How To Find Time To Workout

The most common excuse you will see proffered as why someone doesn’t workout is time.  “I’m too busy to go to the gym,” is a common phrase.  However, the truth isn’t a lack of time, it’s a lack of determination to find time.

My time is very valuable to me, but I don’t possess the busy schedule of one with kids, a job, and multiple other mandatory responsibilities.  Most of the year, it isn’t hard for me to carve up a 2 hour block for the gym.  However, some people really do work 60 hours a week with more work awaiting them at home and so finding time to get healthy by going for a run, pumping iron, or whatever else isn’t as easy.  Still, it can be done.

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First, let’s get mathematical about this.  There are 7 days a week with each containing 24 hours.  This adds up to 168 hours a week.  This is a ton of time.  We must properly allot the time to determine how much time we can workout a week.  Some may be limited to as little as 3 workouts a week, but that is still much better than 0.

Assuming a very busy person’s schedule, we’ll allot 72 hours per week for getting ready for work, traveling to and from work, and working itself.  This leaves us with 96 hours.  I think everyone should get at least 6.5 hours of sleep per night at the minimum so let’s alot a little more and give our busy bee 7 hours a night (we need the extra sleep for energy on our workouts).  This comes to 49 hours.

So 96 + 49 hours = 145 hours

We have 23 hours left in the week.  Let’s factor away 5 hours for eating outside of work (a quick breakfast, snack optionals, and a flexible dinner).  18 hours.  We’ll now subtract 10 hours of family/you time – whatever you want this to be – play with the kids, take the spouse on a date, just hanging out, eating an apple under a tree or whatever.  We still have 8 hours so let’s take out 4 for getting ready for anything besides work.

We now have 4 hours for working out.  This can be 4 sessions of 40 minutes to 1 hour of exercise or 3 sessions of 1:10 to 1:30 of working out.  Each program will be enough for you to experience muscle growth and grow fit.  The key will be making the most of each session and engaging in high octane workouts where you are minimizing rest between reps, and not chit chatting or day dreaming.

Notice how this plan doesn’t specifically involve TV or the Internet.  These two medias are big time wasters for many Americans.  However, you can still get your favorite shows in or frequent your favorite blogs (this one) under the family/you plan if you so desire.

The keys to success here are consolidation.  Don’t fragment your time into small bits because each activity has “fat” time where you are getting prepared or traveling.  For example, rather than taking two smaller $90 grocery runs every week or 10 days, go for one bigger trip of $180 to last you awhile longer.  This is one way of saving time in two ways.  First, you’re getting your store trips and grocery unloads done in one session rather than two and second you’re avoiding taking time out to get breakfast or dinner (not counting your lunches at work).

As you can see, this plan is very lean but in order to get more done in the same amount of time you must be efficient.  There will be sacrifices, but you can get in great workouts even in an ultra hectic schedule.  If you spend any more time than 72 hours dedicated to your work, you either better love what you do or start figuring out a way to lessen your load.