There are so many things going on in our busy lives nowadays. With work, family, household chores, and other things to take care of, finding time for fitness or a healthy lifestyle can be difficult.
I had difficulty last season training for Ironman and still get into conversations about the balance of these aspects I’ve mentioned. If I work too much Overtime, there is not enough time for family. If I spend my whole weekend riding my bike no household chores are getting done, and definitely no time for family.
So how do we find balance? How can we get the household chores done, go to work, spend time with the family, yet still get a workout done to maintain fitness? I’m still learning as I go, but here are some tricks I’ve picked up.
Do your workouts early in the morning before the family is awake. This leaves my whole day open for all other aspects of my life. Plus it leaves me feeling refreshed and invigorated all day.
The internet, it’s a total time waster. Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, The Chive, - limiting or eliminating time on these and other sites will certainly help.
TV, one hour or more of TV per day is a certain way to waste precious time.
Find ways to incorporate your family into your workouts. I drag my wife or kids along on my runs whenever I can.
One of my new big tricks is to simply skip the workout. If my family wants to do something and I’ll miss that scheduled run, so be it. I’ll do the run tomorrow.
Make a workout schedule with dates and duration.
You can go the other direction though as well, by spending all your time doing stuff other than fitness. If you don’t get any exercise, this could shorten your lifespan, therefore making it so you can’t spend precious years with your family. I also guarantee if you fit some workouts into your daily routine, your quality of life will improve.
Wayne Little