It’s Not the Hours You Work, But the Work You Put into Those Hours

[trx_quote cite="#" title="Mandy Green"]I found that by being selective and taking more intelligent action is the path to being highly productive.[/trx_quote]

It’s Not the Hours You Work, But the Work You Put into Those Hours

A valuable activity I have been doing the last few years is to take this time of year to look back through my Busy Coach Game Plan planner to see where I spent my time last year and compare it to the results I got.
As I see what I focus working on now, I can’t help but think back and compare it to how I use to work when I first arrived as a new head coach at my current school.
I was a mess.  My first 3 years as a head coach, I didn’t have any full-time help and was a new mommy, (I had a C-Section literally 2 weeks before accepting the job).  I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t overwhelmed.  I literally had to do most of everything myself.
A BIG mistake I made during this crazy time was that I never stopped being busy long enough to pick my head up to get a big picture and look at what I was trying to accomplish.  And because of it, I failed to realize for a long time that not everything I was doing was increasing my program’s results.
I know now that not all tasks are created equal.  For example, spending time emailing or calling your top 5 recruits is more important than putting together an email for any of your other recruits (See book The Pumpkin Plan).
Most things make little if any difference in the development of a program and aren’t moving your life forward.  In fact, most of the things you do in your program don’t accelerate growth-they just ‘maintain’ at best.
I found that by being selective and taking more intelligent action is the path to being highly productive.
I was only able to eliminate a lot of unnecessary tasks and take more intelligent action when I applied Pareto’s 80/20 to everything I was doing in the office.
Pareto's Law can be summarized like this: 80% of the outputs result from 20% of the inputs. If you take 10 of your tasks and activities you want to get done, two of them will produce more results than the other 8 combined. This is a proven fact.
Sometimes as coaches, when we get busy, we feel we must get a ton of tasks done versus the few important ones that create the greatest results.  I want to challenge you this year to think intelligently about which 20% of your tasks to do with absolute focus will YIELD huge results.
Which 20% of your coaching responsibilities will give you 80% of your returns?
Which 20% of the leaders/players on your team will be responsible for 80% of your programs success?
If you want more information about this or want to be walked through how to do this, go look at my Busy Coach Guide.
This perspective flip was a big part of increasing my programs success, while decreasing the amount of hours I worked.
Remember, to have a better year this year than you did last year, it’s not the hours you work, but the work you put into those hours.
If you are interested in having me help you get your program and staff organized and firing on all cylinders this year, fill out this quick form and I will get back to you.  Or email me at [email protected].
Have a productive week!
Mandy Green