by Mandy Green, Busy Coach
As a 23-year veteran in college coaching, I know your day is packed with demands. Texts, emails, people needing your time and energy — it never ends.
Many of you have no assistants, so you’re doing it all. Or maybe you’re the assistant coach, but the head coach keeps pulling you into other tasks. Maybe administrators or athletes interrupt you constantly.
I understand those pressures, but let’s have some tough love here. I want you to look in the mirror and really think about how well you’re prioritizing each day.
Coach, you set up your day.
If you’re often ending your day frustrated, feeling like you haven’t made real progress on recruiting, it usually comes down to how you’re prioritizing your tasks. Ask yourself: are you proactive and in control of your day, or are you just reacting to everyone else?
Yes, we all need to be available to our team, recruits, administration, and staff. But not as much as you might think — or as much as you’re probably doing right now.
Today, I want to give you a new way to think about prioritizing. When you start prioritizing well, you’ll see more wins with your recruiting, day by day.
Stop prioritizing the easy.
If your day feels like a lot of busy work but with little time spent on the recruiting that matters, you may be prioritizing the wrong things. Maybe you walk into the office planning to focus on recruiting, but then think, “Let me knock out a few easy tasks first to get the ball rolling.” That’s where it starts. And before you know it, you’re swamped with minor tasks, never quite reaching the work that actually moves the needle for your program.
Again, Coach, you set up your day.
You can choose to do the things that will have a real impact on your program. Sure, the smaller tasks need to get done, but handle them only after you’ve invested at least 90 minutes into high-priority recruiting tasks.
Stop prioritizing easy tasks. Start prioritizing progress. Your to-do list might feel endless, but only a few key items will push you toward your recruiting goals. Do those things first before the easy stuff. This simple shift changed everything for me once I embraced it.
Moving forward, I want you to do this EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
When planning your day, ask yourself: What three things must I do today to drive my recruiting forward? Then, when you get to the office, don’t start with the easy stuff. Jump into one of those hard tasks first.
By tackling the hard things first, you’ll make progress before the day’s chaos sets in. Remember, as the recruiting coordinator, you’re responsible for the quality of your recruiting class. Don’t let distractions or smaller tasks take control of your recruiting success.
If you make this shift daily, you’ll feel more confident and build momentum. Day by day, you’ll make real progress. Over time, you’ll be far ahead of the competition — those who are still letting distractions affect the quality of their recruiting.
If you want Mandy’s help, go to Busy.Coach for more resources or email her at mandy@busy.coach and we can set up a call to talk through your situation.