How to Live Well on 24 hours a Day

Time is the great equalizer. No one – rich, poor, skinny, fat, old, young – is allotted more hours in the day than anyone else. We all have only 24 hours.

We can’t go into “time debt” taking an advance on future hours. Nor can we stock up, saving time from a slow day for a future hectic one where we might need a cushion of minutes. We all get 1,440 minutes, to do with what we please, each time the calendar advances.

So why is it that some women can find time for fitness, or rather find time for themselves, while others cannot? I know, I know… I can hear the excuses already. In fact, I hear them all the time. “Well, she doesn’t work as much as I do.” Or, “She doesn’t have small children.” Or, “I will when my life slows down.”

Oh yeah? When will that be? When do you think you’ll win the time lottery and suddenly have more than you can spend?

The real problem isn’t lack of time. We already established that each of us get the same amount. The real problem is how you decide to spend the precious few hours your life will contain. Will you spend them moving your body, caring for yourself so that maybe you might be granted some extra years (or at least the ability to move and enjoy your remaining years)? Or will you put everything and everyone else first, so that you always have a convenient excuse that sounds acceptable in polite company as to why you can’t take care of you (and others will have to later?)

Really it’s about priorities. I’ve never met a person yet who truly didn’t have time to exercise. But I’ve met plenty who believed they didn’t… because they deemed everything else in their life more worthy of time spent than exercise.

Most of us work about 8 hours Monday through Friday. That leaves 16 hours for yourself. Subtract out 8 hours of sleep – which I highly recommend – and 8 hours still remain. I know that those remaining 8 hours must include meal preparation and consumption, personal grooming, family time, and commuting to and from work.

But in 8 hours you can’t find 30 minutes to do the one thing that will guarantee better health, increase your optimism, reduce chances for depression, build self-confidence, increase chances for longevity, trim your waistline, make you look younger, and enhance your overall life experience? Hmmmmmm…….

Here are 5 tips you can use – right now – to help you live (well) on 24 hours a day.

• Turn off the TV. If you spend more than 1 hour a day (and I think that’s even too much) on your butt in front of the tube, you have no right to say you don’t have enough time for anything. If you insist on watching TV rather than walking with a loved one outside, at least put a treadmill in front of the TV so that you’re getting some exercise while you’re zoning out.
• Combine activities. Now I’m not a big fan of multi-tasking (in fact, I think true multi-tasking is impossible), I do know that you can do a home workout with your spouse, or you can put your baby in a stroller and go for a walk thereby spending time exercising and with your family. It is possible to read a magazine while on an elliptical trainer or do squats and calf raises while talking on the phone. In fact, I’m writing this on my laptop at the kitchen table so I can be across from my daughter doing homework.
• Get up earlier. The best time to exercise is first thing in the morning so that it’s done, you can shower and get on with your day. There are very few things that unexpectedly come up first thing in the morning that can make you miss your workout (as always seems to happen later in the day). Plus, getting up earlier often forces a more healthy bedtime.
• Just say “no.” Quit trying to please everybody. Set up some healthy boundaries in accordance with your priorities and don’t let anybody talk you into deviating. I’ve seen countless women run themselves ragged, doing needless tasks for their kids, friends, and co-workers rather than just saying, “Sorry, I can’t. I have other obligations.”
• Take a hard look at your priorities (as defined by where you spend your time) and decide if they really reflect your values. Okay, so this is the tough one. It means that you must admit that you are where you are because of choices you’ve made. It means admitting that if you don’t have time for your family, it’s because you decided they were secondary to your job. Or if you don’t have time for yourself, it’s because you don’t matter as much as other obligations. You are where you are because of every choice you’ve made to this point. If you have an hour commute to and from your job, you must decide why it was so important to live where you do. If you don’t have time to fix meals at home, you must decide why your career, or your kids’ activities, have superseded the health of your family. The good news is whatever you have chosen in the past can always be improved upon by another choice in the future.

Make a new choice. Find the time. It’s there. Every day you get a new 24 hours to spend as you please. It’s just a matter of making it yours.