In the early part of the 2010 season, the Boston Red Sox found themselves off to their worst start in the past 10+ years. Every aspect of the game was a struggle for them through the first 13 contests. On April 20th, G.M. Theo Epstein stated, “We’ve played bad baseball… We’re not pitching, we’re not hitting, we’re not playing good defense, we’re not running the bases well. So take your pick.”

While I have little insight on wholesale changes the club could make (especially in April), I do have one suggestion that would spark the offense.

I’m a big believer in red flags. I’ve ignored some in the past only to be burnt in the end, so I seek them out now. When I go into a retail establishment for the first time, as soon as I walk in the door, my eyes immediately go to the ceiling. If I see more than 1 or 2 burned out light bulbs, I know there’s an 85% chance this will be my only visit to the store. Similar to the “broken windows” theory, I’ve found that if a retail location doesn’t pay any attention to changing their burned out light bulbs, they’re probably not paying much attention to other details as well.

Back in late February I blogged about becoming more productive and tracking how I spend my time during the work day. It has been a great help, and since becoming methodical about the process I have seen a great boost in my productivity.

In March I began scheduling my time in advance, which was stage two. Obviously, I failed to schedule any time in March to blog about stage two so I wasn’t as successful as I would have liked to have been, but it was a start.