Nine or ten thousand unread emails seems to be normal for typical student these days. And then they wonder why they might not have seen that important email from me! Or why they did see it, marked it as unread, and subsequently forgot to respond. Somebody’s (or many-bodies) inbox needs sorting out!
And here’s some handy tips to help you do just that.
Understand the importance of email
No doubt, you’re used to receiving communications in a variety of formats on a daily basis. WhatsApp messages, Twitter mentions and DMs, text messages, emails to multiple accounts, not to mention communication via Snapchat, Instagram, and all the other social media platforms that you’re signed up to. On top of that there are the occasional to rare phonecalls. Sometimes working out what’s important or not important can be very difficult. I’m even reliably informed that people’s mums prefer to WhatsApp their children than call them these days, so, yes, understanding what’s important can be close to impossible.
Outside of work settings, emails – which revolutionised communication in the nineties (before that it was just fax machines, the postal system, and good old-fashioned landlines, when they were just called telephones because there was no other type of phone) – have quickly gone out of fashion. Everyone has an email account (if not 3 or 4), but for many it’s a less than popular form of communication. Fair enough. Apart from the fact that some very important information is still passed on via email. Those who work in the real world (university lecturers, sports scholarship providers, national governing bodies, prospective employers – the important people, basically) are not just more likely to contact you by email, but in some cases it is the only form of communication open to them. Emails are important! University emails are particularly important, and while you may not want to receive emails berating you for not attending class, they may still be useful and important. Get into the habit of checking your university email account on a regular basis.
Deal with things straight away
Delete unwanted emails when you see them. Respond to emails that require a response straight away – you’re going to have to respond anyway, so why not do it now. If you don’t have time to respond, then why are you checking your emails right now? Find a time of the day where you can check your emails, delete unwanted ones, and respond where appropriate.
Reduce the number of promotional emails you receive
The biggest contributor to unread emails are promotional newsletters from companies which you have purchased things from before. They are emails which you never will, or never have to, read. Booking.com is a major offender, along with other hotel and travel sites, online retailers, etc. They send you emails for no other reason than to promote further products and services to you. Reducing or getting rid of these is a good starting point.
1. Take note of the people you get emails from that you never read
2. Unsubscribe from their mailing list (all promotional emails should have an ‘unsubscribe’ option at the bottom. Some email providers, e.g. Hotmail, will let you delete old emails from that sender when unsubscribing)
3. If you’re worried that you won’t be able to receive important emails from these people (e.g. booking confirmations), you should still be able to update your preferences
4. When buying online in the future, make sure that you untick the box to receive further promotional information from these suppliers (or tick the box that says you don’t want to receive their promotional emails)
Some providers offer additional tidy-up features and tools to help you stay on top of your important emails. Gmail, for example, gives you the option to separate your inbox into personal, social and promotional folders. It is not completely fool proof, in that some important emails can end up in the social or promotional folders, but it is a good starting point.
Reduce your social media alert emails
Social media alerts are another big contributor to unread emails. All social media platforms will give you the option to select what alerts you receive. In most cases you will only need to know when someone has sent you a direct message that you may need to respond to. You don’t need to know that Jonny responded to Mary’s post or that Paddy liked Jimmy’s picture. When you get an email about something on social media, it should be a prompt to check that social media platform and respond accordingly (not that most people need reminding that to check their social media accounts these days).
Remember junk is not always junk
Occasionally, important emails can end up in your junk email. Check your junk folder from time to time and make sure that no genuine mail is ending up in there. Sometimes emails from senders you don’t respond to, or emails that are sent to multiple recipients can inadvertently end up with the spam folder alongside the offers of money from Nigerian princes, and the phishing emails from fake Paypal accounts. If valuable emails are ending up in the junk folder, take time to mark them as safe, and add the sender to your safe list. If you’re a little unsure if someone is genuine or not, hovering over the sender to see what their email address is, is usually a good starting point. Most scammers have very fake looking addresses.
Get over the FOMO!
We probably all suffer a bit from the fear of missing out. But while we’re so busy making sure that we’re not missing out on social media conversations and updates, we’re actually missing out on what’s going on around us. Yes, the internet can help you stay in touch with friends, help you punch in time while on a bus or waiting in a queue, and be an important source of information, but you should never be living your entire life via the internet and social media. Decide what things you need to be informed of (and the latest Kim Kardashian news probably isn’t really that interesting), what alerts you really need to receive on your phone (remembering that you don’t need your phone to ‘ding’ every time someone shares a rabbit-ear selfie of themselves), what you really need the internet for, and then get busy living your real life. Give the real world your full attention.
