Brain in the Game | Sport Mind Coaching Podcast
Dave Diggle
Episode Thirty – Effective Time Management of Athletes
Hello and welcome back to Brain In The Game. Brain In The Game is a podcast specifically designed for athletes, coaches, and parents who are out there looking to do their sport just a little bit smarter. Brain In The Game is a missing puzzle piece we all search for, and I'm your host, Dave Diggle.
In this episode 30, we're going to look at how to get our athletes to be more efficient. We're going to talk about time management. I know when we do, our minds normally instantly dart to business – but we are talking business; creating the business of sport, and more specifically, of creating an athlete. When people ask me where the inspiration for some of my podcast topics come from, more often than not it comes from a structured approach that I have of information shared with a wider community of sporting people. A large proportion comes from the elite Mastermind Group. This is a group of athletes, coaches, and parents who have done some of my trainings and we have an interactive training session once a month online. It's a webinar coaching forum where we get to share our ideas, concerns, and problem-solve.
One of the topics we spoke about this week was managing our athletes more efficiently and effectively and getting more out of them. When we think about elite sport and professional athletes, and their whole focus is on their career, most of them don't hold down a traditional job. They're still studying at school or university, but for the vast majority of them, their focal point is their sport, training, and end objective.
If I asked you to think about either you as an athlete, or the athletes of your coach or your parent, how effective are they with time management? At the end of the day, do you go “Wow, I got everything I wanted to get done today done!”, or do you go “I could've done more” or “I must put this in tomorrow because I should've got it done today...”? I've come across a lot of athletes who fit into that second category where they get to the end of the day and go “I don't know what happened... the day just went. I got up and had great intentions to get things done today... here I am at the end and I'm not quite sure I got any of it done.”
You're not Robinson Crusoe, this isn't a topic you can say “Well that's not me...” because I think every single one of us can look at the efficiency of our day and see how to do it better. There's a smarter way to get more out of your day without just thinking about doing more. We're not trying to just add content so that hopefully some of it hits home and we get our result. I often talk about the sniper versus the machine gunner from a coach's perspective, of information.
This is the same philosophy when we talk about efficiency of action. We want to be that sniper, that person who rocks up and says “I've got 5 things I need to get done today to achieve my objective”, not “Okay, hopefully if I throw 30 things into my day today, those 5 things will get ticked off”. We want to be effective and efficient and manage our time so we get the most out of us, be it as the athlete, coach, parent, or support specialist. When we talk about this topic today, I want you to have in the back your mind, “How does that impact me?”
I'm going to talk a bit about how my coaching business is structured, because I apply this philosophy to how effective and efficient I am during my day. My business is probably 80-83% where coaching comes down to the elite athlete, the coach, or the parents – sport-based. The other percent is businesses who want the same coaching philosophies and sporting mentality in their boardrooms. When I talk about time management, I can see both aspects. I've been an elite athlete and I know deep in my heart that I was not as efficient an athlete as I could've been. I know if someone had taken me aside when I was competing and said “You're training 8 hours a day but really only getting 4-5 hours of consistent, replicable results”, I think I would've grabbed that person by both hands and gone “Show me!”
I'm not a big believer of just “doing more gets you your result.” I've shared an article during the week of someone who debunked the whole “Ten thousand hour philosophy” - where you have to do 10,000 hours of something to be a champion. I don't necessarily believe that. You have to compete to be competitive, and you have to do the skills to be a competitive athlete; but I'm not sure you have to do more just to be better. I know there's loads of athletes out there, I see them every week, who spend countless hours doing more and go nowhere.
We have to look at this about doing things smarter. If you want to, then this is for you. If you firmly believe that if you just do more, you'll get better, let me ask you this: What percentage of your success do you currently enjoy? How successful are you? If you look back over the last 12 months of your career, how efficient were you? If you're a firm believe in the 10k hour approach, out of what percentage of those hours that you've currently done, what return on investment has it given you? If you think you can do that better, listen to this and see if you can adapt them both together.
What percentage of your success do you enjoy as being efficient return on investment of your time and investment, and what results and success would you get if you could increase your efficiency by 25%? Say, if you're hitting 50% of your set objectives and goals currently, where would you be today if you were hitting 75% of them? I'm assuming you'd get a hell of a lot closer to your objective a hell of a lot quicker.
I think everybody can benefit from doing what they do, but smarter, and more efficiently with time management. If we're the kind of athletes or coaches who get out of bed and go “Right... what do I do today. I have my session at 2 and my chiropractor at 5, what do I do between now and then... maybe go for a run?” Not having a structured approach means we probably are not targeting what we need efficiently. There would be a better way of getting more out of us as an efficient machine if we had a better approach to balancing our time, effort, and input.
