over the limit, the assignment is considered missing. I agreed that it was ironic.
I remember sitting at the S-2’s office one day, reading a button on his corkboard. It read, “I survived another meeting that could have been an email.” I chuckled. I asked him if he kept track of how many meetings he survived that could have been an email. He said he stopped counting because it was getting depressing. If I asked a group of Soldiers of various ranks to name our most precious resource, how many would say money? Knowledge might get a few votes. What about time? My friend’s dad retired as a lieutenant colonel, and one day they were driving to the commissary, and his dad was looking around. My friend asked him what was up, and he said this was his first time seeing those roads in the daylight.
If training meetings were capped at 90 minutes by policy, those briefings would be clear and concise. Brigade maintenance meetings can be capped at 90 minutes and can be paper meetings every other week. Those equipment-testing sessions, appointments, and pacer weld jobs next year have not changed since last month. The message that the chief put out about the forklift class next quarter could have been an email. The Army needs more policies like the ones established by the commanding generals mentioned earlier.
Communication must be streamlined, and nothing short of a regulation stating that meetings and messages will be cut off at a certain time will guarantee a tangible change. The Army Sustainment Professional Bulletin has published numerous articles dealing with talent management. The more Soldiers drive home in the dark, the more tempting it is to take their talent to an organization that respects their time. In a peacetime Army, it can be difficult to maintain a sense of purpose in serving. Whether or not to stay in the military becomes a personal cost-benefit analysis. A Soldier might think to themselves that the benefits are great, but they can make similar money elsewhere and not have to work through lunch and dinner and miss putting their kids to bed. Time management is a simple thing we can all do to ensure the Army retains its talent and meets Soldiers halfway before they walk away from the retention negotiating table.
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CPT Joseph Mengoni is currently a student in the Logistics Captains Career Course at the Army Sustainment University on Fort Lee, Virginia. He was previously stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado. He is a graduate of the Basic Officer Leaders Course and has a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications. He is currently working toward applying for a master’s degree in industrial organizational psychology.
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This article was published with the winter 2026 issue of Army Sustainment.
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