by Mandy Green, Busy Coach
Better day by day execution starts the night before.
95% of our workdays as college coaches are for practice, recruiting, and office work.
A lot of our success on game day comes down to doing a better job of winning those Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays in the office.
Results-getting performances on and off of the field boils down to better day by day execution.
It’s crucial to have key success habits in place to keep you on track so you can accomplish what you intend to accomplish every day.
Now, there are a lot of success habits I could cover. For this article, since I am a true believer that our nights determine our days, I want to share 7 quick and easy tasks you should do every evening to set yourself up to win your days.
1. Make a Quick Start list. Planning your day the night before is good. But what’s more important is how you start. I make “Quick Start” lists.
How they work:
Write down 1-2 priorities for tomorrow. Then write down the *first* step for each. Not 4 things and not 7 steps. The goal isn’t to plan all your work. It’s to automate just how you’ll to start. Now put the list on your desk for the morning.
2. Prep the first food you’ll eat. A good day begins with high-quality fuel. It doesn’t matter what time, just that it’s good. Prepping the first thing you’ll eat the night before takes thinking out of it.
A few examples:
Take the eggs you’ll scramble out of the carton and put them in a bowl. Cut the fruit you’ll eat and put in a container. If it doesn’t need to be in the fridge, put it on the counter. Make it an obvious choice in the morning.
3. Clean your work area. Research shows clutter impacts us in many ways. It affects our emotions, behaviors + relationships. It increases stress and anxiety. It even impacts how we sleep. An underrated life hack: Clean your desk each night.
4. Fill up a gallon water bottle. 75% of Americans are “chronically dehydrated.” That’s staggering. But there’s an easy fix.
First, buy a gallon water bottle on Amazon.
Now, fill it up before bed each night. Then place it where you go start your morning. The kitchen table. Your desk. A reading chair. I’ve done this every morning for 6 months. I’ve missed my daily “water goal” twice.
5. Schedule 1 hour for you. Time alone is incredibly high-ROI. It’s good for our health. It’s good for our creativity. It’s good for keeping us sane. But it’s easy to forget when life gets busy. Don’t. Each night, schedule 1 hour for you.
6. Start on one 1 top priority. What’s one high value/program building task you have to do tomorrow? Get your top 10 recruits to schedule a campus visit? Organize a camp? Whatever. Spend 5 minutes on it the night before. The goal isn’t to finish. Just to create momentum. That little “win” drives consistency tomorrow plus it will reduce the friction to get started.
7. Eliminate 1 thing. Pull up tomorrow’s calendar. What’s 1 thing you can take off? Meetings are a great place to start. Honor commitments but delete the non-essential. Deletion creates a mental “sigh of relief.” Bonus points if you can eliminate 2 things.
Try it. Will they go perfectly the first time? Probably not. But at least if you try and take action on something, you can learn from it.
As coaches, we are always shooting for high levels of performance with our teams and staff.
Want more strategies to help you be a more productive college coach? Mandy Green is the go-to productivity expert for college coaches. Set up a strategy call with her by emailing her at mandy@busy.coach.