What if you're the kind of person who gets up in the morning and says “I have 50 things to do today, I'm gonna get them all done.” How good do you feel when you get to the end of the night and go “I've started off with 50 things to do today and...... I've done 7...” I know that would absolutely kill me. I would feel like a complete failure. I'd set this goal of 50 things and only got 7 done – that means 43 things left sitting on the tablet. If you're an elite athlete, you probably have that same philosophy of wanting to get those things done because they'll give you the results, and you get to the end of the day and go “Sigh... that wasn't the day I anticipated...”
If we don't have an approach to our day of a tailored look at what we can achieve and what it will give us, how can we do that? If we could increase efficiency by 25%, and we found an effective way of doing things, that completely changes your life. That person will be much nicer to be around because they're hitting far more of the emotional elements around their life, and making them feel more holistic, more of a whole person. Time management isn't only what you do on the track or in the gym or pool, it has everything to do with the way you live your life as an elite athlete.
If we did have an increase of 25% efficiency in your training and approach in your sport, you'd be more productive, do your time more efficiently, and get more recovery time. You wouldn't be running from one session to the next, to chiropractor to net session to swimming session to running, and all the wasted time between, where you feel like you're under the pump constantly. If we looked at the way you managed your day both logistically and time-wise, and you had an extra 45 minutes to an hour where you could recover, wouldn't that effect the way you approached the next part of your session? That there'd be a greater return on your physical investment? Of course there would.
If you had another 25%, you'd see more opportunity to hit milestones. When we hit those milestones we increase our momentum. Once we get that going, we know we're going to almost railroad our way to hitting our objective. The more momentum we create, the less the external world – our environment – impacts our efficiency to achieve that. If we're crawling along at a snail's pace, then a small gust of “Pfff, that didn't work” from the sidelines could blow us off course more easily. We'll recognize our opportunities in our efficiency. It will be easy to keep an eye on our progress; to know when those wills do go wobbly. If we have a more structured approach, we have more accountability, more calibration. The minute we're off-structure, we become aware of it. We know we're supposed to be doing A and we're over here doing B, so what's going wrong? Rather than waiting for the train crash, and hitting the ground going “Oh... man... I've been off track for the last 3 weeks”; we could be 3 weeks prior, see the wobble in the wheels, and going “Woah, I need to keep on track better.”
Add structure to our day, so we know what to expect. There's no hidden surprises. We don't get up and have someone go to us “You know you're supposed to be over here in an hour”. If we have that structured approach, we know the day before or even the week before that we need to do that. In actual fact, it gives us more flexibility. It gives us the opportunity to plan. We know whatever happens in our life, be it family events or friends, we can slot them in. We don't go “Oh, I've got a competition in 2 weeks, I didn't think about it, I have to get my training done.” If we've got our structure and know that our personal time is great opportunity for us to recharge, that's part and parcel of our structure and has to be there. We can build that in. We do get far more flexibility.
So how does this work? How can we reliably build a time-management system as an athlete? I said at the start that I'd explain how I do this in my business. When I sit down and initially start looking at how I spend my time, I take myself out the equation and look at it like a consultant. I go “How efficient is that business? For the time, money, and effort spent in certain areas, are we getting a return on investment? Are we efficient? Do we spend more time in one area but neglect another area? Are we reactionary or responsive?” If we react to each day whatever happens, it's unlikely we'll be efficient. It we're responsive, where something comes up and we have a system to respond to that, the likelihood is the system we put in place is efficient.
From the outside looking in, I see where I want to put my time and where I need to. A need is an action – what do I need to do to make this happen? And a want is an emotional buy-in. Needs and wants are both critical to getting things done, but both have very critical impacts on how we get them done. If we need something, it's an action, a tick in the box and a move on. A want will drive us forward through sticky times when things are rough, working 18 hour days, where you want your athletes to succeed and you prepare to put yourself into it. Needs are very easy to push to the side, wants are very difficult to push to the side.
When I'm looking at the business and how efficient things are, I look at what things are non-negotiable. What has to happen every day/week/month? What things just have to happen – sleep, eat, spend time with people, etc. I put them in a black-outlined box. Then I look at things that are, in order for me to be efficient, what I must have. “Time with family”. One way I run the business the way I do is so that at least 3 times a week I can take my kids to school. I like to spend that parent time with them, interact with them at school, and with the other teachers around them. For me, that's a must-have.
I must have time for me and my wife. We must do things together. I must have some time just for me. At the moment I'm recovering from a broken foot, but normally I'd have time for me doing my run and I'd build that into my day. Every single day, I'd do something for me – whether it's running, ocean swimming, or just unplugging from the grid with no phones, no internet, just walking. I put that in a blue box.
Then I look at my needs. What are my needs? I need to have time to build my programs. For every hour I spend working with an athlete, I have to spend 2-3 hours preparing for that. It's just part and parcel of what has to happen in order for me to do my job.
What are my wants? What do I want to happen in order to be efficient and effective in my time management day to day? I want to be in a good mental place, so I want to position myself where I'm not being distracted. I want to feel a certain way so when I'm solving others' problems and building a structured plan of their training, I want to be in a right frame of mind.
