By Mandy Green,

Mandy is the Head Soccer Coach at The University of South Dakota. She is also an Author, Speaker, Trainer and Consultant. She has posted many useful tools for coaches on her site Busy.Coach

I am speaking in a few weeks to all of the amazing coaches who will be at Camp Elevate. As I am preparing my Time Management 101 speech, I am remembering a conversation that I had with a coach while we were out recruiting a few weeks ago.

It went something like this. “Mandy, I know that I am stressed, overwhelmed, busy doing random stuff all day, and not making the progress I want with my program. I know I need to manage my time better and get organized, but I don’t even know where to begin.”

My response to this coach was that I believe all coaches need to approach time management in exactly the same way that they approach their practices.

For a typical practice:

1. Every minute of practice is accounted for and no time is wasted.
2. Everything is proactively planned in advance and organized.
3. Top priorities to work on take up the majority of practice and are worked on first.
4. Tasks have been delegated to other coaches based on their strengths.
5. There are water breaks in between activities.
6. Whistles or horns sound when it is time to move onto the next stage of practice
7. Coaches reflect after practice is done on what went well and what didn’t so they can make tomorrow better.

BUT, for some reason when it comes to getting work done in the office, a lot of coaches just simply go into their office with no plan, react to everything around them, take no scheduled breaks, and choose to do whatever grabs their attention next until it is time to leave the office! Doing things this way is very inefficient and a lot of time is wasted. And worst of all, no progress is made towards building the program of your dreams!!

The more structure you have during your work time means you get more work done. It means you get further ahead with your program. It means you have to work less outside of your work time.

Ok, let’s plan your day in the office tomorrow just like you would plan practice.

When you start planning your day in the office, just like you would when planning practices for your team, make sure to strategically think about and write down what you could do during the day to move your program forward.

1. Plan everything in advance the day or night before. While there are exceptions to the rule, generally you can’t expect to just show up for practice with no plan of what you are going to do for the day and have it be a good productive practice. The same holds true for the office. Write down on a master to-do list all of the tasks you need to get done the next day.
2. Then decide which of those tasks that need to get done are the most important for moving your program forward and then schedule them into your calendar. Everything else can wait.
3. Coaches tend to set up their practices by doing their most important drills when they know their team is focused and has the best energy. Do the same for your most important work in the office and you will produce higher quality work in a shorter amount of time.
4. When a time limit is put on a drill, it creates urgency for coaches so they will work like crazy to get as much productive stuff done with their team in the time allotted. Like you do for your drills at practice, schedule all office tasks in 15, 30, 60, or 90 minute intervals and then keep to the clock.
5. How much more do you accomplish with your teams when they are paying attention and putting all of their focus and energy into what you are working on in practice? The same holds true for getting stuff done in the office. The quality of your work declines and the time it takes to get tasks done increases when you not 100% focused on the task at hand.
6. Avoid multi-tasking. You would never jump from drill to drill as new drills pop into your head. Once you start working on something in the office, continue to work on only that task until it is finished.

I could go on and on but you get the idea.

For you coach, once your to-do list is organized based on your goals and vision for your program, it becomes a map to guide you from morning to evening in the most effective and efficient way. This guide tells you what you have to do. It also helps you decide what is urgent and what is not, saving you a lot of time. Time that you might have otherwise wasted on less important busy-work that isn’t necessarily going to move your program forward.

This article was provided by Busy.Coach, a great source of ideas for the coach that want to improve their productivity

By Mandy Green

So as you are headed back to work after the (Memorial) holiday break, hopefully you have already set up your plan of attack.  Are you ready to have the best year, best month, best week, and best day ever with your program, recruiting, and career as a coach?

If your response to that sentence was, “yeah right, I wish,” I imagine that your 2016-2017 school year was filled with people, texts, emails, and voice messages begging for your time, attention, and energy.

As you look back over this past year, would you say that you had more wins or losses for you each day work wise?  By winning, I mean did walk into your office with a plan and then you dominated your day by actually getting your most important work done?  I would consider the day a loss if you found yourself giving your time, attention, and energy away freely to anybody who asked for it.  And then before you knew it, your days were gone and you had no sense of accomplishment or progress.

If you are finding that more often than not, your days were on the frustrating side because you didn’t feel like you made any significant progress towards your vision and goals, it goes back at some point to how you are prioritizing things during those days.

How have you been doing in this department? Really think about it. Do you feel like you are proactive and in control of your days or do you just wake up and respond to everybody all day? Obviously as coaches, we have to be available to our team, staff, administration, and recruits, but not as much as you may think or are currently doing.

Today I want to teach you one new way to think about your prioritization. When you do a better job of prioritizing things, I know that you will find that you will start having more wins than losses day by day.

Stop prioritizing the easy.  You know if you are guilty of prioritizing easy if your day feels like there is a whole lot of busy work but you don’t feel as if you’re spending a significant amount of time on work that can make your program better.  I’m sure that you probably intended to do a significant amount of high priority work before you got in the office.  But you think that to get a great start to the day and to build some momentum, you will just get some of the easy things off of your to-list. And then what tends to happen is that you never ever really get around to doing work that will really move the needle for your program.

