Organize Your Life For Health!

If you're like me, one of your biggest challenges is finding the time for everything, even the time for living a healthy life. I hear laments like these every day:
"I've really been slacking on my exercise lately...just can't seem to find the time."
"By the time I'm done at work I'm too tired to go home and cook dinner. I just swing through the drive-through."
"Sorry I haven't made it in for an adjustment for awhile. You know how it is...work...kids..."
"Sleep? Who has time for sleep?"

Make Good Health Part of Your Plan!
Time is a constant juggling act, no doubt about it. The problem for many people is that they just don't plan time for the things they need to do to live a healthy life. Everyone just rolls through the day meeting their obligations to everybody else and then tries to fit healthy activities into whatever time is left over. But there's never any time left over.

We're all busy but with just a little bit of forethought, it's really not that hard to fit good health into your schedule. The key is just to make a plan.

OK, Mark; how do you do it?
Here are some examples:
Today (Saturday) a Toastmasters speech contest and a wedding celebration (congratulations Ethan and Shannon!) made it a particularly eventful day and I knew going in that I wasn't going to be able to go for my usual Saturday run. But tomorrow, the first thing I'm going to do is go for a bike ride--before I get tied up with email, before I mow my shaggy lawn, before I sit down to write the article that's already overdue, before anything. There's a good chance that something will fall by the wayside tomorrow, but it won't be my health!

On Tuesdays I don't open my Cafe of Life until 3 PM. The first half of the day is business time--phone calls, networking, things like that. I also see my Chiropractor at 1:30 every Tuesday. I have meetings every Tuesday at 11:00 and everyone just knows that by 1:15, I'm outta there. Period. Non-negotiable. Same thing at 9:00 Thursday morning. Weekly massage...don't even think of asking me to schedule anything else. After my massage, Thursday becomes my writing day.

And every evening, even when I get home late, I've made the commitment always to take the time to prepare fresh veggies with dinner. It really doesn't take that long--maybe 10 minutes to steam some broccoli--less to lightly saute a bunch of spinach. It would probably take at least that long to detour to a fast food joint.

A little bit of organizing goes a long way toward living a life of vibrant health.

I welcome your comments and recommendations on how to organize your life to succeed at staying healthy...