[trx_quote cite=”#” title=”Mandy Green”]If you added up the amount of time it would take to complete the tasks on a typical coach’s to-do list, there might be hundreds of hours of work represented there…[/trx_quote]
Have Your Best Season Ever! Part 2
Feedback that I am getting from coaches is that you set yourself up to make progress towards the big dreams you have for your programs day by day but yourself falling into bed after a long day, frustrated because you didn’t finish half the items on your to-do list, only to go through the same thing the next day? It’s like you’re trapped in your own private groundhog day.
If you added up the amount of time it would take to complete the tasks on a typical coach’s to-do list, there might be hundreds of hours of work represented there.
It’s a lot. More than most can manage, especially if you are low on staff, coach multiple teams, teach classes, or have other administrative duties.
But it is possible. Like most things, you have to be more intentional and set yourself up for success.
I want to give you some simple guidelines you can use to start reducing your to-do list to include only those things that truly matter for you and your program.
Ideally you start by having your Master-to do list sitting in front of you. A master list is a list that contains all future projects and tasks, someday items, and good ideas you’re not ready to work on for your program.
The first way to reduce your to-do list to a manageable level is to start with your job requirements.
Ask yourself what do your AD’s expect you to accomplish on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even annual basis?
If you made a list of the top 10 things you believe you’re responsible for, then asked your administrator to do the same, and compare the two lists, would they be the same? Know what your administrator’s requirements cold, both the formal ones on toward job description and the informal ones your boss expects you to do anyway. Keep the notes from your last performance review front and center, and make sure you’re making progress on them daily.Next ask yourself, what tasks will have the greatest effect on your results?
What is going to increase your success on game day?
What have been the most impactful recruiting tasks
What do you need to be doing for your team
3. Determine what’s personally important to you: what do you need to do before you leave the office to feel good about what you’ve accomplished?
Now if you walked into the office with a plan to tackle tasks that I just covered in these first 3, this 4th one becomes pretty easy
4. What are all of the things that I can just eliminate- As Peter Drucker once said, “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
Just think for a moment about all of the stuff that you’re doing that you don’t need to be doing. And the real power here is that you are looking for things that you can just stop doing. No explanation. No warning. No ramp-down time. No apology. What are the things that we can just stop? Those are the first sets of activities that we can get rid of.
Most of the things in this section are going to be eliminating time wasters. Email for example. Do you hang out in your inbox all day long? Bad idea! If you drop everything and immediately tend to every e-mail as it comes in, you’re derailing your productivity, over and over again.
The solution to all these time wasters is simple enough: STOP! WE will be talking about how to determine where your time may be going in a little bit.
5. Reflect: At the end of the day ask yourself, what did you actually accomplish? Did your accomplishments advance the program’s goals in some measurable way? If not, why not? If you just kept busy while not appreciably moving forward, why did you bother?
The general idea here is to cut, cut and cut some more. Reflect on how you did. Make improvements. Do better tomorrow.
When you implement this step correctly, instead of having 117 things on your to do list every day, you may end up with just 10 tasks, or five, or three… but they’ll be the right ones. And don’t worry: once you have the proper processes in place, you can revisit all the others systematically and get them done in their place.
Part 3 of the speech I wrote for NCRC coming soon.
