I’m a huge sports fan.  I love American football especially.  Say what you want about the dangers of the sport and all, but I love watching 22 guys giving it their all in an athletic contest to try and reach the Superbowl.  One of the concepts I used to love even more than the sport itself was the “bulletin board”.  For those not familiar with the term, the bulletin board refers to either a physical cork board or a mental log.  It holds all the messages the team or individual is supposed to remember and hold onto for news, notes, and inspiration.  The term “bulletin board material”, often referred to when someone or an organization would make a comment that would inflame the team, thereby making them want to beat the opposition even more.  You’ll hear coaches in team sports all the time tell players above all else, “don’t give the other team any bulletin board material.”

While recognizing that sometimes this material can be helpful to spur someone on to do great things, it can also be harmful to overall effort.  Bulletin board material causes passion (both good and bad) to overcome both logical process and sometimes even muscle memory.  In pool especially, bulletin board material does one very crippling thing to your game:  It makes pool about beating people rather than playing the table in front of you.  This takes your focus off of the preshot routine, finding contact points, and tangents. Before you know it, you’re frustrated, elated, crying, and laughing all in the same match.  At that point, pool is actually the last thing on your mind, and you’ve basically showed your hand to your opponent.

The truth also is that we are not robots.  We can’t just turn emotion off and be passionless (even though in pool that would be ideal sometimes).  Also, bulletin boards can carry useful information for a pool player (ex. when do I play, what’s my preshot routine, positive inspirational quotes, etc).  So, what do you keep instead of a bulletin board that won’t also be drawing your focus off your game, with good or bad things? 

I believe the easiest answer is a small pocket notebook.  In it, write notes about your misses and best shots (after the match of course).  Write down your times you play, and what and when you practiced.  Write down the drills you struggle with, and what you’ve mastered.  Write down  your inspirational quotes, and read all this during down time.  But during game time, close the book, lock it out, and focus on the table in front of you.  Bulletin boards can get too clogged with information spanning long periods of time.  Notebooks travel everywhere with you, and only you get to decide what goes into them.  So guard against negative bulletin board material, and always work to live in the moment.  Because in pool, and really all sports, that’s truly all you have: one moment.  So, how are you going to spend it?