How to stop putting out fires and take back your day

Putting out fires at work is a reactive cycle where you spend your entire day responding to urgent crises instead of focusing on high-impact, strategic goals. To break this loop, you must identify the systemic root causes of these disruptions and align your response strategies with your natural work personality.

Key takeaways

• The cycle of putting out fires is often caused by a lack of clear boundaries and poor role alignment rather than just a heavy workload.
• Different work personalities, like The Coordinator or The Pioneer, experience and resolve workplace crises in fundamentally different ways.
• Moving from reactive to proactive requires a deliberate shift in how you prioritise tasks and communicate with your team.
• Using tools like Hey Compono can help you understand your default stress responses and build more resilient workflows.

You know the feeling. You sit down with a coffee, ready to tackle that big project you’ve been putting off, and then the first notification hits. An ‘urgent’ email. A Slack message with three red sirens. A colleague standing at your desk with that look on their face. Before you know it, it’s 5:00 pm, your inbox is fuller than when you started, and that big project hasn’t been touched. You’ve spent the whole day putting out fires.

It feels productive in the moment because you’re ‘saving the day’, but it’s an exhausting way to live. When you’re constantly in fire-fighting mode, you aren’t leading – you’re just surviving. It’s a pattern that hits like a tonne of bricks when you realise you haven’t done any meaningful work in weeks. At Hey Compono, we’ve found that this cycle usually isn't about a lack of effort. It’s about a disconnect between how you work and the environment you’re working in.

The hidden cost of reactive work

When you’re constantly putting out fires, your brain stays in a state of high alert. This chronic stress doesn't just make you tired; it actually narrows your perspective. You stop looking at the horizon and start staring at your feet. You lose the ability to think creatively or plan for the future because your nervous system is convinced there’s a literal threat to your survival every time a deadline looms.

This reactive behaviour creates a feedback loop. Because you’re busy fixing yesterday’s mistakes, you don’t have time to set up the systems that would prevent tomorrow’s problems. You become the bottleneck. Your team starts to rely on your ‘heroics’ to get things across the line, which only reinforces the behaviour. It’s a trap that many high-achievers fall into because they’ve been praised for their ability to handle chaos.

The reality is that no one can sustain this forever. Eventually, the quality of your work drops, or your health takes a hit. If you’re curious about how your specific brain handles this kind of pressure, Hey Compono can show you your default work personality in about 10 minutes. Understanding whether you’re naturally a ‘Doer’ or an ‘Advisor’ changes how you should approach these daily blazes.

Why some personalities attract more fires

Not everyone experiences workplace fires the same way. Some people actually thrive on the adrenaline of a crisis, while others find it completely paralysing. For example, The Doer might feel a sense of accomplishment by ticking off urgent tasks, even if they aren't important. They like the tangible result of fixing something right now. However, they can easily get stuck in the weeds and forget to look at the bigger picture.

On the other hand, someone like The Coordinator might feel immense stress when things go off-script. They value structure and order, so a ‘fire’ feels like a personal failure of their system. They might spend too much time trying to fix the process while the building is still burning. Recognising these tendencies is the first step toward changing them.

We often see teams where everyone is busy but nothing is moving forward. This usually happens because the roles aren't aligned with people's natural strengths. If you have a Pioneer stuck doing repetitive data entry, they’re going to get bored and start ‘innovating’ where they shouldn't, which creates fires for everyone else to put out. It’s about getting the right person in the right seat.

Moving from reactive to proactive

To stop putting out fires, you have to be willing to let some things burn – at least for a little while. This sounds terrifying, but it’s the only way to reclaim your time. You need to distinguish between what is truly urgent and what is simply loud. Most workplace fires are just loud. They are someone else’s poor planning becoming your emergency.

Start by auditing your fires. For one week, write down every ‘emergency’ that interrupted your planned work. Was it actually a crisis? Could it have been prevented with a better system? Was it even your job to fix it? Often, we jump in to help because we want to be liked or because we don’t trust others to handle it. This is where Hey Compono helps teams – by clarifying who should be handling what based on their natural work personality.

Once you see the patterns, you can start building firebreaks. This might mean setting specific times for checking emails, or it might mean having a difficult conversation with a manager about realistic deadlines. It requires a shift from being the ‘firefighter’ to being the ‘architect’. Architects build structures that don't catch fire in the first place.

Building a fire-proof team culture

If you’re a leader, you set the tone for how fires are handled. If you reward the person who stayed until midnight to fix a last-minute error, you are incentivising fire-fighting. You are telling your team that heroics matter more than healthy systems. To change the culture, you have to start rewarding the people who finished their work at 5:00 pm because they planned ahead and avoided the crisis entirely.

This requires radical honesty. We have to be able to say, “This isn't an emergency, it’s a lack of process.” At Compono, our research shows that high-performing teams have a balance of the eight work actions – from Evaluating to Doing. If your team is missing an Auditor, you’ll likely have more fires related to missed details. If you’re missing a Evaluator, you’ll have fires caused by poor strategic decisions.

Encourage your team to use their unique strengths to prevent issues. A Helper can spot when team morale is dipping before a burnout crisis occurs. An Advisor can facilitate a conversation that clears up a misunderstanding before it turns into a conflict. When everyone understands their role, the fires start to die down naturally.

Key insights

• Putting out fires is a symptom of systemic misalignment, not just a busy schedule.
• Your work personality determines how you react to pressure and which fires you are most likely to start or extinguish.
• True productivity is found in the 'architect' phase of work, where you build systems to prevent future crises.
• A healthy team culture rewards consistent planning over last-minute heroics.
• Understanding the 8 work actions is essential for building a team that doesn't constantly live in crisis mode.

Where to from here?

Breaking the fire-fighting cycle starts with self-awareness. You can't fix a system if you don't know how you’re contributing to it. Take a moment to step back and look at your own patterns. Are you the one holding the matches, or are you just tired of carrying the water?

• Get started: Start with 10 minutes free – see your work personality and how you handle the heat.
• See how it works: Learn about personality-adaptive coaching and how it helps teams stay proactive.

FAQs

How do I tell my boss I’m too busy putting out fires to do my actual work?

Frame the conversation around impact rather than workload. Instead of saying you’re ‘busy’, show them the list of strategic projects that are being delayed by reactive tasks. Explain that by focusing on the root causes of these fires, you can increase the team's overall efficiency and output.

Is it ever okay to be in fire-fighting mode?

Yes, occasionally. Some industries are naturally more volatile, and unexpected crises will always happen. The problem isn't the fire itself – it’s the frequency. If fire-fighting is your standard operating procedure, it’s a sign that your systems or roles are broken.

How can I help a teammate who is always in reactive mode?

Often, people stay in reactive mode because they feel a sense of duty or fear of letting people down. Help them by clarifying priorities. If you’re a leader, give them permission to let lower-priority tasks slide so they can focus on preventing future issues. Encourage them to take a personality assessment to see if they're naturally inclined toward reactive work.

What if my job description is essentially putting out fires?

Even in roles like customer support or IT troubleshooting, there is a difference between being reactive and being proactive. Proactive fire-fighting involves identifying recurring issues and creating documentation or automated fixes to stop them from happening again. If you're just fixing the same thing every day, you're a firefighter; if you're fixing the cause, you're an engineer.

Does personality really affect how we handle workplace stress?

Absolutely. Research from Compono shows that our natural traits dictate our default response to high-pressure situations. Some people become more rigid and controlling, while others become scattered. Knowing your type allows you to consciously choose a more effective response instead of just reacting to the heat of the moment.