Excuses for not exercising each day abound. Maybe the excuse involves an injury, or a medical condition, or a dislike of gym, or the absence of a spouse to walk with, or a job that involves travel.
One excuse, though, crops up more than any other: there just isn’t enough time! As a chronic user of this excuse, I can write about it as an expert. For most of my adult life, I could never find the time to exercise.
Perhaps the problem begins with the verb “find.” It must be difficult to “find” time because even the best physicists in the world can’t find it. In the June 2007 issue of Discovery Magazine, the headline on the lead article reads: “Time May Not Exist.”
The reporter explains that on the Planck scale of time measurement, the smallest unit of time is less than a trillionth of a trillionth of an attosecond. To help put that measurement in perspective, one attosecond is to one second as one second is to 300 million years. So if some of the smartest people on the planet can’t find time, what hope is there for you or me?
Paradoxically, even though we can’t find time, maybe we can make time.
And how can we accomplish that feat? We’ll need to use the same strategies we use in managing our homes, jobs and businesses. Here are four simple rules we can use in our own lives and share with others:
- Get organized. Before I go to bed, I write down my plans for the next day. I have two categories: what I must do and what I would like to do, if time permits. Exercise is always in the “must do” column.
- Get rid of the clutter in your home and life. And get as much help with everyday tasks as you can afford. The more I simplify, the greater pleasure I derive from living. The less clutter I have, the clearer my thinking about my priorities. The more help I have for routine chores, the more time I have to exercise.
- Stick to your priorities. Don’t let the urgent drive out the important. Drama happens to all of us in the course of living—a flat tire, a freezer that stops freezing or a child gets the flu. Of course, these urgent matters must be attended to—but they can’t be allowed to drive out what is important to us. And the “important” always involves taking care of our bodies.
- Reserve time on your calendar for the “must do” activities. I schedule an hour of exercise before I begin my day. No matter what else is scheduled, I reserve the first hour for myself on the floor, in the living room with my weights, exercise ball and floor mat. With this essential task done, I begin my day with a clear conscience.
Reclaiming the time in our lives is one of the most valuable skills we can acquire and a must for anyone committed to regular exercise. According to Dr. Andrew Weil and a lot of other health experts, it’s never too early or too late to adopt healthier habits, including regular exercise. And there’s no time like the present to begin.
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