JudoTime!

Unfortunately JudoTime on this occasion doesn't mean it's time to go pick up some new bruises at training.

No on this occasion I'm looking at where my time went in my Judo world.

In 2020 I thought it would be interesting to see where all my time goes for my various Judo duties, all done on a voluntary basis.

Of course while I wanted to track this data to try and work out where would be the best place to cut back a bit. I do far too much really for the Judo community. 2020 being the year it was, my records are hardly representative of a normal year!

Y & H Judo

I'm very involved with running Judo in the Yorkshire & Humberside area. As we didn't run events in 2020 there is no time recorded for organising events (organising behind the scenes, entry forms, website/social media updates, handling the entries, reffeeing). 

I do still run the Y & H website and social media accounts though, that takes plenty of time up. Still not as much as usual though due to lack of events.

In 2020 that came to only 26 hours. 

I suspect that will go up though as I'm taking on more area duties in 2021.

Examiner

The examiner's role is to run dan grading examinations to enable promotion within the Judo dan grades (black belt ranks).

In addition to normal examiner duties (which have been non-existent in 2020 as we didn't run gradings) I have been working on computerising the system with spreadsheets.

As such, only 10 hours in 2020. Ordinarily I'd expect more like 30-40 hours. This will go up as I'm taking on more involvement with examiner duties.

Referee

If you read this blog regularly (I don't think anyone does really :( ) you'll know I spend a lot of time on refereeing  Judo, particularly as I was working towards the BJA A badge.

So including a few hours of study, travel and events I've recorded a little over 55 hours in 2020.

Sheffield University Judo club

As with everyone else, 2020 saw very little Judo action. That doesn't mean things aren't going on in the background. As the main club coach I am often involved in discussions about plans for the club and our two events. I also look after the websites for the club and the 2 events we try to run each year.

In 2020 that came to around 74 hours, well down on the norm as minimal number of sessions before the UK C-19 restrictions stopped that.

Conclusion

These numbers don't really mean a lot to be honest as they are in no way representative of a normal Judo year. I don't see 2021 being particularly representative either as I don't see we'll be able to do much this year either.

On the plus side, I've enjoyed having a little time to do things I've been meaning to do for a long time. Stuff that normally gets pushed to one side because I give up too much for Judo.

Area	Approx 2020 time	Typical duties
Y & H area	26 hours	Planning events, handling event entries, communication, website/social media
Sheffield university	74 hours	Coaching, website(s), support student committee
Referee	55 hours	Travel to events, ref duties at events, support junior refs locally
Examiner	10 hours	Organise gradings, run grading events, admin, handling advance entries, developing electronic grading spreadsheet