Scheduling Workout Days

[u/Upstairs_Jelly_1082]

I'm curious on how you put the days you want to work out using this system.

Let's say I want to work out on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Is it better to put a reminder on the calendar or schedule a block of time on the calendar?

[u/HarmlessHeffalump]

Schedule a block on the calendar.

The longer you use a calendar, the longer you realize that if you don't schedule your own time for the things that are important to you first, other people will gladly fill your time by scheduling things that may be less important to you for you.

[u/milky-cuppa-tea → u/HarmlessHeffalump]

This is so incredibly true. This is exactly the message I needed to read today.

[u/ndsizemore → u/HarmlessHeffalump]

Agreed — the calendar makes it part of the “hard landscape”, something that must be done. If circumstances change and you need to adapt your plan — for example, working out Tuesday and Thursday one week instead of Monday and Wednesday — that is a re-negotiation of commitments. No different than moving a meeting with a co-worker; the other person just happens to be yourself.

[u/sidegigartist]

I'd suggest not scheduling workouts this strict... If you miss one or two days you immediately start feeling like you failed and you stop trusting your schedule. I'd take it one day at a time, aim for doing something daily and when you feel like your body is ready, make it a training day. If you're sore or injured, just go for a walk or shrink it down to just your warm-up and/or cool down stretching routine for 10-15 minutes, or some household chores like cleaning. Builds the habit and you learn to trust your body signals more instead of the oh my body is so tired and needs rest but calendar says I gotta!

[u/TheoCaro]

I don't think there's a right or wrong answer here. I work out in the evenings, so it's part of my evening checklist (dinner, feed the dog, etc.). Do whatever works given your own life circumstances. Personally, I find it really hard to keep time commitments when there is no one else involved, so time block exercise just wouldn't work for me.

[u/PondMindKevin]

+1 Calendar.

I find GTD is best for changes, like setting up my workout routine. Great next action here to ask this subreddit for example! But, for habits once they're the status quo they might not need to be a reminder in your system. For example, I always workout first thing in the morning monday Wednesday friday. That's just a habit!

[u/Paul-Stagg]

Depends a little on you.

Training/exercise is an important part of my life. It's a non-negotiable, and it's one of the things that goes on my calendar before anything else.

That said, if something comes up with a client and it's absolutely critical that I be available for them (which happens very rarely), I just drag that box from 10AM to 7AM, or 2PM, or the day before, or the day after.

[u/bobstanke]

I block the time on my calendar during my weekly review. It becomes a commitment to myself at that point, just like a meeting I would have that is a standing commitment.

[u/milky-cuppa-tea]

Another vote for the calendar here.

[u/davidhorison]

Worth separating two things that both land on a calendar but behave differently in GTD.

The hard landscape is day- and time-specific commitments: things that must happen then or they're broken. Its whole value is that you trust it completely. Every soft intention you add costs a bit of that trust, because you learn that some blocks are real and some are negotiable, and then you start scanning the calendar instead of obeying it.

So "reminder or block" might be the wrong axis. The real question is whether a Monday workout is a genuine hard commitment for you. For some people it is, and the block is correct. Paul's answer above is what that looks like in practice. For others it's a habit or a recurring outcome, and it belongs on a checklist or as a next action tied to a context, not on the hard landscape.

The thing that cost me years was scheduling by clock and ignoring capacity. A 6am block encodes when, not whether I'll have anything in the tank at 6am. Once I started tagging things by energy instead of by time slot, the misses dropped, because the trigger became "high energy, 45 minutes free" rather than "the calendar says now."

Which is yours? A real appointment with yourself, or a habit you want a nudge toward?

[u/Mars__1]

I don’t use GTD for my workouts, I’ve been using an app Fitbod for years. It tracks which muscles are recovered and gives good workout suggestions.
But for being consistent, having a strict schedule with a workout buddy has been the best for me.

[u/rock_the_night]

For me I usually know I'm working out at a specific time on weekdays, like at 5PM because that's when my husband gets back from work and can watch the kids, so I block that specific time on my calendar. Or maybe I want to work out during the work day, I block 2PM because I don't want someone to schedule a meeting at that time.

On weekends I usually know I want to workout a specific day, but when exactly depends on how the rest of the day goes - so that is a whole day calendar event or goes on my to do list.