Fitting In Fitness With School, Family, Work and Life

By Virginia Cunningham

Individuals who have a lot going on in their lives often find it hard to schedule a regular workout routine, especially when school, work or family life makes scheduling time to exercise difficult. However, if you want to stay healthy, productive and balanced in your life, finding that time to exercise is critical. 

Follow these basic tips to help incorporate regular exercise into your busy schedule:

Know Your Goals

Before you can find the time to work out, you need to know why you’re working out. If your goal is trying to lose weight, you’ll need an entirely different exercise routine than someone who is exercising to stay in shape.

Knowing and planning your goals ahead of time also makes it considerably easier to determine how much time you will need to devote to exercise.

Make Exercise a Priority

If you’re in school and working to support yourself, you know those things have to come first. Having a healthy family and social life is also important.


However, making exercise a priority is also essential if you want to meet your fitness goals. If you have to skip that party or get up half an hour earlier, that’s something you’ll need to plan to do.

Exercise doesn’t have to be a chore you hate. Prioritizing it over some less important things won’t feel like a burden once you see the results of your hard work.

Schedule Your Workout

If your schedule is constantly changing, it can be difficult to figure out when you can work out as well as how much time you will need to devote to each workout; however, even with rotating work and class schedules, you should know what your schedule looks like a few days ahead of time.

As a working student, whether you are part-time or full-time, you may not be able to exercise at the same time every single day, but making time to exercise regularly is essential. For the best results, use a planner, either paper or digital, to “pencil in” your workouts.

Rearrange times as necessary, but don’t skip workouts unless it’s really unavoidable, and try to make them up within a week.

Try Working Out With Somebody Else

Finding the motivation to exercise when you’re always in class, studying for an exam or just feeling exhausted from work can be tough. For many people, it’s a lot easier to veg out in front of the TV instead of hitting the gym.

That’s where a workout partner can really help you reach your fitness goals. If you have plans to workout with somebody regularly, you’ll be more excited about your workout and you’ll get that much-needed second wind when it seems like the last thing you want to do is exercise. 

Image courtesy of Tyler Read at https://www.ptpioneer.com/personal-trainer/

When you’re young, it’s easy to feel like you don’t need to exercise all the time; however, it’s important to get in the habit of exercising regularly. It’s a habit you’ll carry with you your whole life and one that will serve you and your body well.

About the Blogger

Virginia Cunningham is a writer for Northwest, a yoga enthusiast and mother of three. Between juggling her home business and her three kids, she always finds time to exercise, regardless of how exhausted she is. 

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