I read a story once about the captain of a large merchant ship. This captain used to let paperwork pile up on his desk until the ship hit a large enough wave. At that point all the papers would slide onto the floor, and he knew it was time to deal with them. As he picked up the floor, he'd deal with each issue. What he found was that if the ship went long enough without encountering major weather he could safely throw most of the paperwork away.
I come from a similar school of thought. Today was my version of rough weather: when I got to the office it had, at some point in the night, passed beyond my acceptable level of clean. I spent a semi-frenzied hour tidying up; what emerged feels much more comfortable and I identified several new (old?) projects in the process.
One thing I think I'm going to move forward on is a paper-free recruiting scheme. Resolution to self: from here on out all contacts with perspective rowers are going to be via web, e-mail, and phone. Why? The amount of postage, paper, and effort saved over the course of multiple years is huge. I couldn't believe how many envelopes, boxes of letterhead, extra letters, and old fliers I dealt with today. I trust current high school students are savvy enough to get information from us electronically.
I come from a similar school of thought. Today was my version of rough weather: when I got to the office it had, at some point in the night, passed beyond my acceptable level of clean. I spent a semi-frenzied hour tidying up; what emerged feels much more comfortable and I identified several new (old?) projects in the process.
One thing I think I'm going to move forward on is a paper-free recruiting scheme. Resolution to self: from here on out all contacts with perspective rowers are going to be via web, e-mail, and phone. Why? The amount of postage, paper, and effort saved over the course of multiple years is huge. I couldn't believe how many envelopes, boxes of letterhead, extra letters, and old fliers I dealt with today. I trust current high school students are savvy enough to get information from us electronically.
