| Evaluating
Just as coaches must assess their teams' strength and weaknesses prior to planning a season, they must also evaluate their present usage of time before making changes. It is important to discover what is causing stress, procrastination, disorganization, and what tasks eat the most time. Common causes and symptoms of poor time management include:
- Over-scheduling by relying on time that probably is not available.
- Setting aside unfinished tasks and letting things pile up.
- Lacking focus and purpose by hopping from task to task without a sense of priority.
- Obliviousness to bad personal management habits.
Time management can affect the entire work environment surrounding a team. By mismanaging time, you can create a stressful and inefficient environment for yourself and your team and your co-workers. Thus, time management is a performance issue. Coaches must be aware of behaviors that create a poor working situation by evaluating and monitoring their time management and organization.
Planning
Coaches often do not allocate enough time to plan because they think they do not have enough time to do things as it is, let alone enough extra time to plan. However, setting aside planning time will actually save time in the future, because planning provides direction and focus that leads to greater efficiency and productivity. Just as putting together a puzzle requires first seeing the finished product, you can not achieve at maximum productivity without a clear vision of what that means and what it will take to get there.
Having a vision, or a final outcome, in mind leads naturally to setting goals to achieve the vision. Goals establish the direction that you intend to go, and the plans establish the best way to get there. Set both long-term and short-term goals, as goals should be set for career direction, the season, the off-season, the week, and the day. Once you set goals, it is imperative to lay out the road map of how you plan to achieve them. Your plan and goals must be clearly stated to everyone who can affect the team: assistants, athletic directors, secretaries, parents, and athletes. Establishing clear expectations for everyone reduces uncertainty and increases collective productivity.
Organization
Organization is essential to time management. Organization refers to creating a structure and framework to ensure efficiency and productivity.
A good organization technique for time management is to have written plans. Organized coaches have written schedules for the year, season, off-season, month and week. Post written training schedules for your team, and make a personal schedule for your own time. Written plans will keep you organized and on track, but they will also help your team and co-workers be aware of your expectations.
On a daily basis, having a written plan and prioritized "to-do" list ensures that your spend most of your time on essential jobs, and limits the amount of time spent on routine and less important tasks. If possible, work on one task at a time, so that you can focus on and complete it. Plan to do tasks that are the most important when you know you will have the most energy and least distractions. To take care of routine tasks efficiently, devote a short amount of time to only these tasks; for example, set aside 45 minutes a day to return phone calls.
Time management techniques can also make your practice more effective. Present a daily practice schedule to your team; by knowing what is expected of them during practice, your team will be more productive during practice. To make good use of practice time, limit the amount of time spent on drills and warm-ups that are not directed at advancing the team towards its daily goal. Having daily practice goals can help keep coaches, assistants, managers, and athletes focused on what the team and coaches are trying to accomplish.
To maximize time spent on important tasks, you must delegate effectively. All staff members must know their jobs and be able to handle them without constant assistance, instruction, or supervision. At practice, delegate routine tasks, such as stretching, warm-up drills, clock management, and equipment to captains, managers, and assistants. Delegation is an important technique in management, and effective delegation can lead to a very efficient program.
Control
Once you have evaluated, planned, and organized your time, its management is then dependent on how well you control it. Time management is a control issue. Do you control your time, or does it control you? To control your time, you must guard against interruptions. The daily barrage of phone calls, impromptu meetings, and office visits can eat away time.
The best control technique is learning how to say "NO." If it does not help you move closer to your goals, say "no." If you are busy, it is sometimes better to be selfish with your time. This is hard, especially when asked to give talks or help with clinics. You can still do these things, but it is better to limit them to times when you are not as busy, such as the off-season.
References:
Kelley, Betty, "Your Personal Management." Coaching Women's Basketball, December/January (1993): 18-21.
Kozoll, Charles. Coaches Guide to Time Management. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 1985.
Leonard, Richard. "Applying Managerial Principles to Coaching, Part II: Organization." Coaching Volleyball. June/July (1996): 18-23.
Spargo M, Hill K, "Time Management for the Coach." Sports Psychology Bulletin, October (1991):4-5.
Virgilio S, Krebs P, Smith J. "How to Play (and Win) the Game of Time Management." Coaching Clinic. April (1993): 15-16.
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