🙂↔️ You’re not “too busy” to exercise, you just need this.
Systems are the hallmark of consistent habits, a la James Clear.
When You Don’t Have A System In Place For Something, It Gets Hard
To keep it going.
Without a system, one bad day can derail everything, spiraling into multiple bad days in a row, or, at the very least, multiple missed days of exercise.
We’re all going to perpetually be “busy,” or find ourselves in the busy trap — finding work to do to feel productive even when some tasks can wait a bit.
Fortunately, you don’t have to let busyness make you slack off on exercise. I’ve got some ways for you to exercise even when your schedule gets out of your hands.
Newsletter Summary
Strategies (for all types of people) to incorporate movement into their days, no matter how busy
The myth of having a “to-do” list
One quote about productivity to start the week
🚶♂️How To Systematize Your Exercise
Everyone will have a different personality type.
Some are overachievers. Some will be “just-get-it-done”-ers. Some will be procrastinators. Most will have shades of all three that they cycle through.
All of these people schedule things differently and prioritize them differently.
I’ve ranted and raved about how Americans have struggled to meet the weekly exercise guidelines for some time now.
But I also haven’t gone into specific detail about how someone trying to hit these guidelines could feasibly do it.
Exercise snacks are a great way to work more movement into your day, but even a week’s worth of snacks may not be enough by itself.
For someone who is working a typical 9-5 job where they are seated most of the day and don’t get to break away much from their workday, here are some strategies I’d suggest.
Find a group fitness studio you trust and like, and book a class twice a week
This isn’t something I would’ve recommended a year or so ago. But since teaching group classes of my own, I’ve noticed that the community and accountability that goes into group classes is a real thing.
Booking a class not only gives you the financial incentive to show up, but your tribe will start to expect you if you’re a regular Tuesday-Friday classgoer.
If you have the right instructor and class environment to hold you accountable, you’ll easily rack up 100 minutes or more of super-productive activity to make significant progress in your fitness.
If you work a non-traditional schedule where things are always subject to change, budget 30-40 minutes 2-3 times a week for exercise, letting nothing get in the way
Very few people work all hours of the day. But many people — whether they’re entrepreneurs, digital nomads, or self-regulated senior workers — create their own hours.
Thus, these people can sometimes lose track of time, forget to budget time for themselves, and lose control over regularity in their schedule. This lack of predictability in schedule needs to be counteracted by proactive scheduling.
Booking time in your calendar a few times per week and letting nothing (and I mean nothing) get in the way of those workouts is the best way to stick to fitness in an unpredictable work environment.
An extra bit of advice — flexible-schedule people will need flexibility in their workouts, so varying the length of these workouts can help make them more sticky. One day could be 20 minutes, another could be 45, and another 30.
If you don’t fit either of the first two demographics or you do and just can’t find the accountability structure in your day to craft up a workout, hire a coach who will do the work for you and hold you to your appointments.
Some people know they have time in their week to carve out for fitness, but need a coach or an accountability partner to guide them there.
Hiring a coach is the quickest way to develop accountability — you’re showing up for someone else (and paying them to push you to show up) and they are investing time in you.
A smart coach will also help you learn your body better than you could’ve alone, allowing for you to push limits beyond what you thought was capable.
The Myth About The “To-Do” List
Having a to-do list is something I recently reintroduced into my life.
I learned in college after a famous alum came to give the student athletes a talk that there’s definitely power in writing things down.
Pretty quickly, I found that writing down my to-do list at the beginning of each day — sometimes the night before — made my days more productive because I’m someone who loves to check a box.
But I also had days where not every agenda item was crossed off.
I think to-do lists are great insofar as you can keep them realistic.
You learn a lot about yourself when you find out how much you want to write down on a to-do list.
More often than not, the more you write, the less likely it is you achieve everything.
One could argue that a long list of to-do’s could still equal a net gain in productivity, but sometimes all it takes is one thing to go awry for someone to quit altogether.
Tim Denning puts it nicely here:
“A to-do list is a fantasy. Most of them never get completed and we all know it. If tragedy strikes then I can drop everything and hide in a cocoon for a month.
Or I can nuke every item on my to-do list and focus on the most critical one – the one that moves the needle and creates the right lifestyle.
To-do lists aren’t a prison sentence. Getting one big priority done still feels like progress, and one a day when everything is going wrong, well, that’s a huge win.”
While I might disagree that they’re a “fantasy,” I love the idea of making a solo list — with one action item — to get the thing done.
The myth about to-do lists is that they don’t always fuel productivity.
In fact, productivity might be overrated, depending on how you view this next quote about productivity debt from Oliver Burkeman.
🔎 One Quote About Productivity To Start The Week
“And make no mistake: paying off your imaginary productivity debt completely – in other words, working so hard and so efficiently that you no longer feel like you're falling behind – is literally impossible, not just grueling and unpleasant.
In the modern world of work, there's no limit to the number of emails you might receive, the demands your boss might make, the ambitions you might have for your career, etcetera – so there’s no reason to believe you’ll ever get to the end of them.
— Oliver Burkeman, What if You’re Already On Top of Things?
In other words, don’t worry about working so hard all the time. There will always be tasks. Find time for things that are productive in other ways — fitness, relaxation, family time, and movement.
See you all on Wednesday.