by Mandy Green, Head Soccer Coach – University of South Dakota
How long do you spend each day on unimportant things?
Things that don’t really contribute to the success of your program?
Do you KNOW how much time you’ve spent reading junk mail, talking to colleagues, getting interrupted by somebody walking into your office, or getting phone calls everyday? And how often have you thought, “I could achieve so much more if I just had another half hour each day.”
In my years of being associated with Tudor Collegiate Strategies, I know they continually hear from smart, capable college coaches who struggle with their day. They lament how often time seems to get away from them.
As the first step towards fixing that problem, the first thing I would want you to do is identify the high-payoff activities within your program.
High-payoff activities are the things you do that bring the greatest value to your program, team, or staff. They are the three to five activities that lie in your “sweet spot.” You do them with excellence.
These activities could be building relationships with recruits, making phone calls to parents, sending emails to recruits, managing your current team, and other essential success-oriented activities. They are your unique discipline or distinctive skills and abilities that distinguish you from other staff members.
Knowing what your high-payoff activities are and actually doing them, however, are two very different things. Many surveys that I have read over the past several years have shown that the average American worker spends only 50-60 percent of the workday on activities specified in her or her job description. That means that workers waste 40-50 percent of their time on low-payoff activities, tackling things that others with less skill or training should be doing.
Are you in this category coach?
The more time you spend doing the high-payoff activities, the more value you will bring to your team, program, and staff. By disciplining yourself to clearly identify your high-payoff activities, and then by filling your calendar with those things and appropriately delegating, delaying, or dropping the low-payoff activities, you can and will get more high-payoff activities done everyday, reduce your stress, and increase your happiness.
Your Homework Assignment -Time Tracking in an Activity Log
Activity logs help you to analyze how you actually spend your time, and when you perform at your best. The first time you use an activity log the results may shock you! I know that I was shocked the first time I did one.
Do this for a week: Write down everything you do, from the time you start working until the time you go home. Without modifying your behavior any further than you have to, note down the things you do as you do them.
Every time you change activities, whether opening mail, working, making coffee, gossiping with colleagues or whatever, note down the time of the change.
As well as recording activities, note how you feel…are you alert, flat, tired, energetic, or frustrated? Do this periodically throughout the day.
At the end of every time-tracked day, tally the total hours you spent in high payoff vs. low payoff activities. Although this may seem like a hassle, it’s vitally important for you to become very clear on how you actually spend your time over the course of the week. You may be alarmed to see the amount of time you spend doing low value jobs!
By analyzing your activity log you will be able to identify and eliminate time-wasting or low-value jobs. You will also know the times of day at which you are most effective, so that you can carry out your most important tasks during these times.
Soon you’ll gain a clear picture of how you’re actually spending your time and whether you have room to fill your calendar with the activities that will truly add the most value to you and your program.
Mandy Green is a Division I soccer coach at the University of South Dakota, and is a frequent contributor to College Recruiting Weekly on the topics of organization and time management for college coaches. She is a regular speaker at the National Collegiate Recruiting Conference, and is the author of a soon to be released time management guide for college coaches.