Do you ever spend time endlessly scrolling Instagram only to come across incredibly fit girls from either Germany or Sweden who seem to always be at the gym taking flawless fitness selfies? (Re: “The Healthie”) I have, and it’s quite fascinating and peculiar to me how on earth these ladies find the time to be in the gym every single day, party every weekend, go to school or work, attend events, fashion shows, have dinner and drinks with friends, watch movies on the couch with their dog and beau, and travel the world all the while still putting in an hour’s worth of cardio, cross-fit or weight-lifting a day. At least, so it seems.

Finding that work/life/friend/family balance can be hard. It’s difficult to wake up at 5 am the day after a work event and sometimes even more difficult to make the choice to lace up after clocking in 10 hours at the office. Sometimes ​I just​ know I could easily go home to write, read, or catch up on my favourite TV show (key word, easily). If I do manage to ​fit in​ a run, gym session, or yoga class after work, then I often end up eating dinner at 10pm and this, I’m quite positive, is counter-productive in its own right. So how do we do it all?

For today’s young professional girl on the go, finding the time to exercise can feel near impossible, though not completely. I’ve come to find that after a good nights sleep, plenty of water and a positive attitude, there really is a way to get those squats, sprints and sit ups in with all the hustle and bustle of everyday life. ‘Cause all we really want is to have our kale and eat it too, right?

Below are my top five tips to allocating the time without feeling like you have to sacrifice your social or personal life (though you might have to sacrifice Homeland marathons, which can’t be good for you anyway.)

1.     Calendar’s are your best friend.

Planning ahead our priorities for work, friends, family and ourselves each week is the best way to organize for a girl on the go. Right now, I’ve been doing this on my iPhone because it amalgamates my work events, leisure events (drinks with the girls, dinner with the parents), personal-but-still-work to-do’s (like writing for the blog), and then my own personal activities I want to accomplish that week, all in one.

The point of this is to avoid the tired excuse of “I don’t have time!” By sorting and organizing the things you HAVE to do, you can then start placing in the stuff you need to do followed by the stuff you want to do.  Which you will soon come to realize that there’s plenty of time to fit in even only 30 minutes of fitness a day.

2.     Follow the calendar and overcome your fear of failure.

There’s no point in doing tip #1 if you don’t follow it. Obviously you’re going to go to that mandatory work event or dinner at your boyfriend’s parents’, but you need to treat your exercise sessions the same way. Sometimes our first instinct is to ignore commitments because of our fear that we won’t see results fast enough, or that it’s not worth it after that 3pm cookie we had. But it IS.

Getting into a routine of actually keeping your word (to yourself nonetheless) and starting a new habit (which takes at least 60-days to register) will make you feel confident and proud in yourself, inside and out.

3.     Buddy up!

This might be cliché, but it’s really true when I say that having a friend to go work out with is even more impactful than if you were alone. If someone is relying on you you’re more likely to get up and get out there, no matter how early in the morning it is. No one likes a flake!

A friend and I have made a vow to do Yoga every Monday evening after work and we’re treating it as if we were back in school and we’d fail the class if we didn’t show up (The professor who actually made this rule was a jerk, but it worked). No matter what comes up last minute, our calendars are blocked at that time (albeit emergencies permitted). It also doesn’t hurt that we paid for a bunch of classes in advance. Money spent + friends – time = fitness fun! (Ps. Even better if your bud is a beau.)

4.     Don’t have an hour, how about 7 Minutes?

Meet my best friend and worst enemy: The 7 Minute Workout app. You may laugh at the idea of a 7-minute workout being hard. But trust me, it is really is. The workout consists of 12 high-intensity exercises that use only your body weight as your resistance, which you do for 30 seconds each. It is an efficient way to get your heart rate up and improve cardiovascular and muscular fitness (and should be done daily regardless)!

If time is of the essence, wake up 10 minutes early, stretch it out a bit and do this work out to get the day started. On day’s you plan for a longer session, repeat 2-3 times for a 28-minute sweat-inducing work out! (YES, you will sweat.)

5.     Want it.

No matter how much preparation or scheduling you do, how many apps you download, or promises you make. Finding time for the gym will be just as numbing when you have the mindset that it’s a chore, it’s boring, it hurts, or you have better things to do. People around the block have said, ‘if you really want something you’ll make the time to do it.’ And that is true to an extent, even though life can easily take us off the tracks. When you learn to love the work you do, all the other tips above will fall easily into place.

Think about how amazing you’ll feel afterwards, how energetic you’ll feel every morning, how much cleaner you eat as a result of investing so much sweat and time. And you will still have time to enjoy life’s little pleasures like a glass of wine or a bite of dark chocolate, occasionally.

Photo credits:

Image 1: http://sarahhearts.com/

Image 3: http://everydaymonday.wordpress.com/2013/04/18/pair-up-a-fun-friend-workout/

Image 4: http://appshopper.com/

Image 5: http://www.someecards.com/usercards/viewcard/MjAxMi1lNzYwMmY1ZTBkZDAzMjA3

Follow