Reduce study-time distractions
Many students tell me that they can’t study at home. That there are too many distractions. That the only place they can study is in the library, and that getting to the library takes up too much time. Realising that their phone is the biggest distraction, and learning to put it away during study time, can revolutionise their productivity and how they study. Unless you’re waiting for an important phonecall, you don’t need your phone anywhere near you while you’re studying. Be disciplined. And if you do need the internet to check facts or get additional information, make a list of things you need to look up, and do them all together when you need a break after a productive hour or two. If you are working on a laptop, PC or tablet, make sure that you don’t have notifications popping up in the corner and distracting you from what you should be doing.
There are numerous different ways of communicating. Yes, there will be important stuff that you shouldn’t miss (emails from your university, what’s app notifications from your club, perhaps, and text messages from your mum), but you don’t always need to know what everyone else is doing and thinking every moment of every day. Monitor what is important to you, and take steps to ensure that you receive the important stuff, and are not distracted by they unimportant stuff. Taking a few easy steps will help ensure that you are living the life you want for yourself, not somebody else’s fake social media life.
Showing posts with label Time Management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Time Management. Show all posts
Saturday, 7 April 2018
Wednesday, 4 May 2016
Time management tips for student-athletes
Exam season is now upon us. Many student-athletes will be busy trying to balance the time demands of revision, the stress of exams, and the physical and mental challenges of training. Check out our Time Management Tips factsheet for some ideas on how to get the most out of your time.
Best of luck in the exams, and remember, no matter how you do, life still holds numerous wonderful possibilities that you can't even imagine right now.
Tuesday, 26 August 2014
Lifestyle, personal development and welfare support
There's more to high performance sport than training for an event, turning up, and competing. Athletes, particularly in the professional era, have a lot to think about. Eating healthily on a tight budget, keeping their finances in order, balancing a social life with an intense training programme, dealing with the media, keeping sponsors happy, handling the expectations of others, coping with long periods of time on the road, building functional relationships with coaches and teammates, keeping anti-doping whereabouts information up-t-date, and dealing with injury and other setbacks, are just some of the additional challenges faced by athletes. Add to that the everyday demands of human life, work and educational commitments, personal relationships and financial concerns, and the busy life of the athlete, becomes the hectic life of the person.
With all these concerns and issues to balance, it's easy to see why an athlete might benefit from having a member of support staff to keep them on top of their 'life'. But there is also something else that needs to be considered, and that's where the welfare, career or lifestyle support person really comes into their own. A sporting career is like few other careers. A lucky athletes will compete at their peak to somewhere in their early to mid thirties. Many will finish much earlier, be it due to injury, burnout, lack of funding, or simply reaching their sporting goals. Usually when individuals retire, they're done with work. They've earned enough money to see them through their final years, and though a life without work can be difficult for anyone, of any age, to adjust to, the more relaxed pace of life is usually welcomed. Retiring from a career in your early thirties is a whole different conundrum. Goals may not have been achieved, few athletes have earned enough money to last the rest of their lives, and having lived on adrenaline and endorphines for many years previously, a massive void normally dominates the outlook of a retired sportsperson. Retirement in the athlete has been likened to bereavement, and a particularly traumatic one in those who have not prepared for the retirement, or have not been able, for whatever reason, to retire on their terms.
The lifestyle adviser or welfare support person can help the athlete prepare for retirement in a number of ways. Crucial to the transition is the development of other skills, and preparation for another job or career after sport. A considerable volume of research supports the pursuit of dual careers from the early days, and though the value of dual careers is widely accepted, the reality is often very different. Centralised training, increased professionalism, and increased social pressures on athletes makes the pursuit of education, training and employment very difficult for high performance athletes. Furthermore, the increased money involved in sport often means that athletes don't need to work during the good years, meaning that they have less experience, and less earning potential after sport. As professional increases, the role of lifestyle and welfare personnel becomes more important. They are, to some extent, constantly fighting against the system.
Helping with transitions, dual careers and retirement is just part of what the lifestyle, career or welfare support person will help an athlete with. Councelling and communication skills are important, and by helping an athlete work through their small issues, they are helping build the skills to manage and deal with issues and challenges in the future. Development of goal setting, time management, conflict resolution and decision making skills will stand to an athlete in future sporting and non-sporting contexts, and though largely relevant to life outside of sport, some of these skills will actually help the athlete in their sporting performance.
