A lot of fall teams seasons have ended, which means for most of us individual meetings and video sessions have started up again.
Getting work done around all of these meetings can be challenging. This week alone I have now gotten 3 different emails from coaches asking for help blocking their time so they are still getting their office work and recruiting done around all of their practices, individual meetings and video sessions. Since the same sort of question was asked a few times, I thought that this might be an issue that more of you are facing so wanted to share this today as you are starting to plan your week.
In a perfect world, we could schedule all of our meetings back to back and all on the same day. But, if you are at a smaller school, options for class times can be limited so you end up having small or large chunks of time in between each one, and if you are dealing with a large amount of players, you won't be able to schedule them all on the same day so these meetings really could eat up a good chunk of your work week.
I hope these 6 ideas below help you in some way if this is an issue that you are having.

1. Don't give away your time so freely. Obviously yes, your team is important. But you have to get your other stuff done too so you can't just give away all of your time to your team. Pick some time everyday, at least 60-90 minutes, where absolutely no video can be scheduled and designate this as your time to work and do things that will build your program. It is stressful when you don't get your other stuff done during the day so take control of your schedule and selfishly schedule this time for yourself and then protect it. My protected work block is first thing in the morning when my focus and energy is the best. I can get 2x as much done during this time than if I were to wait until the afternoon to do it when I am more tired.
2. Get up earlier to work. If you know you have a day slammed with video, get into the office a hour or 2 earlier than you normally would when everything is quiet and there will be no interruptions so you can get your other work done before your video sessions start.
3. Plan ahead. When you are planning your day the night before or whenever you do it, estimate how much time you will have in between video sessions. Plan a task to do during that time so you are not losing time during the day trying to figure out what to do. Since there is only a short amount of time to work in between sessions, I like scheduling low value or low brain power tasks and batch them together so I can crank out 5-6 things together in like 10-15 minutes.
4. After each video session, get up and do something that I call clear the calculator. I learned this from Dr. Maxwell Maltz in the book Psychocybernetics. What happens is that we go through the day and make additions, make additions, make additions, and then we end up in a meeting and we have all of these numbers running through our head so we aren't as focused as we could be and aren't giving our best. So before you enter into a new conversation, start a new video session, or start a new project, you have to mentally clear the calculator, bring it back to zero. Clear the desk. Make sure there are no remnants of other ideas crowding your mind when you are supposed to be focused on one thing. I remind myself of this all the time. Ok, I just had this meeting and I have all sorts of ideas going on in my head, now before I have to talk to this person, I need to clear the calculator. I like pulling out my day planner and writing a few notes down, then I get up and take a quick walk around the building, then when I sit back down at my desk, I close my eyes and do a quick meditation where I just focus on my breathing for a minute or so. I’m telling you, it is a great mental anchor. It will save you. I’m working on this project, now I need to work on this one. Clear the calculator. Now I am fresh for here so I can go.
5. Do something physical to get your blood flowing and energy up in between every video session. Go for a quick walk, go to the bathroom, go get more water, get a quick bite to eat, etc. Video session after video session without renewing your energy can mean that by the end of the day you are mentally exhausted. You might be fine on Monday, but you will probably be pretty drained by Thursday which means you will be giving less than your best. Experiment with what food, how much walking, how much water you need throughout the week to stay energized and focused.
6. Stick to your time. If you schedule a meeting to show somebody video for 30 minutes, do your best to stick to 30 minutes. Start on time and end on time or you run the risk of completely losing your day and your players attention. You need to be organized and avoid being long winded with your coaching points. I get sometimes that you veer off topic and start having personal relationship building conversations. If you know that you want to have a little extra time for some conversation, build that into your meeting time and show a little less video.

All of these ideas just take a little more planning and intention on the front end. When you use them, it can really help to feel like you are keeping in control of your schedule, it will help keep your energy up, you won't waste as much time in between meetings trying to find something to do, and you will be able to actually get some other work done.
Email me at [email protected] to let me know how it goes for you. I love hearing all of your success stories of how this is working for you!!!!!
Good luck. Have a productive week.