His father, who appears to have been a very wise man, gave him a card at a certain age–perhaps graduation from high school–with a number of sayings on it.
One of them was “Make each day your masterpiece”.
I have read this before, but am only now starting to understand it.
Wooden, in my understanding, figured he should take as long to PLAN a practice as it took his athletes to undertake it. He would choreograph very complex drills in which conditioning was combined with very specific game day practice.
And he speaks on a number of occasions about the power of gentleness. His aim, his accomplished aim, was gradualness. His aim was to improve just a little every day, to plan ahead, to never reach a point where his lack of preparation required him to get agitated. He looked far, far down the road, and never required “peak efforting”. He never wanted his players to “rise to the occasion”, but rather be ready for it, to have reached a point in their preparation where the big game was something they looked forward to mastering.
Think about this concept of choreographing a day, to making your work and relaxation a work of art, an aesthetic statement about who you are and what you value.
You are not just planning to get X, Y, and Z done. You are doing it with style, with a view to the long haul, with a view to self improvement, however you conceive this; to, in important respects, master life, such that the major challenges can be taken in stride, because you were ready for them.