This piece from the EIS website outlines how Performance Lifestyles helped Olympic champion rower Katherine Granger achieve sporting success. One of the greatest challenges of this whole area of support, however, is that not all strategies will help to improve performance. Conflicting roles often exist, particularly if the lifestyle advisor or welfare officer is employed directly by the governing body or funding agency. How do you support an potential Olympic medallist with depression would be best to spend time away from the support, when the sport as a whole, and ultimately your position, is dependent on medals won at the Olympics. Obviously, the athlete's welfare is always top of your agenda, but measurement of your performance can be far from clear-cut.
While nutritionists are universally called nutritionists, and sports psychologists are known as sports psychologists across the board, different terms are often used to describe the people who provide the crucial lifestyle support to athletes. UK Sport, and relevant home country sports institutes (EIS, SINI, SIS and SportWales), refer to the area as Performance Lifestyles, delivered by Performance Lifestyle advisors. The Irish Institute of Sport run a Performance Transition Support Programme that is "designed to help [athletes] recover, refocus and re-energise" after an Olympic Games, and prepare for the next phase of their life. They refer to the area as Athlete Lifestyle. TASS refer to the area as Education and Lifestyle Support; The Australian Institute of Sport deliver support through their Personal Excellence (PE) and Athlete Career and Education (ACE) programmes and High Performance Sport New Zealand runs an Athlete Life Programme delivered by Athlete Life Advisors. The England Cricket Board and the Professional Cricket Association run a comprehensive programme delivered by their Personal Development and Welfare Team, while the support professional rugby players receive through the RPA is delivered by Player Development Managers. Support personnel on some university scholarship programmes are simply called mentors. The skills required by these professionals, the CPD opportunities available, and routes into this type of work will be covered in a future post.
Most professional athletes have access to lifestyle support through their national governing body or professional players association. Athletes who are not yet at that level, and who would benefit from support, can contact us at Athlete Life Development to discuss and arrange one-to-one or small group support sessions.
With all these concerns and issues to balance, it's easy to see why an athlete might benefit from having a member of support staff to keep them on top of their 'life'. But there is also something else that needs to be considered, and that's where the welfare, career or lifestyle support person really comes into their own. A sporting career is like few other careers. A lucky athletes will compete at their peak to somewhere in their early to mid thirties. Many will finish much earlier, be it due to injury, burnout, lack of funding, or simply reaching their sporting goals. Usually when individuals retire, they're done with work. They've earned enough money to see them through their final years, and though a life without work can be difficult for anyone, of any age, to adjust to, the more relaxed pace of life is usually welcomed. Retiring from a career in your early thirties is a whole different conundrum. Goals may not have been achieved, few athletes have earned enough money to last the rest of their lives, and having lived on adrenaline and endorphines for many years previously, a massive void normally dominates the outlook of a retired sportsperson. Retirement in the athlete has been likened to bereavement, and a particularly traumatic one in those who have not prepared for the retirement, or have not been able, for whatever reason, to retire on their terms.
The lifestyle adviser or welfare support person can help the athlete prepare for retirement in a number of ways. Crucial to the transition is the development of other skills, and preparation for another job or career after sport. A considerable volume of research supports the pursuit of dual careers from the early days, and though the value of dual careers is widely accepted, the reality is often very different. Centralised training, increased professionalism, and increased social pressures on athletes makes the pursuit of education, training and employment very difficult for high performance athletes. Furthermore, the increased money involved in sport often means that athletes don't need to work during the good years, meaning that they have less experience, and less earning potential after sport. As professional increases, the role of lifestyle and welfare personnel becomes more important. They are, to some extent, constantly fighting against the system.
Helping with transitions, dual careers and retirement is just part of what the lifestyle, career or welfare support person will help an athlete with. Councelling and communication skills are important, and by helping an athlete work through their small issues, they are helping build the skills to manage and deal with issues and challenges in the future. Development of goal setting, time management, conflict resolution and decision making skills will stand to an athlete in future sporting and non-sporting contexts, and though largely relevant to life outside of sport, some of these skills will actually help the athlete in their sporting performance.
