Just before Christmas, I had a conversation with someone who told me they really wanted to start going to the gym. When I asked what was holding them back, the answer was simple: no time to exercise. Not even close. When I asked what was going on for them physically, the answer was familiar. Energy was low. Sleep wasn’t great. They’d put on some weight and felt heavy in themselves. But still — no time. So we dug into it a little. They were certain there wasn’t even one hour in their week available. Not one.
And yet, when we actually mapped out their schedule, a different picture emerged. Six hours across the weekend on a golf simulator. A few hours of Netflix on top of that. Around two hours of scrolling on their phone every day during the week. Suddenly, having no time to exercise wasn’t really the issue at all.
No Time to Exercise — Or Wrong Priorities?
I bumped into that same person again this week. Same feelings. Same frustrations. If anything, a bit more time had found its way onto the golf simulator. Nothing had changed. And that is the hard truth of it. For anything to change, something has to change. If you keep doing the same things in the same order, you will keep getting the same results. That is not a criticism. It is just how it works. Change requires a shift in how you are spending your time, and that usually means making something a priority that wasn’t one before.
Most people who feel like they have no time to exercise are not lying. They genuinely feel it. But feeling stretched and actually having no available hours are two different things. When we slow down and look honestly at a week, there is almost always more flexibility than it seems. The question is what we are willing to move around.
The Time Audit That Changes Things
Here is something worth trying if you are not convinced. Do a simple time audit. Grab a piece of paper and write down what you do, hour by hour, for one full week. No editing, no judgement. Just what actually happens. Most people who do this are surprised. Not because they find huge empty blocks they didn’t know about, but because they see clearly where their time is actually going. Scrolling. TV. Long lunches that run longer than intended. None of those things are inherently bad. But if you are also telling yourself you have no time to exercise, the audit tends to put that in perspective.
At our gym in Long Island City, we see this all the time. Someone joins after months of telling themselves they were too busy. Within a few weeks, the sessions are in the calendar, they are showing up consistently, and they cannot figure out why it felt so impossible before. The time was always there. It just wasn’t being used that way.
What Are You Actually Putting Off?
It is worth asking yourself honestly: what is the thing you keep telling yourself you don’t have time for? It might be getting to a strength training gym in Long Island City a couple of times a week. It might be cooking a better breakfast. It might be twenty minutes of reading, or learning something new, or simply taking a proper break. Whatever it is, if it keeps getting pushed aside, it is probably not a time problem. It is a priority problem. And that is actually good news, because priorities are something you can change.
The goal is not to overhaul your entire week overnight. That rarely works. What does work is starting small. Commit to one hour. Find it, protect it, show up for it. Do that consistently for a few weeks and it starts to feel normal. Then you build from there. Small changes, repeated regularly, are what produce real results over time. That is true whether you are talking about personal training in Long Island City, eating habits, or anything else you keep meaning to get around to.
You Don’t Need More Time
You probably do not need more hours in the day. You need a different choice about what gets your time. That is harder to sit with than blaming a busy schedule, but it is also the more honest version. If you have been telling yourself you have no time to exercise and waiting for life to slow down before you start, it is worth asking whether that moment is actually coming.
If you want to see what it looks like to build training into a realistic week, we offer small group fitness and personal training in Long Island City built around exactly that. Book a free intro session at Trinity Gym NYC and come have a conversation about where to start.
Have a great week.
Seamus Keane, NASM CPT
Co-founder, The Trinity NYC
