How to find time for training: how to plan your workouts so you don't miss out

Sport can be not just a way to keep fit or achieve desired results, but an integral part of life that helps keep both body and mind in check. You can get all of this by forming just one habit – regularity.

time management expert

I’ve been running for several years. I go out for a run every day. I’ve run a half marathon several times and I can say with confidence: time spent on sports will come back and save a lot of valuable resource. This will happen due to better brain function, faster recovery from difficult work and stress. In addition, sports are great for avoiding bouts of perfectionism and procrastination.

How to find time for sports in a busy schedule?

We will find time for whatever we really need. The question is clarity of purpose and fueling motivation. We suggest following five simple steps towards your valuable new habit.

Step 1: Define the goal

Come up with a first tangible objective that will motivate you to move toward a global goal. This value should be measurable, attainable, and very real.

Don’t forget deadlines – knowing the exact date by which you want to see results will structure your schedule and motivate you to take action.

For example:

Celebrate your 35th birthday as an energetic beauty in a tight S-size dress;
On June 1, celebrate your best shape ever (add your desired volume, weight and % body fat);
run your first marathon in September 2022.

Step 2: Choose a strategy

Next, prescribe a strategy that will help you achieve your goal. Here, too, it’s important to be precise – let your steps be very small, but strictly prescribed. The most effective way to determine the strategy will help you coach or a specialist in your particular field.

For example:

a daily morning warm-up of 10 minutes to set yourself up for an energetic day;

Strength training at home or in the gym. A minimum of 30 minutes, 3 times a week;
running for 60 minutes, 3 times a week;
sticking to a nutritionist-prescribed meal plan for 100 days.

Step 3: Where do you spend your time?

When you have decided how much time you are willing to devote to sports, you need to free up that time. To do this, look at where your most valuable resource is going right now. Track your timekeeping for three days.

There are many apps that are called “timekeeping,” but you can make it easier. Each day, set an alarm every two hours after you wake up. And when it rings, write down what you’ve been doing for the last two hours.

Step 4: Managing your time properly

At this stage, you’ll need to get into the habit of writing a daily task list and allocating things to do based on your energy cycles.

For example:

to solve a complex problem you will spend one hour in the morning and two hours in the evening;
you’ll spend two hours in the afternoon and one and a half hours in the evening to organize your home and prepare meals;
what you would spend three hours doing after midnight can be done in one or two hours between 7am and 12am.

Typically, our energy levels are not evenly distributed throughout the day: from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm is the most mental energy, but from about 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm most people have an energy pit. This manifests itself in the fact that you start yawning, the mind is not so clear, and the work is given with difficulty and want to sleep. A short rest at this time will help you reboot.

The second small peak usually appears in the evening, but at this time you have already used up your willpower, you may be able to study, but you can hardly make effective decisions.

Listen to your body and plan your training and recovery time based on these feelings.

Step 5: Make a habit of exercising

Anything new seems difficult to us. If you don’t stop and persevere, the difficult things will become habitual. As we move on, the habitual becomes easy. And with a little more persistence, you will make the desired action enjoyable and necessary.

There are three important points in the formation of any habit:

A habit is formed when you start doing one action every day for a long period of time. For example, 21 or 35 days;
a regular minimal action is required to form a habit. We are talking about such minimal steps that you will find it easy to perform even on days of force majeure, stress and malaise. We need minimal action so that we don’t skip days;
It is very important to remember – in the process of habit formation (neural connections), skipping one day sets you back a week, and if you skip two days in a row, you have to start the cycle over again.

Lacking personal motivation and discipline? Create a team: team up with someone you know in a chat room and make a commitment to report every day. Designate a penalty for each day you miss minimum sports activities.

Such flyhacks will help you properly allocate your resources throughout the long road to the goal. And you can start today, you don’t have to wait for Monday.