Coach, you set up your day.  You can choose to do things first that will make a real difference in your program and could change your program for the better in a significant way.  Sure, those other things need to get done.  But choose to do them only after you have spent at least 90 minutes on high priority things.

Stop prioritizing easy, “prioritize progress”.  Things that matter to your program. When you are planning your day, ask yourself, what 3 things must happen today that will get me some real movement forward? I want you to take on something hard every single day. If you do that you will start to find yourself getting a little bit more confident, more momentum, and more into that space where you’ll feel like you are doing things you were meant to do.

For more great ideas to improve your productivity visit Busy.Coach

This post came from Bob Starkey’s (Longtime D1 Assistant Coach–currently at Texas A & M) Basketball Coaching Blog, hoopthoughts.blogspot.com.

Editor’s Note from Brian: I believe that this post has lessons for both Head and Assistant Coaches of all sports.

Last night I was talking to a colleague about our profession.  At times it can certainly seem like a roller coaster.  He wanted to know what the key was for having an extended career in coaching.  I was reminded off a presentation I gave a few years back at the A Step Up Assistant Coaching Symposium.  The topic given to me by Felicia Hall Allen was “The Art of Extending Your Career.”

I opened with this:

THE GOAL IS NOT THE GOAL

“While I am assigned to talk to you about extending your career, I’m going to go a different direction saying that extending your career should not be the goal.  The goal is to become the best assistant coach you can become on a daily basis and an extended career will follow.”

I think the first thing we need to decide in coaching is what is our “Why.”  We must have an overriding purpose for coaching — it has to be the centerpiece of our culture and what we stand for.  For me, the growth of the student-athlete has to be #1 on the priority list.

I spoke about studying Nick Saban and the philosophy he has in regard to the process.  The process is keeping focused on the task at hand — executing as well as you can with what directly lies in front of you at that very moment.   Coach Saban does not want his players looking at the scoreboard.  His belief is that the time and score have absolutely nothing to with the intensity and concentration you need to utilize on the very next play.

I believe the same is true with our careers.  If we are getting up in the morning thinking about extending our career or looking ahead at that next job than we are taking away energy that we need to utilizing on what is really important — today!  The absolute best way to move of the ladder as well as extend our career is to own and master that which has been given to us at this very moment.

One of the areas that I spoke about was Professionalism.  I firmly believe that ethical choices are a full-time job.  It must be character over victory.  Don’t let a short-term gain for a win be overshadowed by a poor choice you made to try and get an edge.

THE TRUE IMPORTANCE OF WINNING

Of course, our biggest obstacle is winning.  We are expected to win immediately and constantly.  And don’t get me wrong, winning is important as the following thought from Vince Lombardi points out:

It’s true.  If we want to continue to impact young people through coaching…if we want to have a positive contribution to our communities — we have to win — to keep our jobs.

I gave the example of a coach being hired at a BCS program and having a record of 38-47 after his first three years.  The last home game of his third season, he lost to his rival by 24 points.  He then went to his conference tournament and lost by 43!

I asked the coaches at the clinic “What do you think the athletic director did the next week?”

Of course, they all answered “Fire the coach.”

They were stunned when I told them the AD gave the coach an extension.  I then told them the AD was Duke’s Tom Butters and the coach was Mike Krzyzewski.

Those days are over.  The days when an administrator can see through the losses to see that a coach is doing the right things and building something.  I’ve heard Coach K speak at clinics and he even admits that if he were hired today and got off to the same start that he’d never see his fourth year.

Still, we can’t let winning be a conflict of interest.  We can’t be overly consumed or blinded so much in trying to win that we turn our head to discipline and our culture.  The best coaches are willing fight for the culture even if it might cost them a victory.

That’s not to say winning isn’t important.  Certainly we have to teach winning to our teams.  As a young student at Marshall University, the basketball coach at the time, the late Stu Aberdeen spoke about the importance of winning.  As he explained, when we are on the operating table fighting for our life, we better hope that the doctors and nurses have a strong desire to win.  Coach Aberdeen explained that should we ever be falsely accused in a court of law, that we better hope our attorney has driven to win.

As I mentioned earlier, ethical choices are a full time job — and I do believe there is a right way to win and a wrong way to win.  If you are a principled person that means a great deal.  I posed the question to the coaches at the symposium — “are you willing to lose your job?”  Do you believe so much in the principles of integrity that you would walk away from a job that did not share in your beliefs?

BE A CONTINUAL LEARNER

The second part of the process of staying in this business is becoming a continual learner.  There must be a fire within to constantly be seeking knowledge to help you grow as a person and a teacher.

My suggestion to the coaches in the audience was to become an expert at something in your sport.  Pick something and learn it at the highest level.  I think it is always important to be a good recruiter but don’t be labeled as such because you don’t excel in other areas.