This piece from the EIS website outlines how Performance Lifestyles helped Olympic champion rower Katherine Granger achieve sporting success. One of the greatest challenges of this whole area of support, however, is that not all strategies will help to improve performance. Conflicting roles often exist, particularly if the lifestyle advisor or welfare officer is employed directly by the governing body or funding agency. How do you support an potential Olympic medallist with depression would be best to spend time away from the support, when the sport as a whole, and ultimately your position, is dependent on medals won at the Olympics. Obviously, the athlete's welfare is always top of your agenda, but measurement of your performance can be far from clear-cut.
While nutritionists are universally called nutritionists, and sports psychologists are known as sports psychologists across the board, different terms are often used to describe the people who provide the crucial lifestyle support to athletes. UK Sport, and relevant home country sports institutes (EIS, SINI, SIS and SportWales), refer to the area as Performance Lifestyles, delivered by Performance Lifestyle advisors. The Irish Institute of Sport run a Performance Transition Support Programme that is "designed to help [athletes] recover, refocus and re-energise" after an Olympic Games, and prepare for the next phase of their life. They refer to the area as Athlete Lifestyle. TASS refer to the area as Education and Lifestyle Support; The Australian Institute of Sport deliver support through their Personal Excellence (PE) and Athlete Career and Education (ACE) programmes and High Performance Sport New Zealand runs an Athlete Life Programme delivered by Athlete Life Advisors. The England Cricket Board and the Professional Cricket Association run a comprehensive programme delivered by their Personal Development and Welfare Team, while the support professional rugby players receive through the RPA is delivered by Player Development Managers. Support personnel on some university scholarship programmes are simply called mentors. The skills required by these professionals, the CPD opportunities available, and routes into this type of work will be covered in a future post.
Most professional athletes have access to lifestyle support through their national governing body or professional players association. Athletes who are not yet at that level, and who would benefit from support, can contact us at Athlete Life Development to discuss and arrange one-to-one or small group support sessions.
Sunday, 16 February 2014
Book Review: The Business of Being an Athlete
The Business of Being an Athlete
Kerri Pottharst
Kez Publishing
2010
When I started supporting high performance student athletes eight years ago, I wished I could find a book or manual that detailed everything that I would have to support them with, and how to go about that. I'd competed at a relatively high level myself, but lacked the 'world-class' perspective on things. Luckily as things panned out, I worked with a very mature bunch of athletes, and I could learn on the job. None of my first cohort of students had quite yet reached the world stage, and their problems (coursework deadlines, not enough hours in the week, money issues) were ones that I could easily relate to; issues such as retirement from sport, Olympic selection (or non-selection as the case might be) and eating disorders didn't arise until later.
The Australians have always led the way in lifestyle and career support for athletes, and it's no coincidence that I happened on this book in a Melbourne bookshop. It is written by two times Australian Olympic beach volleyball medalist Kerri Pottharst who combines snippets from her own inspiring career with practical advice for high performance athletes of all levels.
Divided into three sections - passion, preparation and belief - the book covers such diverse topics as goal setting, nutrition, dealing with fans and handling competitive nerves. Within the preparation section are chapters which you won't find in any nutrition or psychology book for athletes. The author gets to the real nitty-gritty of high performance lifestyle, and deals with communication skills, managing money, keeping records and time management. There is advice on setting up a website and how to use social media platforms in a professional way. Good table manners (for all those awards dinners) are even covered.
The Business of Being an Athlete may well be the manual that I sought all those years ago. It is the ultimate advice book for high performance athletes and a useful guide for support personnel and coaches working with international athletes. Written in an easy-to-read, non-technical style, it is easy to pick up, pick a page, and be informed and inspired. It is highly recommended for those working in the area.
Kerri Pottharst
Kez Publishing
2010
When I started supporting high performance student athletes eight years ago, I wished I could find a book or manual that detailed everything that I would have to support them with, and how to go about that. I'd competed at a relatively high level myself, but lacked the 'world-class' perspective on things. Luckily as things panned out, I worked with a very mature bunch of athletes, and I could learn on the job. None of my first cohort of students had quite yet reached the world stage, and their problems (coursework deadlines, not enough hours in the week, money issues) were ones that I could easily relate to; issues such as retirement from sport, Olympic selection (or non-selection as the case might be) and eating disorders didn't arise until later.
The Australians have always led the way in lifestyle and career support for athletes, and it's no coincidence that I happened on this book in a Melbourne bookshop. It is written by two times Australian Olympic beach volleyball medalist Kerri Pottharst who combines snippets from her own inspiring career with practical advice for high performance athletes of all levels.
