Don't just be a weekend warrior

How to become someone with an exercise habit

I’ve seen a great many schedules over the years, and I’ve found that for many people who work long hours, and particularly for people who have families, exercise quickly becomes a weekend thing.

It makes sense. Work can be unpredictable. When you get home, your family has first dibs on your time. You don’t want to detract from that. So, maybe you hit the gym on Saturday, or run during a kid’s soccer practice on Sunday.

Something is almost always better than nothing. But if you’ve settled into life as a weekend warrior, you might ponder if you could add just a tiny bit of activity during the week. It might be easier than you think — and it could change how you view yourself.

Three times a week is a habit

In my most recent book, Tranquility by Tuesday, I share the time management rule that “three times a week is a habit.” Anything you do three times week is a regular part of your life. As such, it can be part of your identity.

This realization is simple, but it can be life changing. Many times, when we think of things we’d like to do in our lives, we realize that we already are doing them once or twice a week. It’s not a lot but it’s not nothing either. If you are doing something once or twice a week, getting to three times a week just involves small tweaks, not a total lifestyle overhaul.

If you’ve currently got the mindset that exercise is a Saturday + Sunday thing, then you can see how the “three times a week is a habit” rule could be helpful. All you have to do is find one time during the week to exercise, and suddenly you are a person who exercises regularly.

It doesn’t have to be that much! For instance, if you work from home on Fridays, as a reasonable proportion of people do, go for a run or walk when you would have been commuting (either in the morning or in the afternoon) and voilà. You are a regular exerciser.

If that’s not you, another option is to take a pair of sneakers with you on your business trips and get to a hotel gym — or walk around that city — some morning or in the evening after your meetings and before dinner. This need not take hours. A mere 20 minutes or so could work.

And frankly, you might not even need the sneakers. Instead, you could challenge yourself to do some body weight exercises some night for 20 minutes in a hotel room, or if you’re at home you could do this at night after your kids go to bed. Push-ups, sit-ups, etc. It’s all exercise and it counts.

Or maybe you get up 30 minutes earlier just one morning during the week. I know you need your sleep and I’m not telling you to wake up at 4:30 a.m. every morning to work out daily. Just get up a little earlier on whatever day looks lightest. One day a week really isn’t that much.

Changing a narrative

Fitting something, just once, into your work week can change a lot. I mean, you’ll get more physical activity in your life, which is great. But more importantly you’ll also start to change your perception. You will see that you can do something other than work during the week. Everything does not fall apart the second you make that choice. You can manage to work hard, spend time with your family, and find a few minutes for other things. This is a powerful realization.

You will also start to think of yourself as a regular exerciser. It’s not just something for other people, or something you only squeeze in on the weekend. You do it three times a week, so it is a habit. It is part of your identity. When something is part of our identities, we tend to take it a bit more seriously, and so you might start challenging yourself a bit more.

In any case, it pays to think about what might be possible. I know that for many people, an hour at the gym over lunch every single work day is unlikely. But exercise doesn’t have to look like that. All it takes is a little something to change a story. And when we change a story, we can truly change our whole lives.