STANFORD STANDOUTS: Senior Rachel Williams has been a standout for the Cardinal both inside and out on the volleyball court as well as in the classroom. Right: Stanford Head Coach John Dunning recruits players with the discipline to handle the rigors of Pac-12 competition and a heavy academic load. (Photos: Stanford University)
“I write down everything I’m doing – practice, classes, weights, traveling – and I’m constantly checking it, making sure I’m on the right task.” — Rachel Williams
I get stressed out if I have something to do the next day that I could have done a few days before. My parents really harped on us to do that, and I’m glad they did because now it’s kind of ingrained that getting things done sooner makes life easier.” So let that be Lesson No. 1 …
DON’T PROCRASTINATE Common sense, right? But how often does it get forgotten or just ignored? By all accounts, a lot. And one person who has seen it ignored is Tod Mattox, who teaches Eng- lish and coaches the girls’ varsity at Bishop’s High in La Jolla, Calif. Suffi ce to say, he has heard a few excuses over the years as to why a student didn’t do well on an exam. “They’ll say, ‘Oh, I had a game last night,’” he says. “Well, yeah, you had a game, but you’ve known about the test for a week and you didn’t think about it until 10 o’clock the night before … when you were tired. If you have a calendar and you put big tests and assignments on it, then you’ll have a plan so you don’t have to cram for a big test.” So let’s talk about why you should …
GET A CALENDAR To hammer a nail, you need a hammer.
To be organized, you need a calendar – or a comparable electronic device that allows you to sort your life, prioritize your to-do list and plan ahead. “A bunch of kids come into high school and they’ve never used a calendar,” Mattox says. “They’re used to two nights a week club practice (in middle school), and all of a sudden they jump into ninth grade and the workload goes up and they’re practicing two hours a day. You have to be organized. There are a lot of different ways to do it, but if kids are just doing it by the seat of their pants, those are the kids who have problems.” Pro beach player Lane Carico, profi led
olleyballUSA’s fall issue, uses a big, paper calendar and writes everything down by hand. So does Christa Harmotto, a middle blocker on the U.S. Women’s National Vol- leyball Team who was also the 2008 ESPN The Magazine Academic All-American of the Year while competing at Penn State University,
in V Others we talked to are more comfortable
using organizers on their computers, tablets or phones. Any way is fi ne. The important thing is having something to refer to when your life and your schedule get crazy.
USE ALERTS Just writing it down may not be enough.
UCLA’s Karsta Lowe, a junior outside hitter, makes a point of setting alerts on her phone for every meeting or event. “That’s the most important thing,” she says. “I can write it down in the planner, but if I don’t refer back to the planner enough, I’ll just forget about it. So I have to have an alert.”
MAKE A LIST A list partners well with a calendar. Wil- liams says she was a devoted list-maker long before she got to Stanford.
“In high school, I would literally write down everything I had to do, whether it was a match, practice, a project or even little fi ve-minute assignments that were handed out by teachers. I’m big on checking things
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