Yes, as much as I love technology, I am a paper planner kind of girl. It’s the easiest way for me to keep track of the various things I need to accomplish every day. I honestly don’t know how people keep track of busy lives without some sort of a planner.
I don’t think of my life as that busy, to be honest. I don’t have kids, I only have one job, and I’m not going to school on top of working full time. I’m not training for a marathon or a 140.6. And yet I still sometimes struggle to fit it all in.
I’m sure this is something that a lot of us struggle with. And there aren’t a ton of bloggers talking about it. Why? Because we don’t have time!
The big tip I hear is that you have to prioritize your workouts. And that works well. Except sometimes you can’t. It sounds great to prioritize your workout, but the boss doesn’t always agree with you placing your fitness ahead of getting your job done. One thing that works well for me is fairly strict scheduling. I look at what workouts I need to get done that week, look at my work and personal schedule and see when each workout fits in best. Will I be able to fit in my workout after work (my preferred time) or will I need to get up early to get it in?
Of course, who has a perfectly scheduled week? Sometimes work goes awry and you find yourself still at the office two hours after you planned to leave. Then you should go home and hit the treadmill, but you’re starving and a small snack isn’t going to tide you over. Plus you’re exhausted and so you just go home and collapse face first into your bed.
But it happens. And rather than consider the week a wash, you just pick up your plan the next day. Maybe you do a bit of rearranging to make sure that your most important workouts still happen. And as I keep telling myself, something is better than nothing. If I have a 90 minute workout on the schedule but get home late and am exhausted, I try to at least get in 45 minutes.
And sometimes you take the crazy route to get your workouts in. Sometimes you get up at 3 am to run before work. Sometimes you ask your boss if you can come in an hour late so you can get in your swim. Sometimes you take a day off to get your long run in before an approaching winter storm. (These are all things that I have done.) Your friends who aren’t into racing will think you’re nuts. Your friends who are runners and triathletes will get it.
For me the big key is to make sure that I’m not just making excuses for myself. There are definitely times I don’t want to do my workouts (those are usually the days I have to do hill work). But I can’t skip just because I’m tired. And while I’m working on being better at prioritizing sleep, I’m still trying to figure out how to distinguish “tired” from “lazy.” As my training intensifies for next year’s racing season, I’m not going to be able to afford to miss workouts. It’s going to be about finding balance. And accepting that sometimes, my house is going to be a total disaster.
What are your tips for fitting it all in?