How to Build and Stick to a Workout Routine Even with a Hectic Schedule

Step 1. Audit your week.

Write down everything you do in a week by the hour.

Do this electronically or on paper.

For example:

7am: Wake up, shower, wake kids up, make breakfast, get kids ready for school.
8am: School run
9am: Start work
12:30: Lunch
1:30: Restart work

etc.

Include evenings, e.g.

6pm: Arrive home from work
6pm - 7pm: Spend time with kids, put kids to bed
7:45pm: Eat dinner
8pm - 10:30: Watch TV
11pm: Sleep

Step 2: Make time.

Where are you not being intentional with your time?

Can you rearrange or reorder tasks, or batch them together to make yourself more efficient?

Take a closer look at those pockets of time where your schedule seems relaxed or less intentional. 

Are there activities you can trim or reshape to make room for your workouts? 

Here are some more examples to optimize your time 👇

Morning Efficiency: Wake up 30 minutes earlier. Use this time for a quick home workout 5x per week - it adds up. 

Mornings can be incredibly productive, and exercising early sets a positive tone for the day.

Lunch Break Workouts: If you have a standard lunch hour and there's a gym nearby, make use of it.

Prepare lunch and squeeze in eating after a 20-30 minute workout.

Alternatively you can skip lunch, just eat a bigger breakfast & dinner, or snack before and after the gym.

Evening Routines: If your evenings involve watching TV or scrolling the phone then set aside some time on some of those evenings to work out.

Batch repeated tasks together for efficiency: For example, cooking 4 times the amount of dinner in one go, saving yourself time making lunch or dinner on other days.

Streamline tasks where possible: Are you travelling to the shops to do your grocery shopping mutliple times per week? 

Plan better, do it all in one trip, or even better, do it online. 

If it costs a little more, it's worth it for the time you'll gain.

Can you outsource time consuming tasks like laundry, cleaning or ironing? If it is the difference between you having time to invest in your health or not, then it's worth it.

Step 3: Plan your training program around your schedule.

This is one of the highest value things a coach can do for you because they'll know what the biggest bang for buck exercises are, which exercises can best fit in and what's a waste of time.

Look at the time blocks you have available for working out.

What does it look like?

Is is 1 hour twice per week?

30 minutes 5x per week?

10-20 minutes 5x per week with 45 minutes on weekends?

3 x 30-45 minutes?

Etc.

The time you have and how it's distributed will influence the program you should do.

If you have fewer, longer blocks on non-consecutive days you should train full body

If you have more blocks but shorter, you should split the body into upper/lower or push, pull, legs

If you can get in SOME gym time, but not enough, you can follow a hybrid plan.

Use the gym to make use of machines for lower body that you won't have access to at home.

At home, do your pullups and some dumbbell exercises like rows and presses.

Do you NEED gym access?

No.

The more equipment you have access to the wider your range of options....

But for home training I'd recommend you start with some dumbbells, a pullup bar and a bench....

But you can get results with just your bodyweight.

It would be great to be optimal....

But your situation isn't perfect... so will you try to do something and get results...

or would you rather have zero results if you can't have optimal results?

Remember, just ONE hard set for a muscle group per week is enough to see results.

You will see more results with more sets, but the returns will be diminishing.

Every additional set you do provides less additional stimulus than the one before it.

Hopefully this has given you hope that you can find time for working out, even if you're a busy parent.

When I was in that situation, I trained on my lunch breaks at a nearby gym. 20 minutes, 4-5x per week.

But if you want fat loss, you've still got to address your nutrition.

Just working out is likely not going to be enough to lose fat if you haven't got your diet in check.

You haven't got time for hours and hours of cardio to get into a calorie deficit, so you need to address your nutrition.

Do you want to lose fat?

I've covered training for you - if you want me to go deeper into this and cover nutrition, then I've got a fat loss program starting on Monday.

Typical results: lose 20 lbs or so over the next 2 months:

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I transform tired, busy & overweight dads into lean and energised champions for their families using my 20 Minute Muscle system and smart nutrition strategies.

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