Spring cleaning time AGAIN?
It seems like we just finished doing
this, yet here it is, time to do it again. No matter how much we try
to declutter, things accumulate like so much dust on open shelves and
the tops of things we can't see and can barely reach (refrigerators,
armoires, picture frames). Great. Now we need to declutter -and-
dust. It's never easy, and it never ends.
Like every swim coach knows, there is a
physical side and a mental side to our sport. So, too, is there a
physical and mental side to decluttering. Depending on your state of
mind, the mental battle may be more daunting than the physical, but
you need to handle both.
The end of the swim season looms before
us this time of year, sometimes seeming like that special effect in
movies where no matter how far you run towards your goal, you feel
like you are never going to get there, it just keeps retreating into
the distance. Since there is always a "next practice" or
"next meet" or "next season" waiting for us, it
can feel just like that never-ending road we are always racing down.
And along the way we have collected a lot of clutter. Heat sheets
with scribbled notes and past workouts and various other pieces of
paper stack up, ribbons and medals that weren't distributed or picked
up get moved to another corner or a bag or a box but still stay
nearby, and how many dried-up whiteboard markers do you really need
on your desk or in your briefcase?
Waiting until the end of the season to
take stock and mentally or physically declutter and plan for the
days, months, seasons ahead is a mistake. "No one plans to
fail", they say, "they just fail to plan."
When I was coaching a rapidly growing club team with Chuck Warner in
Houston in the searing heat in the summer of 1980, we would come home
from practice to our shared apartment, crank up the A/C, play some
Willy Nelson records, and sit down with our practices to make notes
on what went well, discuss what needed to improve, who made progress
or needed special extra help, things like that. Every. Single. Day.
If we waited until the weekend or "when we felt like it",
we would have lost the freshness and clarity of our observations and
collaboration. And there would have been a lot of clutter to wade
through.
Jes Marcy (www.jesmarcy.com) is a
professional organizer. She says that clutter is a modern challenge.
In a newspaper interview with her recently it was explained that
hoarding is an evolutionary challenge that we have relied on as a
species to succeed. 100 years ago you had to hoard enough food and
firewood to get through the winter. But not anymore. Just go online,
execute a few clicks, and stuff will magically show up at the front
door! (BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!) The writer of the article,
Ellen Byron, states: "..we're taught to keep and cherish
everything that's been given to us, that's the Depression Era
mindset. We feel that if we throw something out we're a bad person."
[1]
Our workspaces become piles and stacks,
our home or work office starts looking and feeling more like a
storage unit, and if we're not careful, we will wind up like Shel
Silverstein's Sarah Cynthia Sylvia
Stout who "would not take the garbage out"
[2], and become (supposedly) buried in the mass of "stuff"
we are reluctant to dispose of. Most of us find ourselves in this
situation because we simply have more stuff flowing in than flowing
out. We will need to reverse that.
Then the mental aspect tries to slap
its handcuffs on us. As we're decluttering, Ms. Byron writes, "We
come across a decluttering landmine. [It] could be...anything that
has a deep emotional tie to an event in our past. Then we get sucked
into the emotional journey that this object sparked for us."
Maybe it was that meet program that has your handwritten splits when
Jenny made her first national QTs, or maybe the heat sheet where you
drew a big smiley-face when Rex swam his first breaststroke event
without getting DQ'd. Emotional ties are tough. You will have to make
hard choices at times.
When I was in college, I was astounded
that my coach had notebooks of every single workout he had written,
challenge set results, best average times, meet splits, EVERYTHING,
15-20 years worth at the time. I have kept logs of all of mine, too,
along with attendance notes and every little thing that I needed to
make a note of. I'm not now, never have been, and never will be a
digital guy with regard to coaching swimming. I like paper, I know
where to find it, and I never need batteries or a power source to
access anything. But it's a LOT of notebooks.
Now the pertinent point: How often do
we refer to those volumes upon volumes of carefully chronicled data?
Almost NEVER. Why do we keep them? Because, just like how my dad used
to explain the shelves and piles and MOUNTAINS of broken tools and
materials he hadn't touched in years, "Because I might need it
someday. Usually within 10 days of when I get rid of it. You
just wait. You'll see." I waited. I saw. In this case, Dad was
right on the money. But when you need it, you have to FIND it. And
that's another event in itself.
This has been a brutal year on
everyone, and especially athletes in most sports, and their families.
The pandemic, the social and political unrest, living with an almost
apocalyptic mindset about venturing outside and (heaven help us!)
MINGLING with our classmates, neighbors, teammates, and
workplace friends, it's understandable how one can start to feel a
little stir crazy. The winter, and especially January, is hard even
in normal times when the holiday "high" evaporates and many
experience what has been termed the "post-holiday blues." A
little pick-me-up, something to look forward to, may be just the
ticket, and it is something many of us have done with our athletes
for years: A goal poster or "dream board." You make a
collage of quotes, images, numbers, desired destinations or
achievements, you make it BIG and BOLD,
and you pay attention to it, you give it a place of importance in
your daily thoughts, you give it a showcase. It helps you focus, and
that in itself is a form of mental decluttering.
Having
a tangible reminder of a goal helps create the belief of
attainability. The anticipation of attaining a goal is very powerful,
and can get us through challenging times in our lives, like now. In a
recent article in The Wall Street Journal, writer Anne Marie Chaker
remarks that "[a] growing body of research shows that having an
event to look forward to is linked to general feelings of happiness
and positivity." [3]
Disney
employee Tom Fitzgerald came up with this: "If
you dream it, you can do it."
And our old friend, Coach Bob Steele, has created a terrific set of
notecards emblazoned with his trademark catchphrase, "YAGOTTAWANNA" [4].
And you do. Get busy.
====================
NOTES:
[1]
"How to Tackle Clutter And Its Emotional Toll", Ellen
Byron, The Wall Street Journal, January 13, 2021
[2]
www.shelsilverstein.com/books/where-sidewalk-ends/
[3]
"Stir-Crazy Families Beat the Winter Blues", Anne Marie
Chaker, The Wall Street Journal, January 27, 2021
[4]
Bob Steele, Coach-Artist-Author, http://gamesgimmickschallenges1.com/