Lastly, what are the “nice” things? I'm very fortunate, I live right next to the ocean. That's a nice thing for me to go out every day, spend time in the fresh air. These are nice things that make what I do more effective and efficient. I don't mind spending time in the office when I can just look up at the ocean. It effects the way my efficiency is. If I was in a box and couldn't see out of a room with no windows, I'd probably be up and out of the office more frequently than sitting down and it would effect my productivity.
So what are the non-negotiables? Athletes, same as me, need sleep. Nutrition. Training and coaching. They must have the right equipment, time to train, and time to get to training. What are the mechanics of their needs? Maybe they need a chiropractor to manage their body, or a nutritionist, or a mind coach. Whatever their needs are, they put those into their box.
What are their wants? They're going to want structure around them that enables them to tick boxes. They'll want the right people around them that will feed the different aspects of their professional career, who seed a need for that emotional aspect. They'll want the right technical team around them, the right physical team.
Something we haven't spoken about is the importance of off-time. We've talked in previous podcast sessions about when we're not the athlete, and how that enables us to mentally and physically recharge, so that we're more effective and efficient when we step into the athlete student mode versus the pure-athlete performer mode. The off-time is just as critical as the on-time and has to be given the same credibility.
Once we have the whole list of non-negotiables, must-haves, needs, wants, we need to build that into our structure or calendar. The first thing I would ask now is if you're a morning person or night person? For me, I'm far more productive getting up at 5 AM than I am sitting up at 11 PM trying to get things done. I know that so I structure my day trying to get things done. I know that so I structure my day very heavy in the morning and tapering off in the evening.
However, I know many people who are the other way around, useless in the morning and struggling. Asking them to get to do things when the first wake up isn't going to get the most out of that person. You might need to switch that around and build more top-heavy later in the evening. When are you most productive? That doesn't mean when you currently spend most of your time – for me I have three children so I'm often up 11 or 12 at night or overnight, because it's quiet and I have to manage myself through that, as I know it's not my most productive time, but the only time available.
So not necessarily where you're spending most of your time, but where you'd want to spend your time? Where do you get the most out of you? Where do you feel most productive and alive? For me it's the morning, I'm a get out of bed and get things done kind of person. Come 8 o'clock at night I'm playing nodding dog sitting with myself. Build yourself a grid, a Monday-Sunday calendar. Without thinking about your current training regime, start putting all those non-negotiable things in there. Where would you put them? Obviously sleep... I have clients who tell me “I'm up to 1-2 AM and then I sleep until 11 AM the next day”. If that pattern works for you, then go ahead and put it in. If that makes your life difficult because people want you to be places at 9AM and you're still sleeping until 11, that's going to cause issues.
Once we've got the black non-negotiables on the calendar, what about the blue must-haves? Where would we put those to get the most out of you? If you have a must-have session, put it in where it would be most productive for you. And, do the same for the needs, the wants, and the nice. Fill out your day, then your week, and look at it.
When you look at this calendar we've just built, the first thing you'll notice probably is the space between – the amount of off-time. You'll go “Where did that come from?? I've been running ragged for the last 12 months and I swear none of that spare time has been there!” In reality, it's always been there, you've just not been able to manage yourself efficiently enough to utilize it.
When you now look at that and you've got this structure that's optimum for you, now comes reality. There are sessions with your coaches or whatever it is that you have to slot in that might conflict with other things you've got in there. That's why the beauty of this is compartmentalizing. We've turned around and said “These things are more important than those things”. If I need to shuffle things around, I now have a system where I know what to move first. I know what I need t have, what I want to have, what's non-negotiable, and other things I can slide around.
Go ahead now and put in where your coaching sessions are with your support specialist. Now when you look at your calendar for the week and see all these blocks of clear, free time, what do you want to do with those? Are there things you've been putting off because you thought you didn't have time? You can probably slot them in now. Or do you look at it now and say “Finally, I can spend some time with my family” or friends, or just by yourself rejuvenating. The choice is yours. We've created a system of hierarchy and of your managing your time far more efficiently. It gives you the opportunity to constantly calibrate. Would that week be the same if it was competition week, or if you're away on tour? No. You need to create a competition version, or one when you're away on tour. That gives you consistency and familiarity and control. All these things that impact incredibly on your performance. It's you, maximizing you, and using all the assets you have to the best ROI.
It also allows you to manage you physically better. You're less likely to be mentally and emotionally fatigued, which means you're less likely to have injuries. By you taking control of your training schedule, and looking at yourself as an athlete like you were a business – from the outside in – and saying “I'd get more out of me by doing this and this in this order”, you are taking control of your end-step objective. You will get there quicker, healthier, and far more efficiently.
Until our next training session, train smart and enjoy the ride. My name's Dave Diggle, and I'm the mind coach.
Copyright 2012-2022 Dave Diggle
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