Of all the reasons for failing to introduce and maintain regular fitness and exercises sessions into your life, a lack of time is the one that really won’t wash.

Too busy to stay fit? Not enough time to squeeze your workouts into your daily routine? With all due respect, we’re not having any of it. Here are five ways to manage your workout : busy work life or not.

Get Up Earlier!

Of course – find time by making time and starting the day earlier. Take charge of the day by owning it. There are plenty of benefits to working out in the morning, not least the enormous satisfaction of reflecting on the fact that you ran four miles at the break of dawn, or squeezed in a circuits class at your gym around the time that you’d usually be ladling butter onto toast in a daze.

Turn Your Commute Into a Workout

Flip your daily commute to the office on its head by turning that into a form of exercise. If you live a couple of miles from work, don’t drive. Instead, leave the house 20 minutes earlier than usual and run in : if the building has showers then you can use them afterwards. Cycling is another option, or even a brisk walk. If you work further afield, think about the adjustments you can make. If you get the train in, perhaps you could cycle to the station. If you work in London, could you walk to the office instead of using the Tube?

Use Your Lunch Hour Productively

Most people get an hour for a lunch break : use it wisely. It’s too easy to fall into the trap of staying at your desk, robotically munching on shop-bought sandwiches whilst browsing ‘stuff’ online. Instead, if you can, get changed and head off on a run; tools like MapMyRun allow you to find and track local routes, and you can comfortably fit a quick three miler into your break, plus showering time afterwards. Or sign up for a lunchtime class at a gym. Or, if nothing else : walk around for 40 minutes in the fresh air.

Go Straight From Work

If you struggle for motivation once you’re at home, the comfort of the TV awaits and the enticing smells of dinner make it all too easy to hit chill-out mode, push that part of the day back. Finish work and hit the gym : ideally you will be a member of one close to your route home – and fit your workout in before you walk through the front door. Then the evening is yours. Or get home and immediately get changed and head back out before you do anything else. Your downtime can start, guilt-free, at 7.30pm instead of 6pm.

Schedule Evening Workouts

What do you usually do during the midweek evenings? If your commitments don’t stretch much further than idly flicking through the TV channels, struggling to find something decent to watch, or browsing your tablet or mobile in the vain hope of finding anything of interest, press pause and have a rethink. You can blow two or three hours and achieve nothing. Instead, schedule your workouts and get out of the house. This might be yoga classes or boxfit sessions; you might join the cycling craze and join a club : mens mags are increasingly populated by cycling titles : or enjoy a swim. Now TV viewing is flexible there’s really no excuse for skipping a session so you don’t miss your favourite programme!

5 Ways to Manage Workouts Around A Busy Work Life was written by Patrick Vernon.

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