Divided into three sections - passion, preparation and belief - the book covers such diverse topics as goal setting, nutrition, dealing with fans and handling competitive nerves. Within the preparation section are chapters which you won't find in any nutrition or psychology book for athletes. The author gets to the real nitty-gritty of high performance lifestyle, and deals with communication skills, managing money, keeping records and time management. There is advice on setting up a website and how to use social media platforms in a professional way. Good table manners (for all those awards dinners) are even covered.
The Business of Being an Athlete may well be the manual that I sought all those years ago. It is the ultimate advice book for high performance athletes and a useful guide for support personnel and coaches working with international athletes. Written in an easy-to-read, non-technical style, it is easy to pick up, pick a page, and be informed and inspired. It is highly recommended for those working in the area.
Monday, 3 February 2014
Goal setting: the key to lifestyle management?
Earlier this week I delivered a workshop to a group of talented young athletes. We covered topics such as goal setting, time management and decision making, in that order, which was planned, but was only as we were discussing each topic, that it really dawned on me, just how important goals are to every aspect, not only of sport, but of life outside and beyond sport. Knowing what you achieve is paramount in managing time, and it's a lot easier to make decisions, when we know what we want to achieve in the short, medium and long term.
Not all goals are made consciously. High performing athletes will set goals for each session that they do, without realising that they have even done so. Some days it will just be to get the session done; other days it'll be to perform a personal best on repetition. After years of training and competing, goals in the performance setting will just come naturally. Goals are not so easy in an unfamiliar environment, like when we are injured, or when we're planning for life after sport. Considerable thought is often required in these situations.
Coping with Injury
Setting goals can be a great way to overcome injury. You don't have to think about what you want to achieve after the injury - this often results in over-compliance to rehab programmes, and rushing back to training before you're ready - but think about the process goals that will help you get the most out of your time off. Depending on the individual, the sport, and the injury, these are some goals that you might set for yourself while injured:
1. To undertake all exercises prescribed by they physiotherapist each and every day of rehab - no more and no less
2. To take up a new hobby, which I will practice daily (when I would normally be training), to take the focus away from the injury and not being able to compete
3. To carry out a period of mental imagery each day in which I will focus on perfect technique
4. To have a massage once every two weeks
5. To use the downtime to catch up on dental appointments and other things that normally detract from training
6. To maintain a structured routine
Not all goals need to be performance goals, and outcome and process goals are especially important during times of injury, illness, transition, or poor form.
Managing your time
Over the years of working with high performance athletes, I have noticed that those who manage to fit the most into their lives, are the ones who know what they want to achieve in both sport and outside of sport. I've come across medical students who have managed to compete at an international level, and triathletes who can fit training for three sports around being a full-time student. There are enough hours in the week - we just need to be motivated enough to use them wisely.
When planning for the week, it's a good idea to write down a few goals for the week; plan our time; and then reflect on whether or not our allocation of time is reflective of what we want to achieve in that week. There is no special wand which will suddenly make us 'time-managed' but know what we want to achieve will make us more efficient with out time.
Making decisions
We all have important decisions to make from time to time - what subjects do we choose for A-levels/Leaving Cert? Which university do we attend? What will we do after university? Is it a good idea to become full-time athletes? Do we want children? Is it time to retire? For some of us, these decisions will be made, or the options at least narrowed down naturally, but for many, we have to actively make the effort to wade through the options and decide what we are going to do next. This takes energy and effort which we would probably prefer to conserve for training, but not making a decision, and leaving it to sit on the back of our minds, can use a lot more energy. Decisions are important!
Knowing what are goals are can greatly help when making decisions. If your sport is the most important thing in your world, then make sure that you choose a university where you have the facilities, coaching and environment to maintain your training. There are rarely any right or wrong choices, but if your goals can't be achieved by the decisions that you have made, you are unlikely to lead a satisfied life. Making decisions based on your goals also prevents you making them for the wrong reasons, or making them to keep others happy.
In summary, goals don't just help us to preform better - they help us decide what is important to us, to decide what we want to achieve in life, how to transition from one phase of life to the next, to deal with injury, to manage our time, and to make decisions. They are the key to managing our lifestyle, whether that be as a student-athlete, retiring sportstar, or active mother. Goal setting is the key to lifestyle management.
