Pick your rotation — Pitman, DuPont, 4-on/4-off and more — and see every work day, day off and weekend off for the months ahead.
Shift Schedule Calculator
Choose your rotation and the date your cycle last restarted, and this planner maps every work day, day off and full weekend off for the months ahead.
Pick the most recent date your rotation was on Day 1 — for Pitman, a Monday at the start of the two-week cycle; for DuPont, the first of the four night shifts. If you are not sure, pick the Monday of this week and adjust.
How to read it:Day shiftNight shiftDay offToday
How rotating schedules work
Patrol does not run on a Monday-to-Friday week. Rotating schedules repeat on fixed cycles — 7, 8, 9, 14 or 28 days long — and everything about the pattern follows from one anchor: the date the cycle restarts. Get the anchor right and every future work day is determined, which is why officers plan weddings, courses and holidays around the cycle instead of the calendar. This planner maps the base rotation only; overtime, swaps, court dates and holiday rotations land on top of it.
Choosing a pattern
Pitman (2-2-3) is the patrol classic: never more than three days in a row and every other weekend off. DuPont buys a seven-day break every month at the price of flipping between days and nights. The 4/10 schedule keeps your work days fixed on the same weekdays, while 4-on/4-off and 6-on/3-off slide through the week, handing you different days off as the months pass.
Shift schedule questions, answered
How many weekends do I get off on the Pitman schedule?
Every other one. The 14-day Pitman cycle is built so that one Friday-to-Sunday weekend is worked and the next is fully off — over a year that works out to about 26 full weekends off, which is exactly why the 2-2-3 is so popular in patrol.
How many days a year do you work on 12-hour shifts?
On Pitman, 4-on/4-off and DuPont you work about half the days of the year — roughly 182 shifts. At 12 hours that is about 2,184 hours before overtime and swaps, against roughly 2,080 for a 40-hour week: the extra is made up by the long weekends and, on DuPont, the 7-day break each month.
My calendar looks wrong — what should I check?
Almost always the anchor date. The planner counts forward from the date you say the cycle restarted (Day 1). If your department's Pitman week starts on a different day, or you picked the wrong week of the two, every day shifts by one position — move the anchor one week earlier or later and the whole calendar snaps into place.
What is the difference between Pitman and Panama?
Nothing — they are two names for the same 2-2-3 rotation: 2 on, 2 off, 3 on, 2 off, 2 on, 3 off. "Panama" comes from the schedule's long use by US personnel in the Panama Canal Zone.
Does this account for overtime, swaps and holidays?
No — it maps your base rotation only. Court dates, overtime, trades, training days and holiday rotations all land on top of it, and departments differ on how holidays are handled inside a rotation. Use this to plan around the base pattern, then layer the extras on.
Keep reading on Police Pathfinder
- Police Salary Calculator — what those shifts pay, overtime included
- Police Fitness Test Standards Checker — train for the test around your rotation
- Police Exam Practice Test — 20 free questions for the written exam