by Mandy Green, Coaching Productivity Strategies
Keeping track of every single detail is exhausting. We deplete a lot of mental energy every day trying to remember what to do next.
I want to help you minimize your brain power depletion by creating systems where you don’t have to think about every aspect of a task anymore. It’s pretty easy and simple to set up. Ultimately, it will make you more effective and will get you better results when these systems are in place.
Right now, think about a task that you do with recruiting or in the office on a regular basis. Even though you may do this task often, this task is something that sometimes takes longer than it should because you forgot to do something or you can’t track down the information that you need.
For me, a few years ago, that task was planning a last minute on-campus visit. Even though I have set up visits 100x or more over the course of my career, setting up visits was not one of my duties with my current staff. When this visit camp up, I found myself the only one of our staff around. I hadn’t done the leg work to set up a visit for a long time, so while I had a general idea of what to do, it took a while to remember a lot of the steps, I wasted a lot of time tracking down the paperwork, and I eventually realized that I forgot a few things.
At the time, it was very stressful and time-consuming. It took me 3x longer than it should have because I didn’t have a system in place.
I define a system as an ordered and proven process that saves you time and stress and unnecessary thought processes. Now, please don’t let that sound overwhelming or more grandiose than what it really is. A system is something as simple as a checklist. It’s literally just writing down the steps and making sure don’t forget any of them.
Where could you create systems in your coaching life?
Preseason, team travel, travel for recruiting, on-campus visits, camps, game day, and recruiting trips are a few quick ones that come to mind.
So for an example, let’s start creating your system for setting up an official visit
- Start by writing clear and concise notes about each and every step of a task. (I.E. Agree on a date, time and location to meet; send welcome to campus email with directions; make sure the player is registered with the clearinghouse; get their transcripts and official visit paperwork in; contact admissions to set up an admissions counselor meeting, etc.)
- Record as many details as you can like phone numbers, email address (I.E. Email and phone number for contact in Admissions)
- Make sure that everybody who’s involved knows what’s expected
- What are the deadlines?
- Everything is in one, easy-to-find folder.
All those things above seem pretty common sense.
But, I cannot stress enough how important it is to have created a system where everything is written down to make sure that you don’t miss any important ingredients. It will allow you to seamlessly transition if you add new staff members.
And once you have your system written down, you can analyze it. What’s working, what’s not working? Then you can work to perfect the process. When you improve your method or process, you will improve your results and significantly reduce the time it takes to complete the tasks.
You can set up systems for a lot of what we do as coaches in the office. It does take some time up front to set these systems up, but it will be well worth it when you realize how much time you save in the long run.
If you want help setting up your systems, please email me at mandy@mandygreencps.com. Or if you have your systems already set up, I would love to hear how they are working for you.