Not all goals are made consciously. High performing athletes will set goals for each session that they do, without realising that they have even done so. Some days it will just be to get the session done; other days it'll be to perform a personal best on repetition. After years of training and competing, goals in the performance setting will just come naturally. Goals are not so easy in an unfamiliar environment, like when we are injured, or when we're planning for life after sport. Considerable thought is often required in these situations.
Coping with Injury
Setting goals can be a great way to overcome injury. You don't have to think about what you want to achieve after the injury - this often results in over-compliance to rehab programmes, and rushing back to training before you're ready - but think about the process goals that will help you get the most out of your time off. Depending on the individual, the sport, and the injury, these are some goals that you might set for yourself while injured:
1. To undertake all exercises prescribed by they physiotherapist each and every day of rehab - no more and no less
2. To take up a new hobby, which I will practice daily (when I would normally be training), to take the focus away from the injury and not being able to compete
3. To carry out a period of mental imagery each day in which I will focus on perfect technique
4. To have a massage once every two weeks
5. To use the downtime to catch up on dental appointments and other things that normally detract from training
6. To maintain a structured routine
Not all goals need to be performance goals, and outcome and process goals are especially important during times of injury, illness, transition, or poor form.
Managing your time
Over the years of working with high performance athletes, I have noticed that those who manage to fit the most into their lives, are the ones who know what they want to achieve in both sport and outside of sport. I've come across medical students who have managed to compete at an international level, and triathletes who can fit training for three sports around being a full-time student. There are enough hours in the week - we just need to be motivated enough to use them wisely.
When planning for the week, it's a good idea to write down a few goals for the week; plan our time; and then reflect on whether or not our allocation of time is reflective of what we want to achieve in that week. There is no special wand which will suddenly make us 'time-managed' but know what we want to achieve will make us more efficient with out time.
Making decisions
We all have important decisions to make from time to time - what subjects do we choose for A-levels/Leaving Cert? Which university do we attend? What will we do after university? Is it a good idea to become full-time athletes? Do we want children? Is it time to retire? For some of us, these decisions will be made, or the options at least narrowed down naturally, but for many, we have to actively make the effort to wade through the options and decide what we are going to do next. This takes energy and effort which we would probably prefer to conserve for training, but not making a decision, and leaving it to sit on the back of our minds, can use a lot more energy. Decisions are important!
Knowing what are goals are can greatly help when making decisions. If your sport is the most important thing in your world, then make sure that you choose a university where you have the facilities, coaching and environment to maintain your training. There are rarely any right or wrong choices, but if your goals can't be achieved by the decisions that you have made, you are unlikely to lead a satisfied life. Making decisions based on your goals also prevents you making them for the wrong reasons, or making them to keep others happy.
In summary, goals don't just help us to preform better - they help us decide what is important to us, to decide what we want to achieve in life, how to transition from one phase of life to the next, to deal with injury, to manage our time, and to make decisions. They are the key to managing our lifestyle, whether that be as a student-athlete, retiring sportstar, or active mother. Goal setting is the key to lifestyle management.
Monday, 11 November 2013
Striking a balance
Last week I delivered a workshop to a group
of sports scholarship students at the University of East London. The session specifically looked how a
student-athlete can set about creating a balance in their lives, an environment
which will both help them in their sport and facilitate their development as a
human being. Some interesting discussion
followed. Here is a summary of the key
points:
No man is an island
Athletes, like everyone else, live in an
ever changing environment, and have to interact with many different people, and
balance many different aspects in their lives.
These are just some of the many things that athletes (and particularly
student-athletes), need to be good at:
- Managing budgets
- Selling themselves (to funders and potential sponsors)
- Dealing with the media
- Managing their time
- Organising and planning
- Coping with setbacks (bouncebackability)
- Managing relationships (with coaches, teammates, fans, sponsors)
- Coping with pressure (from the press, fans, teammates, self, parents)
- Decision making
- Accepting the uncontrollable
- Negociating
- Striking a balance
- Setting goals
All these skills are required in addition
to the physical and mental attributes required for their sport, and more than a
good measure of hardwork. The above
factors are just some of the elements which make up the ‘athlete lifestyle’
Getting
a balance
The best story that I heard of to
demonstrate balance, is the one where the university professor gets two pint
glasses, and demonstrates to a group of university students how they can go
about getting a balance in their lives.
He takes the first glass and fills it to the brim with water (signifying
alcohol or a social life). Filled to the
top, there is no room left in the glass to for anything else; place a stone or
pebble in it, and some of the water will flow over the edge. He takes the second glass, and fills it to
the top with stones. The glass takes 5
or 6 medium sized stones and can take no more.
