How many times in your life have you told yourself that it’s time to start working out? Or, better, how many times have you told yourself that you’re going to start working out this month?
I imagine you can agree that getting regular exercise is imperative to maintaining long-term health. But why is it that you have trouble finding the time to do this one thing that you know you should be doing?
Too Many Things To Do…
In recent articles, I’ve talked about how to break down your daily tasks to and evaluate how much time you spend on each one. For instance, a typical weekday for you might look like this:
Cook (or unwrap) & eat breakfast – 30 minutes
Get ready for work – 30 minutes
Drive to work – 40 minutes (the average commute time…looooots of wasted time)
Work – 4 hours
Lunch – 30 minutes
Work – 3.5 hours
Drive home from work – 40 minutes
Pick up laundry from cleaner – 40 minutes
Go to grocery store – 60 minutes
Cook (or unwrap) & eat dinner – 60 minutes
Clean up after dinner – 30 minutes
Binge watch House of Cards – 2 hours
As you can see, your average day is pretty packed with things on your to-do, as well as work, eating and a healthy dose of House of Cards.
With so much to put into one day, how is one to find time to workout in the first place? Maybe you could just sleep less? Then you would have more time, right?
Well, that would be going against other attributes of living a healthy lifestyle, so sleeping less isn’t the right answer. I guess the only option is to wait and see when you can find time to start taking care of yourself and exercising. Nope, not the right answer either.
Introduction to Parkinson’s Law
In the mid 1950s, a man by the name of Cyril Parkinson wrote an article in the journal The Economist. The article was titled “Parkinson’s Law”, named, obviously, after its author.
Luckily for you, the whole article can just about be summed up by the very first sentence, which goes like this:
It is a commonplace observation that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.
Basically, on average, you will spend as much time on a task as is available to get the task done.
For instance, in the article he talks about a retired women writing a card and sending it in the mail. For the retired women, she may spend an entire day putting something like this together because…well…she has that day allotted for the project.
For you, on the other hand, if it took you more than 15-20 minutes to write a card, stamp it, and it in the mail, you would think it to be a waste of time!
What Does This Have To Do With Starting to Work Out?!
Which brings me back to you. Remember that list of items I made at the beginning of the article? And do you remember the amount of time that was given to each one of those tasks?
If you have a general idea of what your day looks like and where you’re spending your time, a good question to ask would be:
How much time am I giving to this task? And, how can I spend less time on performing this task?
If the answer to the second question above is something along the lines of “It’s all important and needs my attention” I strongly suggest you re-evaluate your time and priorities.
While I’m not going to get into how to do that here, you’re welcome to read more about that in THIS ARTICLE.
The point is that, although you may currently have your plate full of things to do, you are simply taking that “allotted” time to complete those tasks. For most, you may not even see that you’ve “allotted” time at all, but that you simply do something until it is done. That, my friend, is wasting time and you are better than that.
Even if you already do some form of exercise, maybe you could be doing more. Maybe you could feel better, move better, get stronger, lose more weight, get in better health.
If this is you, ask yourself:
What can I cut back on or cut out completely to make more time for myself?
Where am I wasting time by taking too long to complete tasks that are not moving me towards my goal?
If you’re not achieving the goals you want to reach in life, it’s because you’re not prioritizing your time to do the things you need to do to move towards those goals. Find out what that means to YOU and make the time to improve yourself!
If you’re working out, but are having trouble being consistent, read
THIS ARTICLE about making exercise stick
If you need more help in getting started, read
THIS ARTICLE about finding a plan that works for you.
If you’re ready to overcome your fears and get moving to fitness mastery, schedule your FREE Strategy Session
to learn how we can get you on your fitness journey.
