How the 'Ten Rules of Baseball' relate to completion

If you start to slide, slide!:

When I first met Coach Paul Rogers, I was eight years old in the little town of Wakefield, VA. I played four years of Little League baseball for Coach Rogers and thanks to 'Coach' I left Wakefield better prepared to take on the world. I remember that he brought a mimeographed handout to the very first practice, titled 'The Ten Rules of Baseball'. I believe this to be the list, and number five stands out as one of the keys to understanding the third 'c' in my series The Four C's That Launched churnOn.com - 'complete'. Actually, almost all of these rules can be applied to getting stuff done.

1. Nobody ever becomes a ballplayer by walking after a ball.
2. You will never become a .300 hitter unless you take the bat off your shoulder.
3. If what you did yesterday still looks big to you, you haven't done much today.
4. Keep your head up and you may not have to keep it down.
5. When you start to slide, slide. He who changes his mind may have to change a good leg for a bad one.
6. Do not alibi on bad hops. Anybody can field the good ones.
7. Always run them out. You never can tell.
8. Never quit.
9. Do not find too much fault with the umpires. You cannot expect them to be as perfect as you are.
10. A pitcher who hasn't control hasn't anything.

Play ball!

When you start to slide - slide

Second cheero: Coach Paul Rogers:

On Monday, I wrote about the word 'complete' - the third 'C' that launched churnOn.com and this blog; along with my ecosystem of social networking tools. The focus was on keeping your attention on the essential task. I used a golf analogy:

• Keep your eye on the ball
• Head down until the task is completed
• Perfection is the enemy of completion

One trick I have learned is to keep my daily 'to do' list very focused on the essential tasks. I use the rule of five. Only five items on my list at a time, and those five always include one slot for my daily fitness activity. For example, today's list looks like this:

1. Yoga at 6:30 a.m.
2. Finish mind node showing current top five business opportunities and circulate to key contacts in my network
3. Meet with AMD at 9:30 a.m. to discuss Forefront Austin partnership
4. Meet with Michael Froehls @ 12:30 p.m. to discuss his book, The Gift of Job Loss.
5. Meet with Dale Morgan at Austin Country Club to share about progress helping Jason Black with My Little Golfers. 

Once I pencil out my top five priorities, no more items on the list. I keep a second list (on the right side of my notepad) for phone calls and short email communications that need to be completed. I tackle the phone call list and the email activity once I have completed the five items on the main list, or in between appointments. Once the main list is 'complete', I can make a new list and refocus energies on the next highest priority projects.

I think I first began to learn this concept from my Little League Coach, and one of my cheeroes, Paul Rogers. A cheero is a hero who cheers you onward and upward, and cheeroes are one of three key themes in my book, Releasing the Churn. It is kind of like cheerio, but drop the 'i'. Tomorrow we will look at one of Coach Rogers first teachings: When you start to slide, slide. He who changes his mind may have to exchange a good leg for a bad one.