The glass, it could be said, is full of stones. With the stones, however, there is still some
room of other things. The professor
takes some small stones, and puts as many of them as he can in the glass. He fits a large handful in. A handful of pebbles follow, and then a small
handful of sand. Just as the audience
think that the glass can hold no more, the professor takes a beaker of water,
and manages to fit some into the glass.
The glass can be taken as a metaphor for
the student-athlete’s life. Think of the
larger stones as the training sessions, the smaller ones as the lectures and
coursework, the pebbles as all the little chores of life like shopping,
cooking, and eating, the sand as sleep, and the water as relaxing and social
time. This way around, there is plenty
of time to fit everything in.
A good route to striking a balance, can be
broken into 5 processes:
1. Set
goals
Deciding what you want to achieve, and what
you want to get from life will help focus your balance. Some of the questions that you might want to
ask yourself include: what do you want to achieve? What do you need to do to achieve those goals?
Are
the goals realistic? Do you have
goals in multiple areas of your life (sport, academic, career, other hobbies,
life)? What can be done to ensure that
those goals fit together? Are you
following your goals for the right reasons (i.e. are they your goals, or are
the goals you think others expect you to achieve).
2. Make
a plan
Plans can be set on a daily, weekly,
termly, seasonal, or yearly basis. Some
specific forms of planning are included in the timemanagement blog below. Use the
tools and planning process that work best for you. Constantly consider your goals when planning. Do your plans work towards your goals? Review your plans to ensure that you are
realistic in what you can achieve on a daily basis. Identify where you are losing time, or being
inefficient (are you spending two hours travelling each day, when the journey
would be quicker to cycle? Did you spend time travelling because you failed to
pack everything you needed for the day before you left the house in the
morning?).
3. Make
any important decisions
Student athletes constantly need to make
decisions as they attempt to strike a balance in their lives, and often make
decisions on a daily basis which they don’t even realise that they are making. At certain times, however, important
decisions which affect one’s goals and plans, need to be made. Procrastination over making decisions can be
an additional source of stress for an athlete, and delaying making the decision
can result in missed opportunities.
Athletes should develop sound decision-making skills. The following task, helps to highlight some
of the processes involved in making decisions:
- Pick an important decision that you need to make now, or in the near future
- Consider what happens if you don’t make a decision, or delay making the decision
- List all your available options (include at least one ‘dream’ option i.e. in an ideal world what would you do?)
- List where you can find further information to help you make your decision
- List all the people that you can seek advice from (don’t just include people who will tell you what you want to hear)
- List any factors that you will use to help you make your decision (e.g. your goals, values, abilities, time, financial or family situation, location, things that you will/won’t compromise on)
- Consider what sort of things stop you from making decisions
- After seeking further information and advice, and considering any factors that your decision will be influenced by, choose 2 or 3 viable options from your initial list
- List the positive and negatives for each option
- It will be a lot easier to make a decision once you know what exactly your options are. Imagine yourself in different situations.
In many cases, there are no right or wrong
decisions, just decisions that cause stress because they haven’t been make.
4. Build
in relaxation or recover time
Planned recovery time can be far more
rewarding and beneficial than ad hoc down time.
Consider how you are going to relax and recover each day, week or season
and use recover to refresh and revitalise the mind as well as the body. Use down-time at the end of the season to
cross things off your bucket list that you don’t get to do during the season.
5. See
everything as a choice, not a sacrifice
Sport for most is a hobby, and the choices
you make to achieve your goals should never be seen as sacrifices. Choose to be successful.
Thursday, 1 September 2011
Preparation for Life at University, Part 2 (Time Management)
In part 2 of our series of advice for adjusting to Life at University we look at some simple time-management tools and how to use them.
Time Wheel
The one that I like to begin with is the time wheel. This is a simple 24-part pie-chart divided to represent the 24 hours of the day.
Step 1: Choose a colour to represent each of the main tasks that you do during a typical day (e.g. sleeping, eating, travelling, training, working, lectures, studying, socialising, reading, on internet, other leisure activities, quality relaxation activities).
Step 2: Now think about how you would spend an ideal day and colour complete the circle accordingly. If you normally need ten hours sleep then fill in ten of the segments with the sleep colour. If you have five hours of lectures a day then fill in five of the segments in lecture colour. If training should take up three hours, then fill in three of the segments in that colour…and so on.
