Lists, checklists, and re-checking lists…

Turning my notes into football scouting checklists has put some order into my scouting. But it hasn’t necessarily made it any better.

For a while now I’ve wanted to find ways to make my scouting process smoother and quicker. I spend so much of the week putting reports together that it can be tough finding time for anything else. Something has to change.

The problem comes in two ways. The first is the nature of the work. It takes concentration and time. It’s a long process whichever way you manage it.

The second problem — and the more harmful one — is my attention span.

My capacity to focus is fine for the most part, except when I run into something tricky. Which can happen a lot when you’re analysing clips. I’m likely to step away from my desk, make tea, or browse the internet, at those moments when a hard part comes along.

So how to tackle this?

My hunch has always been to systemize the machine as much as possible. That means a process, unique to me, that covers everything in order, and without missing anything.

But I’ve gathered so many notes over the years, from courses, videos, seminars, they have become a giant pile of disconnected instructions. They represent my mistaken belief that if I could only write down everything that could go right or wrong in a game, I’d know everything.

Well, that didn’t work. But lately I’ve managed to trim down these lists into something more manageable.

This helps when it comes to time management. Knowing exactly what you’re doing next stops that feeling of overwhelm. The nagging “what needs doing next” feeling that sends me to the kettle, or the internet.

Keeping these lists handy is working so far.

But only up to a point.

Like I said, I’ve used similar lists before, and then dropped them. We’ll see how these work. But there’s still this feeling that it slows the process. Much of what you “see” when watching a clip is instinctive. It’s not one thing. It’s a combination of several things that create one thing. Something tells me checklists might hamper that.

But I’ll report back in a few months to see if they’re still useful. Or if I’ve found a way to tweak the process more to make it work how I hoped it would.

You might be thinking, okay, what’s on your list? Well, that’s the part I’ll keep to myself. Except to say it’s the refined version of what I’ve learned from courses and notes over the last five years. You will have your own notes, likely better than mine. The point is not what I have on my checklists. More than they exist in the first place.

So try putting your own lists together. Add to them as your experience grows, or after taking courses, as your understanding of the game improves. Then let me know what works or doesn’t work. I’d love to hear.

Don’t forget, you can read this kind of thing sooner over on my Substack page. It is completely free to subscribe and read as you would here.