Today there are so many clinics to attend: Coaching U, Nike, PGC/Glazier.  There are tons of great blogs and Youtube loaded with information.  Have you attended a practice session of another coach? If not, you are missing out on some of the game’s best teachers.

One other factor in being a continual learner today is the not just accept but to embrace technology.  Whether it’s social media, apps for our phones and iPads or every improving methods of watching and breaking down video — it’s all there in front of us to help us improve.

FIND BALANCE

The next part of extending a career is to find balance.  I spend a great deal of time in my office — always have and always will.  But I find a way to incorporate my wife with our program.  She has always been a big part of our culture.  Whether it’s having the team over to decorate our Christmas tree, throwing a Mardi Gras party in February or just having them over for an occasional home cooked meal, Sherie has always been active in helping us serve our student-athletes.

It’s also important to plan family time.  Schedule time for your spouse and children throughout the season — and honor those commitments.  I learned most of this the hard way.  I once coached eight consecutive summers without a vacation.  I stayed up all night in the office two nights a week during the season watching video and getting scouting reports ready.  Then my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer!  It was an amazing paradigm shift for me and give me instant perspective.

Coach Don Meyer also talking about having “your time,” where it is just you.  It can be a time of meditation or reflection.  For me, I like to do it early in the morning while everyone is still asleep.  I can catch up on some reading or spend some time writing in my journal.

Yet another example of helping you with balance is creating a circle of influence.  A handful of people that your believe in and trust.  Most importantly, these people need to be someone that love you enough to tell you the truth. Someone that can tell you you’re full of crap when you are.  Some can be coaches but it’s always good to have some non-coaches in your circle.

TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR FINANCES

Part 4 of an extended career is the handling of your finances.  I shared with the coaches, and especially tried to get through to the younger ones that my biggest regret in coaching wasn’t a decision on the floor but it was not getting involved with a financial planner early in my career.  I have had one the past 20 years and the results (and security) are amazing!  Many young coaches don’t think they make enough money to work with a planner — that’s actually all the more reason you should.  One of the first things that Kay Martin of Ameriprise did was talk to me about short-term and long-term goals.  Part of that process was to create an emergency fund that I would pay into gradually to where we would have three months worth of salary to live on should anything happen.  Well, we have far more than three months now and its a great feeling to have that type of security — not just for me but for my family.

I also have a special tax accountant that understands my profession and helps to keep that organized and more importantly, helps me maximize all of the possible exemptions and write offs available to me.

BE FLEXIBLE

Next on the list of theories for having a long career is your ability to have flexibility.  It is a game, no a world, that is constantly evolving and changing. As assistant coaches we have to adjust to changes on our staff…we tend to change jobs a couple of times we must adjust to head coaches…we must adjust to administration…we must adjust to the times.  The best way to adjust is to stay open minded — be a good communicator (which means a lot of listening as an assistant coach).

We must also adjust to the players.  This does not mean give in and allow the players to dictate policy.  But I firmly believe every player has a story and it is our job as coaches to learn that story.  Our ability to know them at a deeper level is critical for us to help them.  At UCF, we utilized Bill Rogers (who worked with Pat Summitt’s Lady Vols along with some professional teams) in order to learn about their personalities.  What was their leadership potential? What were the primary motivators for each individual?  How did they best learn — were they audio, visual or physical learners?  And then we adjust how we teach to meet them in the middle, where they can best be taught.

BE A PROBLEM SOLVER

Not enough resources? Solve it.
Not enough post players or shooters? Solve it.
Lacking in facilities? Solve it.
Team chemistry problems? Solve it.

I’m not sure that there is not at least one minor problem per day in coaching — but you have to solve it.  Solving problems to me begins with attitude.  Working for Coach Dale Brown I learned that we were not to use the word “problem” but we were to use the word “opportunity.”  Coach Brown would tell us not to come in his office with a problem unless we were ready to offer a solution.  When people ask me what made Coach Brown so successful, again there are several reasons.  But one was he was a solution-oriented person when it came to problems.  He would amaze me with his attitude — almost excited that a problem had arisen because he loves the challenge of defeating it.

HAVE A SYSTEM OF ORGANIZATION

The final area I touched on was to become organized and primarily I was talking about improving your ability to document everything.  All conversations I have I follow up with the person I was speaking to with a short email of bullet points.  I do this with my players as well.  If I meet with a player to go over video, we both take notes and I email them to her.  Of course discussions of behavior — both positive and negative — are followed up with an email.

I’m a big believer in writing handwritten notes — even with all the technology today.  I love to write a handwritten note to a player and stick it in her locker.  I also screen shot text messages — positive and negative with players for my files.  I want as complete a written file on dealings with players, coaches, administrators, media and anyone else on the professional level.

We live in a time where you need to have your bases covered.

The final suggestion for extending your career?  Enjoy the ride! Embrace the grind — even the problem solving.  The best coaches I’ve been around get a rise out of solving a problem.  You must be passionate about what you do but you still need a plan — the role of an assistant coach is never easy but it is important.  Accept that role and challenge yourself to be the very best your can be.