Volleyball coaching a distraction

Does this sound like you during the volleyball season?

Am I the only one that can’t get any work done during the day because I continually get distracted by thoughts of today’s drill schedule?

I know I certainly struggled keeping my focus on things that should have held my attention (work, studies, etc.) at various points and times. While I coached at Exeter, volleyball issues frequently sidetracked my days. That was true even when I wasn’t coaching that evening. I remember in my early days of coaching college volleyball spending time developing practice plans while at my day job.

Needless to say, for the sake of our employment, grades, relationships, or whatever, this is probably not something we should be in the habit of allowing to happen. 🙂

Here’s a possible way to tackle this issue. Set aside some specific time during the day when you permit yourself the volleyball distraction. I suspect it’s not a good idea to just cut it out cold turkey.

On a related subject, I realized planning practice takes basically all the time I allow myself to do it. By that I mean if I start working on it 2 hours before training it takes 2 hours. If I give it 30 minutes it takes 30 minutes.  This actually has a name. To address this situation while at Exeter, I didn’t start putting together the actual training plan until a certain time each day.

That isn’t to say I don’t think about what I wanted to accomplish that session beforehand. That process begins pretty much as soon as my last contact with the team ended. It’s just that I am more efficient writing up the actual plan itself.

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John Forman

John is currently the Strategic Manager for Talent (oversees the national teams) and Indoor Performance Director for Volleyball England. His 20+ years of volleyball coaching experience includes all three NCAA divisions, plus Junior College, in the US; university and club teams in the UK; professional coaching in Sweden; and both coaching and club management at the Juniors level. He's also been a visiting coach at national team, professional club, and juniors programs in several countries.

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