Are we spending our time or investing it?
1. Use checklists. The definitive work on checklists is Atul Gawande's Checklist Manifesto. Checklists are integral to the aviation industry, medicine, construction, the restaurant business and more.
2. Develop a winning morning routine. Win the day!
Find what works for you.
3. Be prepared for practice and games. Pack your bag the night before and recheck before practice or the game. Have your uniform and sneakers, contacts, tape and adhesive bandages, medical supplies (e.g. inhaler), extra socks, extra shoelaces, water bottle, snack, and you name it.
4. Keep a journal. Write down what the team is working to accomplish. Physically writing out important information helps us move information from our working memory into our long-term memory.
5. Learn and practice mindfulness. Who practices mindfulness? Over eighty percent of the most successful people practice some form of mindfulness, including meditation, yoga, or transcendental meditation. Mindfulness improves attention, sleep, memory, and lowers anxiety, depression, and stress hormones. It has a rich science underpinning its effectiveness, elaborated in Search Inside Yourself. Mindfulness allows us to upgrade our hardware (brain) and our software (information processing subroutines).
Lagniappe:
The best teams and athletes in the world practice mindfulness. Why not you?
