By John Valentik MS, NASM-PES, FMS

2 hours and 25 minutes. That was the average screen time from my iPhone last week. That does not include the hours spent on my computer doing work, or the additional hours spent watching Moana, Tangled, and CoComelon with Charlotte and Parker! First off, I wouldn’t trade one second of the items mentioned with my kids, as this is usually when we are winding down and I can get some quality cuddle time with them. And while I know I can defend a lot of my computer work and even some of my phone time, I know the reality is that I did not manage my time as well as I could have. Side note: your iPhone will also break down your most used apps by the minute, daily notifications received, and even how many times you picked up your phone!

How many of you have ever felt like there aren’t enough hours in the day, let alone in the week? Well, there are 168 hours in a week and this article is about how you can best utilize those hours.

In the book Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill, he references the 24 hours that each and every one of us is given every single day. In a very simple manner, he poses the question, what are you doing with each 24 hours?

• Occupation
• Sleep
• Play/relaxation
• Acquiring useful knowledge
• Plain waste

If you broke down all of your responsibilities in any given day, there is a strong argument that each item could be categorized by one of the bullets above. I plan on writing another article closely related to this topic on prioritization, but for the sake of time (get it?!), let’s dive into this 24 concept a little further.

There are things on our schedule that cannot change. For example, my weekly calendar is a color-coded rainbow of appointments and blocks. Class time, class prep, personal training sessions, blog and LLC work, doctor appointments, etc. However, I don’t stop there. I schedule just about as much as I’m able. Family time takes up big blocks in my week, as it should. I schedule my workouts, my personal and professional development time, and even my naps when I’m able to get them. Outside of plain waste, every item from that list is scheduled. Now, before you click out of this article for how nuts this may seem, hear me out.

I know what my vital few are every week. My priorities broken down into their simplest form are family/friends, occupation, and self-care. For example, it’s 5:30am on a Sunday as I write this article. I know that for me to finish something related to my occupation this week, it needed to be placed here today. I’m proudly on Daddy duty this weekend until Paige is back from visiting her sister, and I want my ‘family time’ with the kids to be family time solely without sacrificing my presence with them multitasking a blog article or grading. Could this article have been written at some other point? Sure. Last night is an argument but I scheduled time with some very close friends instead.

This leads to a concept I discuss with my students, ‘real’ versus ‘perceived’ barriers. If I woke up at 7am today, I could’ve easily made the argument that all of my time barriers are real and I just don’t have time to write, or prep class, or work on our basement remodeling project because the day is too packed. In reality, this barrier is ‘perceived’ as I decided to wake up earlier to work on other areas of my vital few priorities. With 100% transparency, I’m sure this article could’ve been written earlier than Sunday if I look back critically at those other times spent on screen time as mentioned earlier. I accept that. We are constantly dealing with barriers and it’s up to us to decide which are ‘real’ and which are ‘perceived.’

Look at the common excuse of not having enough time to exercise in the week. This is the most common fitness barrier I’ve dealt with as a professional in the industry. If you look critically at your week, you may start to see that your ‘real’ barriers are really ‘perceived.’ Unless spending 3 hours per day on your phone or watching 2 hours daily of Netflix are part of your occupation, and not either play/relaxation, or plain waste, I think you may find that you could trim some time off of those areas to work on yourself physically. This doesn’t stop with fitness. No time to read that book on your nightstand, schedule a date night with your partner, or even spend it with your family, look at some of this plain waste time! While we should absolutely have some mindless time in our days to veg out on the couch or doom scroll a little bit, using that as an excuse to not spend more quality time with your family or on yourself physically or emotionally is a hard argument.

Layout your priorities and responsibilities in your life. What’s most important to you? What has to get done on a weekly basis? Once you’ve answered those two questions, do everything you can on a daily basis to protect those time blocks of the most important items. For me, it’s family time, occupation, and self-care. Those are my real time barriers because I won’t sacrifice the most important areas in each of those categories. Sure, some things in each category don’t always get 100% of your time. How could they? On Tuesday night, I have class and a training session and miss bedtime with the kids. That is a real barrier. But I also protect my time in other areas of the week to make sure I’m a present father and husband.

Remember that you also need to be flexible with change. Things come up, appointments get scheduled, kids get sick, etc. If you have your priorities straight and your responsibilities laid out, it makes this much easier to manage. Last week required me staying up much later than usual to get certain things done for class. Since self-care is extremely important to me, instead of nixing my workout times on Monday and Wednesday, I moved them to Tuesday and Thursday. When you are aware of what’s important to you, instead of eliminating those things from your calendar when life throws you a curve ball, you roll with the punches and make it work! I’m sharing this personal information because I am like anyone else reading this article right now. I wear different hats in my life and have different demands every day. You can find the time to address what’s most important to you.

Where to begin? One of the easiest answers would be to consider waking up 15-60 minutes earlier every day. Immediately, you get 1 and 1/2 hours to 7 hours of time from that change. Don’t get me wrong, sleep is extremely important. But, taking a small percentage of that sleep time to work on something that is most important to you is a no brainer. Also, start scheduling a few more things on your calendar. I’m not talking about scheduling when you tie your shoes or go to the bathroom, but protecting a workout time or date night is an easy option to work on yourself or your relationship. From there, look critically at those ‘perceived’ versus ‘real’ barriers. Checking your phone and TV time can be eye opening. While some of that time can be justified and needed, only you can answer it truthfully for your situation.

Well, I hope you enjoyed. Parker is starting to grumble so it’s time for me to go. Until next time!