How to Find Time to Exercise
You’re eager to find time to exercise consistently, but life just keeps getting in the way.
It might feel like the only solution is to increase each day to 25 hours. Don’t worry, you don’t have to work miracles.
There are tangible steps you can take to find time to exercise. Work, school, social life, family time and all kinds of other things compete for your attention every day. However, to get real gains, we have to get training in there too.
The tips below are geared toward people really looking to gain muscle mass. So, they emphasize finding ways to carve out time to train with serious intensity. You won’t see advice like “take the stairs instead of the elevator” or “sit on a balance ball during work.”
1. Prioritize what’s important to you
Even if we want to, we can’t add an hour to each day.
There’s only so much you can do with your time, and it is up to you to decide what you will actually do. This might mean that you spend more time on certain relationships than others, or on specific hobbies.
Where does you fitness goal fit in? That is a personal decision for you to make.
If you’re reading this, you clearly have an interest in working out, but are you willing to make some sacrifices for that? For example, can you say no to a happy hour if it interferes with being able to find time to exercise?
Think about what matters to you, and if working out is one of those things, then prioritize it.
2. Find time that fits your life
Take a little time to plan, which will make it a lot easier to find time to exercise.
Schedule your workout and stick to it
Give your time to exercise the respect it deserves by specifically planning when you will do it. If you are not specific about the time, it becomes very easy to procrastinate or allow other things to take priority. Then you may not work out at all.
Instead, schedule your workout and communicate this to the people in your life who need to know. This may be your spouse, coworker or business partner. You may even choose to let friends know. The point is not to brag about your level of physical activity, but to hold yourself accountable.
The people around you may even start to realize that working out is part of your personal brand and help encourage you.
Although we like to believe that we are spontaneous, the truth is having a consistent scheduled time to work out will help you stay committed to it.
Don’t fight with your schedule
A lot of folks fail at scheduling because they follow a plan created for someone else.
You have your own life and specific circumstances. So, create a plan based on that! For example, do you know that weekends are usually difficult for you because of your kids activities? Then, create a workout plan that saves those days as rest days. Maybe you have a recurring commitment on Wednesday evenings. Plan for that to be a day off every week.
Do you have to take care of errands or start work very early? Then don’t aim to do morning workouts.
Planning with the reality of your life will lead to better success than just trying to replicate someone else’s plan to “find time to exercise every morning before work”.
Don’t fight with everyone else’s schedule
If you go to a gym, avoid the busiest times. You’ll spend much longer waiting around for the equipment you need, or possibly never get to use it at all.
Find a time that will help you avoid crowds. This will make it easier to find time to exercise, because your workout will not be complicated by what everyone else is trying to do. For example, right after work hours is usually a very busy time at most gyms.
One tip to combat that is to work out during your lunch hour. Then, you can eat while you work instead.
Don’t just plan your workout, plan your meals
There is a ton of benefit in planning your meals ahead of time, not just your workouts.
Having your meals and snacks prepared and ready when you need it cuts down the time you need to dedicate to working out and eating to support growth.
When you don’t have this prepared ahead of time, you waste time trying to figure out what to eat. For example, if you have limited time before you need to get to class, work, or your next errand, you may talk yourself out working out if you need to first go to the gym and then stop off somewhere to get food.
Spend that mental energy and time on your training, not on making these decisions that can be handled ahead of time.
3. Make it really easy for you to exercise
People eat out often because it’s so easy to do so.
Imagine if you didn’t really need to find time to exercise, because it was so simple to do it. Remove the friction in the process for yourself.
Location, location, location
Make the location extremely convenient for you.
If you like to exercise in a gym, then find one that cuts down on your commute and gets you in and out. It might even make sense to find a smaller gym with less crowds. Even an additional 10 minutes in your commute to the gym turns into a 20 minute time killer for the round trip.
Don’t get oversold on going to a further gym with amenities you will never use. For example, I met a guy who loved his gym for the smoothie store, barbershop, and sauna inside- all things he never used.
To really cut out the commute, consider getting equipment at home so that you can train without traveling. You don’t even have to commit to a home gym 100%. Exercising at home a few times per week and using a gym the other times can give you enough time savings.
Prep your gym bag
Keep a dedicated gym bag with what you need stocked up, so you don’t have to think about it each time. For example, you can keep a reusable water bottle and some packaged snacks ready. If you have to go to school or work after exercising, you may keep some items to help you freshen up, such as travel size deodorant.
4. Protect your habit, and win it back
Forming a habit will help you stay committed to working out.
If working out becomes a part of your lifestyle, then it won’t feel like you have to find time to exercise. That will just be a normal thing you do consistently.
No matter what, do something!
Take action consistently, even if it’s a small action. When you are super busy, taking a small action to exercise will help you continue to build the habit and progressing toward your goals.
When I feel like I have no time to do anything, my go to exercise is to drop and do push ups before I call it quits for the day.
Sure, that doesn’t feel as great as doing a full session of bench and dips, but it is at least something. That’s better than the alternative to lose a day of exercise and lose momentum.
When you think about it, what does a set of pushups cost you? If you follow the volume training program I recommend when training for massive gains, for example, not really much at all.
You can do 10 reps of 10 sets with 60 seconds to rest between sets in 15 minutes.
No set up required.
Just that 15 minute commitment will keep you on track and boost your confidence that you can find time to exercise, if you are committed!
Don’t get stuck on the exercise. I like push ups because they are great for overall upper body development. You might choose bodyweight squats or lunges instead. The point is, there are ways to keep growing even on your busiest days.
Find time to exercise and chill
Every day can feel like a grind. You just want to lay down and watch some TV, click through social media, or do anything that doesn’t feel like your brain has to be turned on.
There’s nothing wrong with taking a break.
Just don’t let taking a break turn into a lifestyle where you spend more time sitting around than hitting the goals that matter to you. In fact, many people tell me that they find it easier to exercise and push through their workouts when they have something else to distract them.
So, if you want to turn on the TV, do it, but maybe do some crunches while you watch. Something I used to do was go to the gym, instead of a bar, to watch sports. I could watch my favorite teams play on the big screens at the gym, but I was in the right environment to focus on my gains instead of sitting around.
If you really apply these tips to your life, I believe you can find time to exercise consistently. What are your thoughts or questions? Let me know in the comments!
