Having trouble staying in shape as a busy professional?

As Homer Simpson once put it: "Round is a shape".

Hi,

Sharing my experience having tried to maintain fitness and shape throughout my consulting career.

I think the 2 key constraints were Time and Energy. 

1. Time: The demands of work mean that often there isn't any ‘clear’ time to workout, unless you explicitly carve out time for it
2. Energy: Even if there is time, often I am so tired that I don't have the energy / motivation to exercise.

What I found helpful was the following: 

• Being able to draw hard lines
  • You have to stand up for your personal time, otherwise no one else will
  • Having upfront discussions with case leadership and making sure those agreements are held to throughout the case is important
• Being able to prioritize
  • While work always comes first, if you are able to say “Ok, this slide can wait till tomorrow” - you will have that extra 30mins to squeeze in a workout
• Being flexible (in your goals and methods)
  • Flexibility is key, meaning that if you can adopt the mindset of “I am going to do whatever fits my constraints” this really helps being sustainable
  • E.g. being okay to do calisthenics when you don't have time to head to the gym

Hi,

Consulting/Enterpreneur lifestyles are very demanding but everything can be worked out with good planning and prioritizing.

The way I manage to balance work and lifestyle, in this case working out is by planning by hour the tasks I need to accomplish day bay day, mixing work and life tasks. In this way you allocate time for your personal things and you consider them a GOAL, not just something you do in your spare time. Also it allows you to better prioritize your work as you put a deadline to it and to become more effective. Working long hours can happen in critical situations but it cannot be the norm, because it will eliminate its effectiveness.

Hope it helps!

Hello,

Unless you don't like to get up at 6 in the morning, you can actually forget about being in shape as a consultant :)

Hi A,

Thank you very much! This is really great question! Honestly, I don't have problems of being in the shape, but it requires a lot of discipline. I push myself to wake up early in the morning, one hour earlier than most of my colleagues, to make morning gym, morning meditation and bring myself to the shape. I do it because I know that in the evening there will be no power and no time for doing that, and that is how I gain the energy.

Another big thing is taking care about yourself and look at what you are eating. So be as healthy as possible. 

And as my career progressed and when I became manager, it became more mobile role, where I didn't have to sit on the same spot for the whole day, but I can actually move between meetings and chat with colleagues and partners. So work has become more flexible, more demanding, but also more mobile. 

Hope it helps you to stay in a good shape!

Stay safe, Stay healthy!

Best,

André

Hello, don´t think this comment is relevant here. This is a Consulting Q&A. Please remove

Hi,
it depends on your priorities during the week. You can talk with it at the beginning of the project to the manager in order to discuss team norms, needs, and work-life balance, even if not always it will be possible to maintain them

Best,
Antonello