How many times have you canceled your workouts because you were going out? How many times have you cut them short because of some social appointment? Have you ever gotten in your car to drive to the gym and then decide that you simply have something else to do or somewhere else to be? If you have, then you’re not alone.

I used to do this on a regular basis. It was never intentional, I simply have a busy life and things would pile up. I had appointments, meetings, friends to see, family to have dinner with and in the middle of it all, my workouts were relegated to a lower priority. I knew that I needed to work out but when faced with the choice of going to the gym or going to hang out with friends, I always chose to avoid the gym.

Then I discovered a quick and simple method to avoid this problem, my calendar.

Schedule It!

I’ve been using calendars for years. I have one for work through Microsoft Outlook and one for personal activities on Google Calendar. Because I hate forgetting appointments, I put every single activity on these calendars. Meetings, dinners, conference calls, movies with friends, they all go on my calendars. That way I avoid scheduling conflicts where I accidentally book myself for two different events at the same time plus I can set reminders. These reminders pop up ahead of the event and remind me that I need to do something.

Unfortunately, even though I’ve been using calendars for years, I never thought to actually schedule my workouts. The gym was something I did in my spare time, right? So I just assumed I would find some time for it everyday. Well, guess what? I didn’t. Until that is, I started seeing the gym as an important activity that I shouldn’t avoid, and that’s when I started scheduling it.

Gym Appointments

If you don’t use any kind of calendar, I would recommend starting. It’s a very useful organizational tool that comes in quite handy in all areas of your life. I use Google Calendar which you can get a free account for right here. Because it’s online, I can see my schedule from any computer. Google Calendar also allows me to share my calendar with other people. So I can put appointments on it which my wife sees. For you readers out there in a relationship, giving each other visibility into our calendars has been one of the best relationship tools my wife and I found! But since this is a fitness blog and not a relationship blog, I’ll stick to telling you about my scheduled workouts.

Schedule a recurring appointment. This is an appointment that occurs multiple times. Any calendar will let you do this. You can set something up like “every weekday between 3 and 4:30pm” or “every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday between noon and 1pm.” Whateveryour gym schedule is, set it up with a specific time and day. Now just follow this schedule.

Stick To Your Schedule

You have no idea how much this little tip helped me. Putting my workouts on my calendar increased my success rate (the percentage of times I was supposed to be at the gym and actually went) from somewhere in the 50% to above 95%. I still miss the occasional workout but it’s usually due to serious issues.

Extra Tips

• Think about letting people know about your gym time – Some people will respect gym time and some will not. I have my gym time on my calendar as “Personal Quality Control”. My wife and friends know what this is and they respect that. I’m also honest with those coworkers who ask about it and I let them know that this time is important to me. I have no problem meeting with them during this time but they better wear their gym clothes to this meeting and be ready to sweat. Everyone else simply sees an appointment on my schedule and assumes that they shouldn’t schedule meetings for this time.
• Add others to your gym appointments – One of the best benefits of a gym partner is the extra incentive to actually show up. It’s easy to skip the occasional workout when it’s just you. It’s not so easy when someone else is counting on you to show up. So schedule you gym appointments and then see if anyone else wants to go with you.
• Don’t forget the commute time – Make sure your gym appointment includes enough time to get to and from the gym.
• Not too late – Late night workouts will sometimes cause sleep issues. Try to finish your workouts two to three hours before your bed time.
• Make it regular – Try not to change your workout schedule too often. A regular day and time really helps you get into the gym habit.

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Your workout time is just as important as any other meeting. In fact, it may be more important than most since I can’t think of too many conference calls I’ve attended lately that can prolong and improve my life. Why not treat it like the important appointment it is and get it on your schedule?

UPDATE – One of my readers sent me in a link to the schedule application they like to use. I looked at it and it seems like it has some neat features. So I figured I would add a link to it here.

The hotel I spent the last two days in had no exercise room. That’s rare these days, almost every hotel targeted at business travelers has some kind of gym, but this one didn’t. Going outside to run was out of the question since the roads near the hotel had no sidewalks and were covered in ice. While I may think that exercise is good for me, I don’t believe in putting myself in danger of being run over for the sake of a good cardio workout. Instead of skipping my workout, I came up with this improvised one:
Back and Abs

• 20 crunches
• 20 dead lifts with no weights (essentially toe touches)
• 20 lying leg lifts
• 20 more dead lifts

Cardio

• 50 jumping jacks

Legs

• 20 lunges
• 20 squats
• 20 calf raises
• 20 thigh adductions
• 20 thigh abductions

Cardio

• 50 jumping jacks

Biceps and Triceps

• 20 curls while holding my backback (about 10lbs worth of computer and books inside).
• 20 standing tricep extensions while holding the backpack
• 20 dips between two chairs

Cardio

• 50 jumping jacks

Chest and Shoulders

• 20 pushups
• 40 presses using the backback again as a weight
• 20 weight pullovers using the backpack while lying on the bed.
• 20 indian pushups

Cardio

• 50 jumping jacks

If you want to learn more about these exercises, take a look at these previous posts from 60 in 3.
I did all of these with relatively few breaks in between. End result, I was out of breath, heart rate elevated and my muscles were tired. Exactly how I want to feel at the end of a good workout. The workout took about 45 minutes total and required absolutely no special equipment, unless you count a backpack as workout gear.

What’s The Point?

The point is that you shouldn’t use a minor setback like a hotel with no gym as an excuse not to workout. A workout basically means moving your body around and that you can do with or without a gym, with or without equipment and with or without a lot of time. Just stop looking at workouts as something you HAVE to do. When you do that, you see them as a chore, a thing you dislike but must do. That means you’ll start trying to find excuses.

Change your outlook and start thinking of workouts as something you choose to do. They’re something you want to do because you want to be healthy. You choose to do them because you want to spend a lot of healthy years with your kids. You choose to do them because you need a good break to clear your mind of work. You choose to do them because you to feel good about your body. Whatever it works for you, use it. You’ll find yourself improvising workouts rather than excuses to avoid them.