30 Minutes

What to do if you only can exercise for 30 minutes.

I often get emails about constraints. Sometimes it’s about not having access to tools. Sometimes it’s about having to work around injury. Usually, it’s about time. “If you only have 30 minutes to train, what should you do?” The obvious answer is, “Get rid of the things in your life that are taking up the other 23 1/2 hours of the day.” It seems harsh, but there’s truth in it.

You sleep eight hours.

You work eight hours.

You eat for one hour.

Maybe you have to commute for another hour.

You have six hours left each day, what are you doing with them?

If you’re spending quality time with your kids, great. If you’re eating dinner across the table from your spouse, awesome. If you’re out walking your dog, you’re doing well. But—and you know what’s coming—if you’re looking at your damn phone, I don’t want to hear that you don’t have time to train.

Instead of living first hand, we live second-hand. We can sit and stare at a screen and watch other people do almost anything. We can watch them eat, or play video games, or have sex, or go climbing. Very occasionally, we can use this time to learn, but usually it is passive entertainment. We absorb not what we went looking for, but what someone want us to see next. We are fed.

Short of having to actually eat and sleep, we pretty much have the option of sitting and staring at the phone all the time. So, if you only have 30 minutes to train, put your phone down.

Here is a thought exercise, and no, you can’t do it on the “notes” app on your computer. Write down all the apps you use regularly, what for, and how long. Some phone apps actually are really helpful and should be used. But you’ll find (and your phone / phone provider keeps track for you) that you spend a lot of time just swiping your precious minutes away.

Write down the amount of time you think you use them. Write down how much time you spend on social media. Then check it all against your phone’s usage data.

Surely it’s no crime to spend 15 minutes per day on Instagram. It’s OK to keep up on email for a few minutes. But where does the time go? Every hour of our time is basically 7% of our day. Do you really want to give 7% (or more) to feeling left out, envious, enraged, hopeless, or even just mildly entertained?

Your inputs are everything. Everything you consume makes who you are. In this world of unlimited information, you need to filter ruthlessly, avoid any inputs you don’t have great control over, and get to the root of controlling your time.

Every time we open up our phones, we are making a choice to avoid doing the work we so desperately need to do. Train the way we know we can train. Learn a new skill. Write novels instead of posts. Dig deep into ourselves instead of polishing our internet persona.

Imagine what might happen in a year if you simply spent 30 minutes less on your phone each day, and instead dedicated that time to being better.

You have more than 30 minutes. You just have to find it.