Making movement fit your life: Eight simple ways to stay active when family life is busy
Updated: Sep 22
September… Back-to-school month, and for many of us, back to our desks. Our days start getting really busy again, and all those good intentions to improve our healthy habits suddenly become a low priority. Many of us find ourselves sitting most of the day, and with little time for movement.
We all know that movement is good for us. It supports our physical health, energy, mood, sleep and resilience. The World Health Organisation (WHO) 2020 Guidelines on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour are clear: they recommend that adults aim for 150–300 minutes of moderate-intensity activity each week, or 75–150 minutes of vigorous activity, or a combination of the two. That might sound like a lot, but broken down across the week, it works out at roughly:
20–40 minutes of moderate activity per day — such as brisk walking or cycling; or
10–20 minutes of vigorous activity per day — such as running or other activities that noticeably increase your heart rate and breathing.
The guidelines also recommend muscle-strengthening activities on at least two days each week and encourage us to reduce the amount of time we spend sitting, replacing sedentary time with movement whenever we can.
But movement doesn't have to happen in hour-long blocks, and it doesn't have to look like a traditional workout to count. One of the most helpful shifts we can make is to stop asking, "Where am I going to find time to exercise?" and start asking, "Where can movement fit into the life I already have?"
1. Let go of the all-or-nothing approach
Perhaps you planned a 45-minute workout, but a meeting runs late, one of the children needs you, or you simply don't have the energy you expected. The choice doesn't have to be between 45 minutes and nothing. Could you do 15 minutes instead? Ten? Could you go for a brisk walk, do a short strength routine at home, or spend five minutes stretching and moving?
One small example from my own routine is the school run. We often cycle to school, which gives me some movement at the beginning of the day without having to schedule it separately. But if we walk to school, I sometimes run home afterwards to get an intense short bout early morning. It's only around ten minutes, but everything counts.
Instead of asking whether something is long enough to be worthwhile, try asking: "What's the version of this that I can realistically do today?" Sometimes the answer might genuinely be five or ten minutes. That's okay.
2. Look for movement already hiding in your day
Not all movement needs to be scheduled as exercise. Walking part of the school run, cycling somewhere you would normally drive, taking the stairs, walking while making a phone call or getting outside for ten minutes at lunchtime all increase the amount of movement in your day.
For me, cycling to work gives me about 20 minutes of movement each way. But on days when I work from home, that movement disappears. So I often go for a short walk around the block before sitting down at my desk. It creates a little transition into the working day while also getting me moving.
This is particularly useful if your work involves long periods of sitting at a desk. Instead of relying on one workout to compensate for an otherwise sedentary day, look for opportunities to change position and move throughout it.
I use a standing desk at home, for example, and sometimes stand during online meetings. Occasionally I'll stand on a BOSU balance trainer and alternate legs (you can use a cushion if you don't have BOSU!). I also suggest to my colleagues to have ‘walking meetings’ where possible, or I simply have a walk while I’m on a phone call. These aren’t workouts. They are simply ways of bringing a little more movement into a part of my day that I would otherwise spend only sitting.
3. Try ‘movement snacks’
If you spend much of your working day sitting, a workout before or after work is beneficial—but it is also important to look for opportunities to break up long sedentary periods. Standing up, walking around or moving for a few minutes regularly throughout the day can all help reduce sedentary time.
These are what some people call "movement snacks", very short burst of movement that are scattered throughout your day. Researchers have also been studying the related idea of “exercise snacks”. These are brief, more structured bouts of intense but very short exercise, with promising results for cardiorespiratory fitness, particularly in people who are otherwise inactive.
This is probably one of my favourite strategies because it requires almost no additional time. When I work from home and stop to make tea, I might do a plank while I wait. I also keep a kettlebell near the stairs, so sometimes I'll do a few biceps curls when I'm going up or downstairs.
The same principle can work almost anywhere:
a few squats while waiting for the kettle;
two minutes of stretching between meetings;
calf raises while brushing your teeth;
a short plank before getting into the shower;
a five-minute walk around the block;
a few simple mobility exercises after sitting at your computer.
The idea isn't that a plank beside the kettle replaces a proper strength session. It is that movement doesn't have to be confined to a designated workout. Those shorter bouts accumulate long term: there is evidence that such intermittent intense daily activities (e.g. quickly climbing the stairs or walking uphill) can help reduce mortality.
4. Use the time you're already spending on your children's activities
If you have children, you may already spend a surprising amount of your week taking them to activities—and waiting while they do them. Could some of that time become movement time?
When my children have swimming lessons, I use the gym in the same facility rather than sitting beside the pool watching the whole lesson. If they're training outdoors, I can run or walk around the field while they train.
Even trips to the playground can provide opportunities. Rather than always sitting and watching, I sometimes use the time to stretch or do a few simple bodyweight exercises, such as sit-ups or calf raises.
Of course, sometimes you'll want to sit, chat to another parent, read a book or simply watch your child.
