Time Management and Prioritization: Doing More Than Managing Chaos
In the first four parts of this series, we laid down the foundation every front-line leader needs. We started with operational knowledge, because if you don’t understand how your building runs, you’re just managing noise. Then we talked about team management and motivation, the shift from being the best individual contributor to being the one who helps others succeed. From there, we dug into communication, not just what you say but how you listen and how you show up. And most recently, we tackled crisis management and problem-solving, because in distribution, chaos isn’t the exception; it’s the rule.
That brings us here: time management and prioritization. If crisis management is about making quick, clear calls under pressure, time management is about not living in crisis mode every day. Your day will always try to steal itself with fire drills, texts, calls, “quick questions,” and shifting priorities. If you don’t take control of your time, the noise will take it for you.
The Daily Theft of Leadership Time
Here’s the truth: Your day will always be full. That’s not leadership, that’s firefighting. Time management is about setting the rhythm so that you’re working on the right things, not just the loudest things. A lot of new leaders fall into the trap of believing being busy equals being productive. But ask yourself, busy doing what?
Have you ever had one of those days where you ran from start of shift to end of shift, handled 20 problems, but when you looked back, you couldn’t name a single thing that moved the operation forward? That’s the trap.
Structure Without Slowing Down
You can’t build a perfect calendar in a distribution center, too many variables. But you can build anchors into your day. For me, the three most important are:
- Start-of-shift plan: Set the targets. Walk the floor. Let the team know the top priorities.
- Mid-shift replan: Adjust. Something will have gone sideways. Re-anchor the team.
- End-of-day reset: What got done, what rolled, what needs a fix for tomorrow?
That rhythm creates consistency. It also gives your team confidence. They know you’re not just reacting, you’ve got a plan.
Do you have your own version of this rhythm? A habit or routine that keeps the day from slipping away?
Prioritization: The Hard Choices
Every leader faces competing demands, corporate emails, production reports, vendor calls, coaching sessions, floor issues. You can’t do it all at once, so you need a decision stack. I use the same one I talked about in crisis management: Safety, Service, Quality, Cost. If two priorities clash, that stack breaks the tie.
Example: If you’ve got a customer order to ship and a training session scheduled, ask yourself, can the order wait without hurting service? If not, service takes the lead. But if it can, invest in the training. Training your team prevents the same issue from coming back tomorrow.
Beyond Busy: Building Accomplishments That Count
Here’s the other side of time management most people miss: Solving problems and making efficiency changes require time and effort. That means carving out space to step back from the daily noise and actually fix what’s broken. If you don’t, you’re not leading, you’re just keeping the lights on.
Ask yourself: Are you building your resume through busy work, or through measurable accomplishments that add to the bottom line?
Busy work looks like putting out the same fires day after day. Accomplishments look like redesigning a process so that fire doesn’t spark again. Busy work keeps you in motion. Accomplishments build your credibility, your career, and your team’s capacity.
Here’s why it matters: When you interview for your next role or when you sit down with your boss for a performance review, nobody asks how many hours you worked or how many emails you answered. They ask: What did you improve? What did you fix? Where did you save money or create value? If you can’t answer those questions with specifics, then all your “busy” days didn’t build much.
Stop Fighting Fires: Find the Cause
When you find yourself constantly fighting fires, there are underlying problems creating them. It’s your job to make the time to perform some root cause analysis and figure out why the issues are popping up in the first place. Simply asking why something is happening, and continuing to ask why until you drill down to the real cause, is one of the best ways to solve problems for good.
This requires curiosity and communication skills. You can’t just bark questions or assign blame. You’ve got to dig in, involve the right people, and show respect while you investigate. Done well, this approach not only fixes issues but also builds trust with your team. Done poorly, it irritates everyone and adds tension.
Here’s an example from my own experience. We had a recurring problem where items were received, put away, and then later picked at zero, meaning the system showed none available even though we could physically see the product still in the location. When I checked, the issue was clear: The items were in large crates. The receivers didn’t have the time to break them down into individual pieces because their efficiency metrics rewarded speed over accessibility. So the items stayed buried in the crate, showing “available” in the system but practically unpickable.
By asking why step after step, we uncovered the real cause: the efficiency standard itself. Breaking down crates wasn’t being valued, even though the items were high-dollar parts critical to shipping. The result was wasted time, duplicate orders, and frustrated pickers. It took presenting the problem to upper management and showing the true cost to get the standard changed, but once it was, the issue stopped repeating.
The lesson is simple: You can’t fix what you don’t fully understand. Root cause analysis forces you to slow down just long enough to make lasting improvements instead of managing the same fire drill every day.
Protecting Leader Time
One of the biggest mistakes I see is front-line leaders trying to do everyone else’s job. You’re not there to pick cases or run a forklift all shift. You should know how, and you’ll jump in when needed, but your real value is leading. That means carving out time for coaching, for walking the floor with your eyes open, for solving root problems instead of only chasing symptoms.
How do you protect that time? Do you block “no meeting” windows? Do you carry a notebook and track what actually eats your hours? That kind of discipline separates leaders who get buried from leaders who stay in control.
A Challenge for You
This week, try an experiment: At the end of each day, write down two lists.
- Fire drills I handled today
- Things I did to move the operation forward
After five days, look at the ratio. If fire drills dominate, you’re managing chaos, not leading through it. That’s your signal to tighten your rhythm, protect more time, and focus on creating measurable accomplishments that outlast the day.
Closing Thought
Anybody can stay busy. Leaders create structure without slowing the team down. They know how to say no, when to re-anchor, and how to make sure their time, and their team’s time, is spent on what actually matters.
That’s how you stop just surviving the day and start building days that stack into progress. Next up in the series is safety and compliance awareness.
With over 25 years of leadership in supply chain, logistics and global distribution strategy, Will Quinn is a recognized authority in warehousing and distribution operations. A U.S. Marine Corps veteran, he spent 12 years mastering discipline, adaptability and leadership — qualities that have fueled his success in managing high-impact distribution networks for companies like Grainger, Coca-Cola, MSC Industrial Supply, WEG Electric and Cintas. As a former global distribution strategist at Infor, he spent four years helping businesses bridge the gap between cutting-edge technology and real-world distribution challenges. Will holds a Master of Science in Supply Chain Management from Elmhurst University.