Introduction
I used to spend hours every week searching online for sessions. Not minutes. Hours.
Sunday evening. Open laptop. Search “U12 passing drill.” Fifty results appear. Watch three videos. None are quite right. Search again with different keywords. Another hour passes. Settle for something mediocre that does not really fit what I need. Repeat next week.
Three hours gone. Session quality average. Week after week after week.
The Hidden Cost
“Just planning sessions” actually meant time away from family every Sunday evening. Reduced recovery time when I needed rest. Less actual learning because I was searching instead of developing. Increased stress about whether Tuesday’s session would work. Diminishing enthusiasm because coaching felt like a chore before I even got to the pitch.
Planning should not drain you. But without a system, it does.
Why The Trap Exists
No organised system meant starting from scratch each week. No accumulated resources that I had already vetted. Random searching through content of unknown quality. Inconsistency in what I found and delivered. Repeated effort on problems I had already solved.
“I used to copy all the time in my younger days. No context. Not sure if it fit my team.”
That Copy-Paste Coach trap from my book describes exactly what I was doing. Grabbing whatever looked good online without understanding why it worked.
Without systems, I was always beginning. Never building.
How I Escaped
The solution was not finding better content. It was building a system for organising what I found.
I created a central storage location. One cloud folder where everything lived. Not scattered across bookmarks, notes, downloads, and saved videos. One place only.
I organised by principles rather than random categories. Not “passing drills” and “shooting drills” but “attacking principles” and “transition moments” and “technical foundations.” Categories that matched how I actually think about sessions.
I curated ruthlessly. Not everything belongs in a system. I asked: Does this align with how I coach? Is it quality I would use again? Will I actually deliver this? Is it appropriate for my age group? Less was more. Quality over quantity.
I built templates for reusable structures. A standard session flow. Warm-up sequences that worked. Game formats I could adapt. Cool-down routines. The templates reduced decisions because the structure was already solved.
What Changed
Before the system, session planning took two to three hours weekly. Annual total: one hundred to one hundred fifty hours. Stress level high. Quality inconsistent.
After the system, session planning takes twenty to thirty minutes weekly. Annual total: fifteen to twenty-five hours. Stress level low. Quality consistent.
That is seventy-five to one hundred twenty-five hours saved annually. Three to five full days returned to my life.
What I Do With The Time Now
Sometimes I rest. Coaching already takes enough energy without Sunday evenings disappearing into search bars.
Sometimes I learn. Instead of searching for drills, I study principles. Deeper understanding beats more activities.
Sometimes I observe. Watch more football. See game patterns. Apply what I notice to training.
Sometimes I give the time to family. “Sorry, I have to plan sessions” became unnecessary.
Sometimes I develop as a coach. Reading, courses, mentorship, community. Development that compounds over time.
The Objections I Had
“I need variety.” A system does not mean repetition. It means organised variety instead of chaotic searching.
“I like finding new things.” That is fine. Curate a discovery time. Thirty minutes weekly maximum. Specific search purpose. Add finds to the system. Not emergency Sunday night panic.
“My players get bored.” Players do not get bored of well-run sessions. They get bored of poorly executed variety from things you found the night before.
“I do not have time to build a system.” Investment now, returns forever. Hours building the system creates years of savings.
How To Start
Track honestly how long planning currently takes. Where does the time go? What do you search for most? What do you repeat unnecessarily? Awareness precedes improvement.
Pick one location for storage. Cloud folder, app, physical binder, digital notes. One place only. Consistency matters.
Create categories that make sense to you. They should match how you think about coaching, not how someone else organised their content.
Add to the system gradually. Every good thing you find goes in the system. Every session that works gets saved. Build over time rather than all at once.
The Reality Now
I built this system over several months. It eventually became FCA. Now I plan sessions in fifteen minutes instead of three hours.
Stop searching. Start building.
Want a head start on your system?
The Football Coaching Academy provides an organised session library built on principles rather than random categories. Join 1,600+ coaches who stopped searching and started coaching. $1/month to start.