Step 3: Now think about how you spent yesterday. Fill in another wheel based on what you actually did yesterday. If you spent two hours on the playstation, then fill two segments in the appropriate colour. This step can be repeated over a number of days.
Step 4: Compare and contrast your idea wheel (Step 2) and your actual wheels (Step 3). This is a good way to work out where all your time is going. Is your ideal wheel unrealistic and does that need to be adjusted, or are you spending time doing things that you don’t need to do. Make a list of the things that you are wasting time on. Some of the following tools and exercises will help you come up with ways of overcoming procrastination and time wasting.
The Traditional Diary
It sounds obvious, but don’t expect your brain to remember everything. Carry a diary around with you and write down important date including competition dates, meetings, exams, holidays. This way you can make sure that you don’t miss important appointments or double-book yourself. It also highlights busy weeks, and when you may need to do a bit of forward-planning and preparation. Of course your diary doesn’t have to be a traditional paper one. Electronic diaries work just as good. Just be sure that everything is in the one place.
The Weekly Planner
This is my favourite tool of all, and each Sunday evening I take 20 minutes to fill in a new one for the week ahead. If you week is reasonably structured (set lecture and training times), then you don’t need to do a complete new one each week. Weekly planners both help you to get into a routine (set a plan, see if it works, adjust if appropriate, until you find a schedule that works for you), and organise your week.
When putting together a weekly plan, follow these simple steps:
Step 1: Put in all the immovable appointments (lectures, meetings, group training times). Step 2: Add the things that you need to do at certain times, but which don’t have to be set (e.g. S&C sessions that you can’t do straight after a heavy training session and which have to be done when the gym is free; optional tutorials). Don’t forget to add travel time if required.
Step 3: Add the rest of your training sessions at the most appropriate times.
Step 4: Add all other tasks that must be done in the week (e.g. weekly shopping).
Step 5: Add some recovery and relaxation time, and social activities if appropriate.
Step 6: Assign tasks to other blocks of appropriate time (e.g. course work may be assigned to a larger block of time while doing the ironing may be assigned to a smaller block of time.
Step 7: Work out the logistics and make a list of anything you need to pack the night before (e.g. if you are going straight from lectures to training on a day that you won’t have time to have lunch the you will need to pack books, lunch and training kit).
Prioritised to-do Lists
We’ve all done to-do lists at one stage or another and are great for keeping you motivated. Usually these are simply a list of things that we need or want to get done as a particular stage. Prioritised to-do lists are a slight adaptation of the traditional list. They split tasks into urgent and non-urgent tasks, and low and high importance tasks. This way unimportant tasks don’t get in the way of more crucial ones and everything is done on time. Similarly lists of tasks can be subdivided into big and small ones. Big tasks can be done during larger blocks of time, and smaller ones can be done during shorter time periods, or to get a break from larger tasks.
Others
Monthly, termly, or three-month planners are a good way of identifying busy time periods, and making appropriate adjustments. They differ from diaries in that they only contain half or full day events or tasks, and not every meeting and appointment.
Year planners wall charts work in a similar way, and can be used to plan your training year as well as your academic/work schedule.
In Summary
There are no quick or easy fixes to time management. The main components are to set goals (what do you want to achieve with your time), and be organised (plan in advance, make lists of what is to be achieved). Good time management takes practice, and different tools are appropriate for different people. Pick what suits you best, and adjust as appropriate. Each tool will take some practice before it is utilised to best effect. If you are starting a new job, or going to University for the first time, it’s a good idea to get practicing straight away. Don’t leave it 4 or 5 weeks until you get ‘settled-in’. Being organised will actually help you get settled in to begin with.
There are no quick or easy fixes to time management. The main components are to set goals (what do you want to achieve with your time), and be organised (plan in advance, make lists of what is to be achieved). Good time management takes practice, and different tools are appropriate for different people. Pick what suits you best, and adjust as appropriate. Each tool will take some practice before it is utilised to best effect. If you are starting a new job, or going to University for the first time, it’s a good idea to get practicing straight away. Don’t leave it 4 or 5 weeks until you get ‘settled-in’. Being organised will actually help you get settled in to begin with.
Finally, things don’t always go according to plan. In fact, they rarely do. However it’s easier to adjust a plan than to make one up as you go along. If one of your lectures is cancelled, you can do a task that you had scheduled later that day, or one that you were struggling to fit in later in the week. Make the most of your time.
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