We’re too darn busy. I’m too darn busy. In fact, I’m so darn busy I can’t see straight most days and when those days hit – it’s time to go to Plan B. If you don’t have a plan B, in the name of your own fitness – it’s time to develop one. Plan B is the plan that takes some of the stickier parts of your day out of your heel and lets you walk, run or race to whatever it is you need to do without having your ankles twisted and tied up by stress and insanity that can populate a day.
Plan B
The first rule of Plan B is to take Plan A and throw it out the window. Plan A is the plan that takes everything as it comes and says do it all in the order that it arrives. In my world, this means when I am cooking, I clean as I go and make sure the dishwasher has been unloaded and reloaded. It means when I wash laundry it’s all folded and hung up immediately and distributed to where it goes in the house. It means that I like an orderly house and I like my work orderly, I answer emails in order and more.
Plan A is great, but when the day goes nuts and you’re running to drop the spouse off at work, the kids off at camp, swing by the grocery store on the way home and then home to work for a couple of hours before picking the kids up from camp and bringing them home for lunch and getting them settled for a nap before getting another couple of hours of work in before going to get the kids in the car and picking up the spouse …
Whew, it makes me tired just thinking about it. And this is what I do on a lot of days. Some days, I’ll want to sacrifice my workout just to squeeze in a couple of extra work or sleep hours in the morning.
So on the crazy days, I toss off Plan A and go to Plan B.
Plan B says that sure, the laundry gets done, but it can stay in the basket folded when it’s done. It doesn’t need to be put up right away. Lunch or dinner is fixed, but the dishes can be stacked neatly in the sink and if the dishwasher is full – well, run it and deal with it later. Spend an hour in the morning on email and then ignore it for the day to get projects done. Use an email sorter so that priority emails can be picked up as needed.
Ignore the phone. Sure it rings off the hook and 90% of the calls do not need to be taken when they come in. Watch for calls from the spouse, work related or about the kids and otherwise use what time you have to get done what you need. Don’t spend the hours you are in the car running from place to place sweating about the work that isn’t getting done, crank up the radio and use the time to just enjoy a bit of freedom.
Fitness is a State of Mind
You see, our fitness is very much a relationship between our physical fitness, our emotional fitness and our mental fitness. When we’re stressed and stretched too thin, we are not remotely fit. In fact, we are dangerously unfit and we will begin to sacrifice our physical fitness, which is the last thing we need to do in the tough times. In fact, the more mental stress we are under the more we need our daily workouts and exercise. We need our downtime and we need to let up on ourselves.
So the next time you are feeling overwhelmed, toss out Plan A and go to Plan B.