What can 18 do for you?

Professionals who work on golf courses frequently lament the lack of personal time available in the summer.

Tournaments, outings, packed tee sheets and revenue pressures define June, July and August in cool-season climates. These days, in warm-season climates, population shifts stemming from the Sun Belt migration yield more summer and shoulder-season play, condensing the invasive cultural practice, project and vacation window.

Commerce and heat can be a toxic mix for the well-being of golf maintenance professionals, as summer demands delay and halt robust habits diligently formed during cooler months.

Who has time to read, run, lift, walk or perform yoga when a green surrounded by shade on three sides shows signs of wilt?

For that green to perform its best, the people maintaining it must be at their best. Here’s a modest idea to help manage summer: devote 18 minutes twice per workday toward physical or mental fitness. Ideally, the 36 minutes should be spent away from a golf course or a screen.

Why 18 minutes? The pragmatists involved with TED Talks, the popular and transformative speaking series, cap presentations at 18 minutes because that represents the ideal length to capture and maintain somebody’s attention. Concise speaking leads to more wisdom retention. Perhaps conference organizers should use TED Talks as a model when devising speaking schedules and lineups. Eighteen quality minutes will help a busy professional learn more than they could during one, two, three or four blabbering hours. Shorter presentations open time for extra 18-minute networking conversations when attending educational events.

Coincidentally, 18 also represents the number of holes on a regulation golf course. It’s an easy metric for anybody working in the industry to remember. When and how to use the 36 minutes will be one of the most important decisions of a summer day.

Avoid stacking the 18-minute sessions. Let’s say you use 18 minutes in the morning to read a golf, turf, business, self-help, science or business book — or this magazine. Don’t immediately follow the session with a workout. You’ll need the second 18 minutes later in the day.

Like keeping an aging piece of equipment functioning or preparing the course for play with eight workers instead of the 10 listed on the day’s schedule, ingenuity will help maximize each 18-minute session. A run, walk or lift can be combined with listening to a podcast. Need listening ideas? Our Superintendent Radio Network is approaching 600 episodes, and they are archived on popular podcast distribution platforms. The same platforms host thousands of non-industry podcasts with tremendous educational and inspirational value. Learning while moving is a potent combination for time-limited individuals.

Youth sporting events are excellent places to squeeze in an 18-minute walk or run. We’re not suggesting missing your child’s at-bat or action time. Consider using pregame, intermission and gaps between games for motion, either in solitude or with family members.

Stopping to walk or jog on a trail or sidewalk, at a park on the way home from the course, or to the kids’ activities offers another opportunity to squeeze fitness into a packed day. Delaying one, or both, 18-minute sessions for too long might result in missing one, or both, of them. Bad habits emerge when tasks are delayed to the next day.

Quality reading material always tones the mind and keeps life and work in perspective. We introduce a quartet of books with industry or golf ties in our summer reading guide (page 26). The books profiled, which include a personal memoir by one of your peers, are breezy reads with impactful lessons. They can easily be consumed in 18-minute chunks. Hard copies work best because screens induce fatigue, plus you’re supporting somebody’s creative work.

Summer will never be easy in the golf industry. But strategies exist to ensure bodies and minds won’t wilt over the next three months. The body and mind are your two most important life and work tools. They deserve to be part of your summer routine.