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In many countries, elite athletes are required to undertake education alongside their sports training. Time management has important implications for the development of elite athletes. From a Naturalistic Decision-Making perspective, it is argued that athletes’ decision-making strategies in relation to time management need to be better understood. Interviews were conducted with a number of athletes training for the first and third year in a sports and academic training centre. Interviews revealed that athletes made sense of situations to decide what strategy to use to manage their time under conditions of stress and fatigue. Athletes changed strategy when they noticed conflicts in the time-frames imposed by the centre. Results also showed that first- and third-year athletes displayed some common ground but also revealed some differences. In comparison with third-year athletes, first-year athletes reported more emotion-focused strategies. Third-year athletes reported more problem-focused strategies. Results led to the adaptation of the Recognition-Primed Decision-making model to time management in elite sports.
Practitioner points The study shows how elite athletes used their experience to manage time under fatigue and stress conditions.
It shows the strategies used by elite athletes to manage their time in a context in which their use of time is imposed on them.
Time management was partly flexible and partly beyond the control of the athlete.
