Welcome to Part III of Quick Tips for Fitness Success!!
Adrian Guyer, CSCS, USAW-II, CSAC
According to recent data we spend close to 2 hrs a day on social networking platforms.
With all this time spent checking in on everybody else’s lives you might want to start taking control of your own! Stop allowing your friends or people you don’t even know to control your life and steal away all your precious time. How often do you see a post or news-feed and have to read or watch? Or maybe hear your phone beep and just have to check that text? Respond to a tweet, "like" an Instagram pic, snap chat with that hottie from the party last weekend, respond to an email or voicemail? All of this reacting to others while you have other more important things to do; like work, or go train like a BOSS! If this sounds like you it may be a sign that you have lost control of your time. Don’t worry there’s still hope! A great strategy is to batch your time spent on these platforms into specific time slots each day. You
are scheduling it, and thus you are in charge of that schedule rather than others creating it for you. In doing this you will now be back in control of your life and not just reacting to outside stimulus or living a reactive lifestyle. A lot can be said for living more pro-actively, as it enables us to escape our sympathetic nervous system’s strangle hold on our lives and have a mind clear of distractions and stress.
In managing a small business as well as working in that business as a full time coach I must spend considerable amounts of time on our social media pages, emailing, reading and researching. All of these tasks are important for Xtra Innings Performance to have continued success. I have 2 hours each day to spend on this, if I go any longer I cut into my own training hour, or my lunch hour. Cutting into my own time impacts me and everyone around me and that is simply not alright. I work with upwards of 120+ clients and athletes each week who depend on me to be at my best every day, I cannot have a bad day! I have found that batching my tasks has “empowered my time” and allowed me to get more done in a shorter amount of time. Doing this has helped me maintain a consistent system that our head of marketing and media can rely on when it comes to spending time with me in our day to day operations. There is less of the boss just jumping from topic to topic and really never finishing anything we set out to do before I’m off again to work with athletes in the afternoons.
I also changed my schedule at home to help me be more efficient with my time and allow me to spend more time with my wife and 8 month old daughter. In the past I would get home and eat dinner and then sit down at the computer to respond to emails, post to social media, respond to posts, etc. This left me going to bed late and not sleeping that well being in "work mode" with cortisol levels running rampant. So I made some adjustments and have found that I am far more efficient, happier, and performing better in my own workouts! Oh and my wife loves it too, because it means more quality time with our family. "A happy wife is a happy life!" See my new schedule below. Getting up early isn't always fun, but I get 8 hours of quality sleep each night and I feel better because of it!
4:15 - Wake up, make some coffee or tea, an english muffin and a piece of fruit.
4:30 - 5:30 - Program design, respond to emails, read/research, content creation.
5:30 - 6:30 - Breakfast with the girls, shower, pack my snacks and off to work.
6:45 - 10:00 - Training with adult athletes. 2 snacks, banana at 8, granola bar at 9.
10:00 - 12:15 - Office time, meetings with staff and all other meetings. Yogurt and granola baby!
12:30 - 2:00 - I get to train!!!
2:00 - 2:45 - Lunch
3:00 - 6:00 - Team training and performance camps with local athletes.
6:00 - 8:00 - Dinner with family, watch some TV, read a bit, go to bed. *Note* This 6:00-8:00 is where I really gained with this new schedule!!
Try it out and I sincerely believe you will get more done, be more effective by empowering your time and you will even feel better in the process.