Get more active to get more done. Impossible?

Not if you know where and how to look at things.

You can’t make time, but you can make more of the time you have.It's the one thing you can’t get more of, so use it better.

We’re all in the habit of thinking that we can only do one thing at a time. Usually we can do one thing well or more than one thing poorly.

But...

Can you walk WHILE talking on the phone? Do you speak as well when you walk?

Can you stand and read? Do you read as well standing?

Of course you do;-)

We can do productive “multitasking” as long as the tasks don’t compete for "CPU" time.

You can be physically active while doing mental tasks, or a mental tasks when you’re active. The more attention the one thing takes, the less the other MUST take to do both well.

Change your mind about the way you do things. Look for opportunities to add an activity into your daily routine.

Your time is precious and even the shortest time can be used actively.

Suck in that GUT

If you are riding an elevator between floors 10 seconds is enough time. Stand up straight, suck in your abs as far as you can and hold them in. Even better, tighten your PC muscles

(For Women)

(For Men)

first, stand up straight, then suck in your gut.

The muscles you're working are called the “transverse abdominis” (you can call them your "ab suck muscles" ;-). They’re the most neglected, slowest to train muscles in your body.

Train these muscles to STAY slightly tightened all the time, giving you better posture, a slimmer waist and a stable core.

You could also use those 10, 20 or 60 seconds to tense one or many muscles in your body at once, wherever you are.

Take the stairs.

My friend Mark who worked in a hospital as an orderly lost a 30 plus pounds just by changing his mind.

I asked him what he did and he said “unless I NEED to take the elevator I use the stairs." Walk a bit more.

Park further away, take the transit (you'll have to walk further), go for a walk during lunch, WALK to the store one block away.

When I take the train I usually walk to the furthest car from me, then get on. You could take this further by doing “laps” along the length of the train if it’s not too busy.

If you have a one hour train ride that’s a lot of extra exercise! You'd also would burn more calories than walking on the treadmill or the park because you have to keep your balance.

P.S. I’m not responsible if the conductor or passengers think you’re strange, yet sexy and fit;-)-

STRETCH almost anywhere. It doesn’t burn many calories, but stretching your muscles will relax you and increase your mental alertness. It's an element of physical fitness most people, me included, usually ignore.

Stand on the Transit

I spend a ton of time (10 plus hours a week on transit), instead of “killing time”, I invest it.

Stand and keep your balance WHILE, reading something or listening to an audio book or course to multiply your time.

It will improve your fitness, balance and burn more calories than sitting.

While Driving

If you drive a lot, I would recommend you pay FULL attention to your driving, but you can still practice sitting up straight and pulling in your abs;-)

Listen to your computer.

My favorite is listening to email, books, reports, any written digital material using a text to speech program. I use D-Speech

,it's free, and it lets you convert text to audio and save them as Wav, Mp3 or Ogg files.

Cut and paste the text into directly into D-Speech, then press play or save it as an audio file.

Now get out of the office and

go for a walk, jog, run, dance, stair climb…

Or at least get away from your computer and exercise in the office.

Do any physical activity while you listen to all that text.

Go Portable

Do you spend a lot of time on the phone at work or home? Get a long range cordless for the office or around the house and a cell phone with a unlimited airtime plan.

Walk around at work, even better walk the stairs at work WHILE making those important calls. But…

Technology ISN’T the answer.

If you have three one sentence emails a text to speech program will take longer to open than it does for you to read your email.

If a fancy new program takes a long time to learn ( anything over an hour ) consider whether it really is saving you time. If it doesn't don't buy it and don't use it. Either way invest the time saved at the gym or being more physically active anywhere.

Finally, during your busy schedule take breaks every 30 to 60 minutes or so. 50 minutes plus a short physical activity break is MORE productive than 60 minutes without a break.

This past Christmas I turned into an inventing, page writing machine. I set a one dollar kitchen timer for 30 minutes, and got to work. When it beeped I immediately reset it for 2 ½ minutes while walking to the door.

I went outside, walked until it beeped, started it again and walked back home. Then I went right back to work for 30 minutes.

It worked AWESOME!!!

I felt more rested, alert, and focused. My eyes got a rest from the computer screen and I got a lot more done.