by Mandy Green, Selling for Coaches
I keep hearing, “Mandy, I need more balance and less chaos in my day as a college coach.”
I hear it frequently when I am leading one an On-Campus Workshop for an athletic department…coaches tell me that they go into their day with a game plan and by 9:30 in the morning, it has gotten thoroughly messed up because of a crisis, or a colleague stopped by, emails, unexpected phone calls, and on and on and on. Many of these same coaches can’t get back on track after that happens.
How many times have you ended the day and wondered, “What did I accomplish today?” So many times we get caught up in being "busy" during our day and before we know what hit us, the day is over.
Due to the nature of the work, coaches have to follow a flexible schedule. You need to be free to accommodate the needs of your teams and recruits and other administrative staff with whom you work.
But Coach, you don’t have to turn your schedules over to others as much as you may think. By controlling your time in "blocks" you may actually manage your time better.
The most successful people in any profession are usually highly scheduled. Have you ever met a successful doctor who tells patients to "come on in any time you’d like?" No, doctors have highly scheduled lives. They have blocks of time set up for seeing patients, performing surgeries, and working at their hospitals. They know how many patients they need to see each day to create the lifestyles they choose to live.
Is it possible for you to run your program the same way? Of course! And, it’s certainly more efficient than the way most of us coaches run our programs now.
Time blocking involves consistently setting aside time for the high priority activities. Time blocking can provide structure in your day and allow you to complete tasks or at least complete a large part of a task before moving on to something else. The fundamental rationale for time blocking is the knowledge that if high priority activities don’t get scheduled, they usually get done feebly, fruitlessly, or not at all.
Here is how it works:
Decide on the tasks you will do for a particular day. Instead of just having a "to do" list with everything listed in order of importance and working down the list, take a few items from the list that are top priority for accomplishing what you need to accomplish, and block out whatever time you want to allocate to that task. This can be 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, or 2 hours. The point is to only allocate the allotted time to each task.
What activities should you time block for? Here are the two big areas that I want to focus on today:
Time Blocking at Work
What if you had two uninterrupted hours every day to focus on nothing else but your most important activities? The time might be spent planning or working on recruiting, developing your team and staff, getting caught up on administrative work, or learning something that will add value to your program. Just two hours dedicated to the really important things? Keep in mind that these two hours are focused, uninterrupted work time and do not include all the other time spent traveling, in meetings, talking by phone, sending email and other activities also directly related to achieving these activities.
Personal Time Blocking
You cannot be effective in your work if your inner reserves are depleted. Making time to “recharge your batteries” will actually boost your energy. Block time for exercise, contemplation, relaxation or recreation. Be sure to carve out time for family or friends as well. And, before committing to anything else, be sure to pencil in some vacation time as well. Then, treat appointments with yourself as respectfully as you would with others.
Give this a chance and try it for five consecutive days and see if you have improved productivity, have less stress, and have more time to do the things that are important to your program and to your life.
Coach, if your days are chaotic, stressful and you don’t feel like you are accomplishing all that you could, take back control of your program and your personal life. Blocking times in your day in which you focus on high-payoff activities is a must if you are to become a more effective leader.
For SFC Premium Members this week, we will break down time blocking more in depth and find ways to include all of your high-payoff activities for your program into your day, everyday.
