ASOG Article of the Month – August 2020
ASOG Author: Patrick Ryan
Have you ever had one of those day’s when you were in the cockpit but had to many things running or screaming through your brain? Here’s one of those time-tested skills that many experienced and famous aviators use to keep everything together when flying.
It’s 5:00 am and you’re about to step out and fly a mission. (and you didn’t have time to stop at a 24/7 fast food place to get a coffee and one of those "Gut Bomb" breakfast sandwiches to fill the energy void!)
However, you have a lot on your mind. You just took charge of a training department with lots of problems and your new department is getting an inspection next week (Thanks Boss!...I love you too), plus, your own annual check ride is in a few days and you really haven’t prepared for it (O’Shit!).
Additionally, on the home front, you, and your wife are expecting your first child and both of you are running around to doctor appointments, trying to buy the right how-to-books, and attempting to get everything ready for the big day….“Dear, I’m getting nervous, what color paint should we buy for the baby’s room…pink or blue?” (“OK Dude, Time to Push-Up-the-Throttles!”)
How can I manage all of this?
Again, it’s 5:00 am and your about to step out and fly a mission. With all these things running through your head and you’re going to participate in an event that requires total focus to stay safe, how do you balance it all and meet the standards or expectations of yourself, family, friends, crew and supervisors.
If you’ve been trained (civil or military) the process of how to manage “Aviate, Navigate and Communicate” while you’re flying, you have a foundation or an sense of how to compartmentalize in a rapid way.
However, if your entering the aircrew community or a bit rusty, it’s impossible to be the “Master-of-Your-Complex-Universe”, especially flying, without channeling certain areas of our life for periods of time. When we must focus on one activity without disruption, compartmentalization is important and, in many ways, critical.
So, what is Compartmentalization?
Starting with the book answer and depending on what sections of the encyclopedia you look at, compartmentalization is:
- Engineering - Compartmentalization is the general technique of separating two or more parts of a system to prevent malfunctions from spreading between or among them.
- Fire Protection – Compartmentalization is to divide a structure into "fire compartments", which may contain single or multiple rooms, for the purpose of limiting the spread of fire, smoke and hazardous gases,
As you can see, there are various relative academic definitions, but basically compartmentalizing (especially for aircrew members) is being able to mentally separate parts of your life and work into isolated compartments at the right time.
O.K., how can I Compartmentalize?
As mentioned before, to compartmentalize means to group things in your mind so that they’re easier to manage. If you don’t, life responsibilities will come together like a 10-Ton Gorilla sitting on your shoulders.
Besides work and life responsibilities, flying is a dangerous endeavor (manned or unmanned, it does not matter), so if you mess up, you’ll do more harm than good. So here are a few things to keep in mind to ensure a positive outcome, i.e., compartmentalize!
Identify
The first step is to identify those areas of your life and work that have, so to speak, a lot of moving parts and expectations. The best way to organize is to identify the who, what, when, how and where of those parts.
A good method to help with identifying the difference between things is, from your perspective, the primary feedback of “success” or “failure” of a compartment. Without saying, yourself, your parents, your wife or partner, supervisor, crew mates, maintenance crew, and employer are primary feedback points.
Group
Once you’ve identified those parts of your life and work, group them into compartments accordingly. A single compartment should, generally, stand on its own with some or limited connection to the other compartments.
A simple or universal example is family and work. Work related events don’t directly connect with family events. However, the strategic connection of the job providing money to support the family is there, but the who, what, when and where is different.
Using the scenario at the beginning of the article, your primary compartments could or might look like this:
- Marriage/Partner Compartment
- Baby/Children Compartment
- Aircrew Rating/Technical Cert. Compartment
- Department Head/Supervisor Compartment
- Education/Professional Development Compartment
Within those primary compartments, you could build sub-compartments to help with additional clarification of the many different parts of your job and life.
Control
Now that you have identified and grouped your compartments, the next step is to develop ways to manage or control your compartmentalization. This consist of both mental and physical ways to maximize your efforts while transitioning from one compartment to another and when operating in a compartment. Two of the best controlling mechanisms are:
Time Management
As many of you know, managing your time when flying is critical. When it comes to compartmentalizing your personal and professional life it’s no different. Time management is a matter of taking your compartments and prioritizing them by when and how much time is required to complete or maintain them.
Space Management
Besides Time Management, managing your physical location while focusing on a specific compartment will help keep you engaged on the specific elements of that compartment, i.e., minimize distraction.
For example, you have a check-ride next week and you need to study for the Question & Answer portion of the ride and your Flight Department is too noisy and distracting, find a quite place in the hanger to study for 45 mins.
Are there any Do’s or Don’ts of Compartmentalizing?
The short answer is yes, there are things (“Caution, Warning and Notes type stuff”) to think about when you go through the process of compartmentalizing.
No. 1 – Don’t Multitask
The whole point of compartmentalizing is to focus on one thing at a time. When you start trying to blend multiple compartments together, e.g., calling the pediatrician while you’re flight planning, you’re only increasing the level of risk of making an error, just not one compartment but all the compartments you’re trying to do at once.
No. 2 – Do Prioritize
Again, compartmentalizing is about doing one thing at a time. When compartments appear to start overlapping, the best thing is to prioritize compartments based on what needs to be worked now and what can be worked later (Time Management).
No. 3 – Don’t Avoid the “Pain in the Derrière” Compartments
Just because a task or compartment is not sexy, fun, enjoyable or gratifying, they probably must be dealt with at some point in time. If you don’t, they’ll come back to “bite you in the Buttocks.” When that happens, your compartment probably grew or it spawns new pain compartments. So, roll up your flight suit sleeves, lean your head forward and go! Don’t forget, we all have compartments like this.
No. 4 – Do say “No”
Probably the most important “Caution, Warning and Note” regarding compartmentalizing is learning how to stop yourself and say “No” when one compartment competes with another or you see yourself starting to Multi-Task.
As an example. If one compartment is for staying fit and regularly going to the fitness center after work, however, at the last minute you get a call to discuss a draft SOP that is not due until next month, the answer is “no” because you need to get out on time. Another classic scenario is taking work home. If you have the urge to take work home, i.e., read a manual, build an xls etc., just say “No.” Again, blending compartments just takes the effectiveness and efficiency out of compartmentalizing.
In Summary
As I mentioned before, the skill of compartmentalizing is not new, especially in the aircrew community (Aviate, Navigate and Communicate). However, the importance of it is probably more important today than it was 40 years ago, especially with society and technology rapidly changing.
To keep everything together in the aircraft and on the ground, the best way to manage the whole thing is to compartmentalize your personal and professional goals and responsibilities mentally and physically. From there, it’s a matter of discipline and creativity of managing them “24/7” or “Day, Night and in all Weather.”
