“Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today”
Benjamin Franklin
I first heard this quote when I was in school and my English teacher was trying to get me to do my homework, I thought yeah, yeah at the time but I always used to think about what she said. She was off course, right!
Time management is about getting stuff done and you’ve no doubt heard the saying, ‘if you want something doing, give it to a busy person’ absolutely right, they know how to get stuff done.
If you can get stuff done, you can make the time to exercise! That’s why many of the worlds top CEO’s & Politicians have a regular habit in common. That is, exercise. They all exercise, often everyday and more than likely they have done all this before you’ve crawled out of bed. In her book ‘What the most successful people do before breakfast: How to achieve more at work and at home’ Laura Vanderkam highlights a survey conducted by James Citrin who co leads the North American Board and CEO Practice at the head-hunting firm Spencer Stuart. Laura explains morning habits of some very busy people from a survey about their morning routines. Those surveyed included Steve Reinemund, the former chairmen and CEO of Pepsi, he was up at 5am, ran four miles on the treadmill before allowing himself some time for praying, reading and catching up with the news. Frits van Paasschen, then president and CEO of the Coors Brewing Company spent 40 minutes of his morning running, he was home by 6:30am. Ursula Burns, now CEO of Xerox was scheduled in for an hours personal training between 6:00am and 7:00am.
As a personal trainer myself I train very busy and successful people in the mornings and evenings, all of which have made exercising a priority and therefore it gets done, with some gentle persuasion off course. Everyone has time to exercise, you just have to make it a priority, develop a habit and you’ll benefit immensely. Remember creating a healthy habit replaces something you currently already do (which is habit). Thus instead of having an extra hour in bed, you could be exercising, instead of checking Facebook for 40 minutes in the evening, you could be exercising. Substitute your poor habits for healthy habits. If you don’t have the motivation, get a personal trainer, get a trainer to design a training plan you can follow online or join a local bootcamp.
Remember, the next time you say ‘I don’t have time to exercise’ there are people exercising right now who are busier than you!
