Another short and sweet blog entry for y’all today. Something I feel in a lot of areas of my life is the constant pressure/desire to DO MORE. My coaching is no exception, and it comes out most in lesson planning and time management.
My students laugh now when I roll my eyes and groan “time management” because it usually means I ambitiously planned a new warm up, 3 activities, 3 new skills, 20 minutes of review, and a full-on stretch session for a 90minute class…and it just doesn’t fit.
I’m learning though, and I have recently challenged myself to pare my lesson plans down hard. Having only 1 or 2 things planned (outside of warm-up, conditioning and stretching, of course) has been a wonderful experience. Time itself seems to slow down a bit and it changes the tone and pace of class; no longer am I constantly wondering if students are “ready to move on yet”?, instead, it frees us up to dig into the little details, to ask “what if” questions, my students leave feeling confident in their new skill. It sounds obvious…and it kind of is… but it’s been a fun experience for me. Now to bring that paring-down to other parts of life.
K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple, stupid).