RemindMyLife

Making Exercise a Part of Your Routine

It’s one thing to know that exercising every day is important in maintaining health, wellness, emotional stability and a killer bod. It’s quite another thing to implement this knowledge into our busy daily schedules, especially if you have a demanding job.

Finding time to work out shouldn’t stress you out. All it takes is a bit of discipline and you can be on your way to creating a healthy, structured lifestyle that gives you time to have it all—work, family, free time, meditation, plenty of sleep and a healthy diet.

How Much Time Do I Need to Spend Exercising?

Ok, so you’re already wracking your brain trying to think of when you can squeeze in some exercise. How much time do you need? Ideally, adults aged 18 to 64 should do about 45 minutes of exercise each day. That’s not too difficult.

According to data from the World Health Organisation (WHO), you’re looking at:

150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic physical activity throughout the week
75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic physical activity throughout the week
Or a combination of moderate and vigorous-intensive physical activity.
Muscle-strengthening activities should involve all major muscle groups and done on one or more days a week

How to Incorporate Exercise into Your Routine

If you’re dedicated to making a commitment to caring for your body and mind, here are a few tips to help you incorporate exercise into your daily routine.

Find Something You Like

Not everyone likes going to the gym, running on a machine and lifting things up and putting them down. Some people do. If you already know what you don’t like, it’s important to find exercises that you do like, as long as it fits your lifestyle, personality and taste. Try experimenting with different forms of exercise until you find something that suits you. Perhaps you prefer Pilates, rock climbing or Samba. Maybe it’s all three. If you enjoy the exercise, you’ll make time for it.

Find a Buddy

When you have a workout buddy, not only do you have someone to enjoy these activities with, but you also have someone to keep you in line if you get lazy. In addition, having someone to work out with can give you a little competition and it can combine social and leisure time with exercise time.

Temptation Bundling

A lot of people are learning the beauty of temptation bundling, which is a simple way to boost your willpower in many situations. Do you have a guilty pleasure? Love watching Home and Away? Tell yourself you can only watch your favourite program or listen to your audiobook or podcast when you’re exercising. That way, you’ll get through the workout faster and you’ll look forward to it.

Make a Schedule and Stick to It

Working out is a priority worth keeping, not only for your health, but also for your own sanity. Don’t let work or anything sort of an emergency keep you from making that date with yourself.

Track Your Activity Levels

By writing down what you achieved with each workout session or tracking how long you are exercising for, you can keep track of your improvements, notice when you slip and generally monitor your progress and stay motivated.

Choose Something over Nothing

If you really can’t make that 45 minute session once a day, don’t skip exercising all together. Do something over nothing. Break it up into 10-15 minutes three times a day, take the stairs. There is plenty of quick workouts you can do that will help you stick to your routine and stay in the fitness mindset.

Finding time to exercise is all about creating structure and balance around your time. Create a balanced lifestyle in all areas with the RemindMyLife app and don’t forget to pat yourself on the back every time you do something for yourself.

Managing Your Time for a Better Work-Life Balance

Are you feeling the demands of your job in your daily life? You’re not alone. Many people find it incredibly difficult to balance their work with their lifestyle for many reasons. Whether you’re a workaholic or worried about layoffs and cutbacks, you can have control over the other aspects in your life. You have control over the ways you bring enjoyment to your life and how much time you choose to spend worrying about work.

In order to lead a balanced life, you should work less than 8.5 hours. Evidence suggests that long work hours may impair personal health, jeopardise safety and increase stress. While a shorter workday may not be possible for everyone, there are some ways that you can add balance to your life.

Review how you use your time now

Track yourself one week and see how you spend time in all tasks and activity areas, even personal time. Do you see any room for improvement? Are there tasks that you could delegate to someone else?

Work more efficiently

Most of us spend plenty of precious hours a day procrastinating and not spending our time wisely. It’s hard to focus on the task at hand, especially when there are so many distractions and other tasks to accomplish. However, if you are more efficient with your time at work, then you’re more likely to be out of there by 5 and on your way to yoga or happy hour! Here are a few tips to help you get more work done faster:
Create a to-do list, prioritising accordingly, and stick to it.
Create a detailed timeline with specific deadlines.
If an idea occurs to you as you’re working, write it down on a piece of paper and come back to it later. Don’t get caught surfing the web because you just need to know what ingredients to pick up for a coconut curry.
Break up your tasks into smaller tasks and complete them in 20 to 30 minute chunks.
Take plenty of breaks.
Create a detailed timeline with specific deadlines.
Change your environment. Does your work station make you want to do work, or go to sleep? If it’s the latter, change it up. But continue to change it up every few months to keep it fresh.
Eliminate procrastination temptations. Keep off social media and YouTube! Have some discipline.

Schedule in downtime

As you plan your week, make sure to schedule in time for yourself and time spent with family and friends. Join a netball league with your friends, or schedule a date night with your spouse. Have things to look forward to that you won’t want to cancel for work. It’s also a good idea to have some downtime in the morning before you head to work. Whether that’s time to spend making a delicious breakfast, meditating, exercising or just reading, take the time to wake up and centre yourself before you head off to work.

Balance your work life with the rest of your life by structuring your time in a healthy way. Tap and track what you are doing now by downloading the RemindMyLife app. Awareness is key to creating a balanced life.