I had an ugly situation today when I had to pull an athlete from a major event because they had double booked and not informed me.
In most cases I would enforce the prior obligation with management, but the circumstances on this occasion didn’t allow for that. This left me frustrated and embarrassed but it also reinforced the importance of diary management.
An athlete’s personal diary impacts their professional diary.
Traditionally I would rely on the athlete to update their own diary with commitments I send them. Or I would email them the diary I manage so they could update their own diary.
This system has worked ok in the past, but I’m not in the business of being ok. I need a better solution.
Upon further thinking I would encourage athlete managers to keep a gmail account with a diary that you and your athlete have public access to. One diary. No confusion.
This system still relies heavily on the athlete but once both parties are in a good habit it should become second nature.
Sometimes we need problems in order to see new opportunities or in this case better ways of doing things.
