Time management is a bit of a misnomer as everyone is allocated the same 168 hours per week. It is how those hours are spent that counts to our productivity. For a golfer this means time must be spent in training, competition, recovery and the myriad everyday tasks that also need to be attended to.

Time management is often confused with periodisation. Periodisation relates to the content of the weeks, months and years of training and competition. Time management is more to do with the level of productivity within those periods of time.

To quote Larry Winget in his book It’s Called Work for a Reason, “Everyone should forget about time management and should instead focus on managing priorities. When the right things get done, time takes care of itself.”  This statement could be further refined to include the right things being done with clear purpose, focus, attention and perseverance.

Translate that into a gym session or practice session and find out how mentally tiring it really is to train even for one hour with clear purpose, focus, attention and perseverance. If this is the case, then short-but-focussed periods of time in practice should occur until the player is able to concentrate fully for longer periods of time.

One of the criteria for Deliberate Practice is that you are completely engaged with the task; that your concentration is complete.  And this is usually only possible for short periods of time before you need a rest…then begin again after a short period of time.

Engage completely for short periods of time, then begin again.  You won’t believe your progress…