Slacking With My Workouts
One day I took some time to search the web for blogs focused on living a healthy lifestyle. In doing so, I came upon a post by Jackie Nagle. The title of the post was Slacking with my Workouts.
In a different post Jackie writes, “due to the crazy work schedule I do not workout as much as I would like”. The struggle is real, y'all.
Seeing that there are others out there like Jackie who are struggling with finding time to workout and as a result, are slacking with their workouts, I decided to write this post.
Here I share the suggestions I would give Jackie and anyone else going through the struggle of making time to workout.
Get Real: Do You Really Not have Time to Workout?
Using myself as an example, I can tell you I too did not have time to workout. That was until I made time to work out.
We all have twenty-four hours in our day. How do you make more time than that? You don’t, because we can’t. What you can do, however, is assess where you spend your time and on what.
I work out in the morning before work. Other times of day, during lunch and after work, do not work for me. Determining that in the morning before work was the best time for me to work out was a process.
I had to, first, honestly assess how I was spending my time.
Before working out became my lifestyle, my mornings were spent sleeping in the bed, checking emails, searching my Facebook feed, and finding any other distraction other than working out.
My next course of action was to try exercising different times of the day. I determined, rather quickly, that during a work week after work was out. I never knew when I was leaving work. I found myself either too tired or canceling my workout plans to finish up something at the office.
Now we will use 7-steps to help you determine when you will workout.
7 Steps to Help Make Sure You Have Time to Workout
Here is what I recommend to help you determine your optimal workout time:
Step 1: Take honest assessment: Assess where you spend your time and on what. For a week, chart your activity.
Step 2: Track your time: Note how much time you spend on those activities.
Step 3: Categorize where you spend your time: For each activity, tag it with absolutely necessary, could have delegated, could have waited, or made me feel better.
Absolutely necessary could be time you spent driving yourself to work, working, or attending a priority function, such as a mandatory meeting or a child’s practice or game. In Jackie's case she would consider this as the time preparing for class, writing exams, grading papers, and attending departmental meetings.
Could have delegated is pretty obvious. It is something you could have given someone else to do. What Jackie does for class may be hard to delegate, but she could use this to determine what other parts of her life she can delegate to someone else. For example, if she has a roommate, they could switch off who cleans the bathroom.
Could have waited is something that did not need to be done at that moment. For example, if you have a goal to read a book, that could be done at a different, specified, planned time. I sometimes use my bus rides home from work for reading. What are you doing that can wait?
Made me feel better are those activities that we do to avoid something we should be doing, like exercising (hint hint). Such activities are spending time on social media, watching television, or talking on the phone or texting. Another way to think of made me feel better is idle time. It is that time you spend on an activity that has no significance.
Step 4: Reassess the absolutely necessary time. Was it really absolutely necessary? If yes, fine. If not, move it to the appropriate category.
Step 5: Review and repeat. Review all times other than absolutely necessary.
Step 6: Review the time spent in each category. How much time did you spend in those areas? Note that time; then note what time of the day, and on what days, you have the most time or some available pockets of time.
Step 7: Set your time to workout. Use that time to determine the best days and times to exercise.
Given all you have to do, your assessment may reveal that you do not have much time to work out. Know this: Any amount of time you put forth to make time for working out and to take care of your well-being is better than making no time at all. If all you have is five minutes, that five minutes will ALWAYS be better than zero minutes. Remember that.
Start the Discussion: What tactics do you use to make time for working out? Share in the post comments, on Facebook or Twitter.
Check out these related posts:
How do you find time to workout? – 5 Ways to Get It In
How to be Inspired to Do Something to Get Your Mojo Back
How Do You Practice Weight Loss Maintenance for Life?
Why Strength Training Benefits You Sooner than Later