11 Tips For Finding Time to Exercise Even With Kids Or a Baby

People make all sorts of excuses why they can’t workout. One of the common ones is that they’re simply too busy to do it, that they don’t have the time. In this post I am going to give you some simple tips for finding time to exercise even if you have a full time job, kids, a new baby, or you’re just plain busy.

This post is based on the following assumption: you DO have time for exercise, but you’re not good at finding it. How do I know this?

I know this because I see extremely busy people who still workout regularly. They simply make it a priority in their life and they MAKE the time for it. This is what you need to do as well and the following tips should help.

1. Workout Early in the Morning

I know that waking up early is not the sort of advice you want to get, but morning workouts are an excellent choice for you. The good thing about them is that once you finish the workout you know that it’s done. Simple as that.

In addition, doing workouts early in the morning, before breakfast has additional benefits:

• Doing cardio on an empty stomach may lead to greater fat loss.
• You give yourself a big energy boost.
• You get a massive psychological benefit because you start the day off with a positive action.

The main thing, though, is that you now know that you’ve done your part. No matter what happens during the day, you’ve already trained.

2. Do Circuit Training

If you’re busy, you need to make your workouts shorter and one of the ways to do this without lowering the intensity of your workouts is to perform circuit training.

When you do circuits, you perform a series of exercises one after the other without rest in between. This results in two things:

• You squeeze in more exercises into a shorter time.
• Your workouts become harder because you add more intensity and rest less.

Circuit training is at the basis of metabolic resistance training, one of the best methods to burn fat with your workouts. Here is my post on circuit training at home, if you want to do see some workout samples.

3. Exercise While Watching TV

Whenever someone complains to me that they’re too busy to workout, I usually find that they do have time to watch TV, and quite a lot of it.

I’m not going to start educating people to watch less TV. This isn’t something I’m interested in. What I do advise you to do is to incorporate some activity while watching your favorite shows. Here are some ideas:

• Lift weights while watching. Just grab your dumbbells and do some exercises.
• Do jumping jacks or use a jump rope in front of the screen.
• Do lower body exercises such as squats or lunges.

All these activities shouldn’t stop you from enjoying TV, but you’ll be making more of your time.

4. Join a Running Group or a Fitness Class

This is a psychological trick which is meant to force you to train more often: once you pay for a fitness class or set a time with other people in a running group you will try much harder to stick to those appointments, even if you feel strapped for time.

This is how you trick yourself into changing your priorities and making sure you get the exercise you need.

5. Play with Your Kids

If you have trouble finding time for exercise because your kids taking too much of your attention and energy, you need to find ways to combine the two: exercise while spending time with your kids.

The best way to do that is to play sports with them. This will improve the health of your child and your own at the same time. Do you really want your kids to spend so much time watching TV and surfing the web? Set a good example and give them a new love for physical activity. They’ll grow up better for it.

6. Choose To Be Active

There are countless of opportunities to do a little exercising throughout the day. You just need to keep your eyes open and find them.

For instance, you can choose to climb stairs and give the elevator a rest. You can go out to lunch instead of ordering it into the office. You can choose to walk more instead of driving. You can try to ride your bike to work.

If you decide that you want to be as active as possible, you will find ways to squeeze in some exercise during the day. It’s a matter of choice.

7. Get an Active Hobby

If your hobbies are watching TV or reading books, you won’t get a lot of activity. If, on the other hand, you choose more active hobbies, like dancing or hiking, you will be getting a lot of exercise without exercising, really. You will simply workout as part of your hobby. It won’t feel like exercising at all. You’ll be having too much fun.

8. Walk Or Train with Your Baby

Having a baby certainly makes you busy and reduces the amount of free time that you have. However, there are ways to overcome this problem:

• Train while your baby is sleeping.
• Walk with your baby. Simply place him or her in a stroller and take a long walk. Some people even run with their baby, but I’m not sure how comfortable it is.
• Make a game of it. Babies are inquisitive by nature and yours may find it funny to see you train. It may not turn out to be an intense workout, but it is certainly better than doing nothing at all.

9. Do Home Workouts

If you’re short on time, you probably don’t find driving to the gym to be much fun. It is simply more time that you need to invest in getting fit and you don’t even workout during it.

The solution is to do home workouts. With the right fitness equipment or by doing bodyweight exercises you can do fantastic home workouts very cheaply and effectively. If you’re really short on time, check out this 10 minute home workout and, if you want a complete bodyweight workout plan, check out the Shapeshifter Body Redesign program.

You can also find some great fitness videos on youtube to follow. One great channel is by my friend, Tatiana, whose channel Tatianamania has some great workout videos (some of them are in Russian and others in English). Here’s a lower body workout video by Tatiana:

10. Make a Schedule With Clear Plans

If you want to make sure you have time in your busy schedule to workout, you need to set the time for it. Schedule your workouts in advance, at least a week at a time. This way, you’ll have a time slot dedicated for your workouts. You won’t have to try to squeeze them in.

In addition, writing something down makes it more concrete in your mind. Once the workouts are scheduled in writing, you’re less likely to miss them.

11. Cut The Chit Chat In The Gym

One of the biggest time wasters in the gym is located in your mouth and throat. It’s your tongue and vocal chords and the sounds they make are the problems.

I’m referring to the silly habit that a lot of people have of talking way too much in the gym. They see it as a social club and forget that every second there is precious and should be dedicated to the task at hand: getting fit.

The more you talk the less you train. In addition, talking can lead to lengthy rests between sets and the intensity of your workout will diminish.

However, the main problem with talking too much in the gym is that it makes your workouts longer. If you’re trying to find time to exercise, you need to be efficient in the gym.

Bottom Line

Finding time to exercise is possible even with a baby, kids, or a busy schedule. Other people do it so you can do it too. Go over the 11 tips I outlined and you should find it easy to make the time to train. If you have any more tips, I’d love to read them. Leave me a comment and share your ideas.