This isn't about turning every spare minute into a workout.
It's about noticing that some of the time we think we don't have may already exist—it is simply attached to something else.
5. Make some family time active
Movement can also become something you do with your family rather than something that takes you away from them.
Walking or cycling to school, weekend walks, cycling, swimming, hiking, playing in the park or simply dancing around the kitchen... They all count as opportunities to move! Find out what kind of active time your family enjoys doing. We love being outdoors, particularly walking in nature and hiking, and we like it even better if it’s combined with water or foraging (especially, blackberries - yum!).
It won't replace every kind of exercise you might want to do, and parents still deserve time for their own activities. But particularly during busy periods, making some family time active can remove one of the biggest barriers: feeling that you have to choose between looking after yourself and spending time with the people you love.
It also allows children to experience movement as a normal and enjoyable part of everyday life, not simply something we "have to do" for our health.
6. And yes, you can still protect time for a proper workout
Making movement fit around family life doesn't mean giving up longer workouts. If going to the gym, running, attending a yoga class, swimming or doing another activity for 45 minutes or an hour is important to you, it can be worth deliberately protecting one or two slots in your week.
Rather than hoping the time will somehow appear,
discuss it with your family.
Agree when your exercise time will be, just as you would schedule other family commitments. And if you find it difficult to stick to that time, adding some accountability can help. Arrange to exercise with a friend, join a dancing or walking group, or enrol in a class. When somebody else is expecting you to turn up, it can be much harder to let your exercise time disappear when the week gets busy.
In my case, through my running club I met a wonderful group of local women who run. Once a week, we meet for a quick 30-minute session after the school run, and then we have coffee. By 9.30 or so, we're done. I feel I've completed a short workout, and I'm ready to start work. On those cold winter mornings, having the commitment to meet my friends really helps to get it done!
So it doesn't have to be short bursts OR longer workouts. It can be both. A couple of protected exercise sessions can provide structure to your week, while everyday movement and movement snacks fill some of the spaces in between.
7. Don't forget strength
When time is limited, walking, cycling and other forms of everyday movement are often the easiest things to fit in. But strength matters too, particularly for women as we approach and move through perimenopause and menopause, when maintaining muscle strength and supporting bone health become increasingly important (study, study, study).
A short set of exercises at home won't necessarily replace a full strength session, but everything adds up!
And strength training doesn't necessarily require a gym or complicated equipment. Bodyweight exercises can be done at home in relatively little time. For example, there are also plenty of short, freely available strength workouts online. A 10- or 15-minute bodyweight or resistance session using squats, lunges, push-ups and similar movements can be an accessible way to include some strengthening exercise when time is limited, and it can make strength and movement a more regular part of your week. If you have dumbbells, resistance bands or a kettlebell, you can gradually make some exercises more challenging. Repeated a few times per week, they can be an effective way to incorporate strength training if you don't have time for one or two longer sessions. For me, this is a really ‘feel-good’ option on those days when I had planned a gym session but life happens, or when I’m so tired after a long day that I don't have the energy for a 45 minute workout.
8. Plan for your real week, not your ideal one
Perhaps the most important strategy is to be realistic. It's easy to create an exercise plan for an imaginary version of our lives in which nobody gets sick, meetings finish on time, we sleep perfectly and we always feel motivated. Real life rarely works like that.
During the weekend, you could try to find 10 minutes to look at the week ahead and try to plan for movement realistically. Where are the genuinely realistic opportunities to exercise? Which days are likely to be difficult? Which one or two periods could you protect for longer exercise? And where can you build movement naturally into everything else you're already doing?
Then have a backup plan. If you can't make your usual class, what could you do instead? If you only have 15 minutes, what's your 15-minute option? If you're tired, would a walk or some gentle mobility work fit better that day?
Flexibility isn't failure.
It's what can make a healthy habit sustainable.
Movement doesn't have to be perfect to matter
Looking after our health can sometimes feel like another area in which we're expected to do everything perfectly: exercise several times a week, walk 10,000 steps, strength train, stretch, sleep eight hours, prepare healthy meals, and somehow fit all of this around work and family life.
It doesn't have to be that way. Start with the life you have. Look for the opportunities that already exist. Walk or cycle when you can. Move while your children are doing their activities. Break up periods of sitting. Keep something as simple as a kettlebell somewhere you'll actually use it. Protect one or two longer exercise sessions if they're important to you. And if the workout you planned isn't possible, do the smaller version rather than assuming it isn't worth doing.
Most importantly, choose forms of movement that you enjoy and that can realistically coexist with the rest of your life. Because sustainable movement isn't about designing the perfect exercise programme. It's about finding ways to move that you can keep coming back to, even when life gets busy.
So, this week, rather than asking yourself how you're going to fit more exercise into your already busy schedule, try a different question: where could a little more movement fit naturally into the life you already have?
At Vitae Balance, I'm interested in exactly these kinds of changes: small, realistic steps that support your health without requiring your life to revolve around them.
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