If Olympic Champ Michael Phelps Worked Here

We educated 900 students this summer. There really isn't a down time or sumer vacation per se. But it is a more flexible pace in administration compared to the activity when all 4,700 are around. This week was the final round of prep for the launch of our ordinary schedule.

Think about Olympic champ Michael Phelps. He is featured prominently this season for a record-setting medal count. The camaras turn on him as he asends his skid, in countdown to a diving launch in the water. But the guy prepared for that moment with a very specific sleep schedule, breakfast and warm-up routine.

I did the same this week. If Phelps worked with me, here is what our prep would look like.

I had 15 formal meetings and half a dozen informal ones. We reviewed some legal issues (is everybody doing what is right for students?), assessment plans (how do we know our programs are working well?), vetted a creative proposal to merge a few job descriptions, interviewed and endorsed the recommendation to hire a key leader for a graduate program, began organizing a response to a last-minute resignation, finaled plans for leading three different full-day orientation meetings for three different groups, and something very different from all the others -- edited a story I wrote for the Chicago Tribune and writing the first draft of another for Christianity Today magazine. I like this variety.

In two days, we swim. I don't worry about the water being cold. After all, that's why we train -- to swim.