You’ve got a lot going on. Making fitness a priority isn’t always as easy as scheduling it into your morning. The reasons why your schedule is packed are real life – they’re not excuses. But making fitness fit into your day may be an element of changing the way you look at your workouts.

Maybe you just had a baby (a super adorable baby, mind you) that’s way too young to go to any gym or studio’s childcare center. Maybe your job has you on the road four days per week and you have a client that’s really into 7 AM breakfast meetings.

If you’re trying to make 90 minutes at a gym fit into any kind of insane schedule or life change, you’re setting yourself up to fail. The best workout is the one you’ll actually do. So when your calendar is dictating your life and you’re saying phrases like, “back-to-back meetings” and “it’s going to be a long week” make it work by making it fit into your life.

Travel on foot

This is an easy answer if you can walk to your job in 30 minutes or less. During the warmer months of the year, choose to walk to work rather than taking public transportation. You can start to go through your emails and organize the day ahead while you’re walking. I did this for my last month at the ad agency and I found that I came into work much more clear-headed and much less angry, because you guys, I don’t understand why people can’t just move into the center of the train and make a little more room. YouknowwhatImean?

I’ve heard from a lot of friends and colleagues training for a marathon that they run home a couple of days a week. Kristen sometimes fits in her miles by running between what she has on her calendar. Training for a marathon or not, that’s a great way to get some cardio in.

Use your bodyweight as resistance

If you’ve just (maybe not “just,” ask your doctor when it’s safe to workout again) welcomed a new family member into your home and its difficult to get to any gym or studio or if you’re being forced to travel to some godforsaken hotel without a gym, you can do a lot with just your body weight.

Try apps like the 7 minute workout, which is made entirely of bodyweight exercises and NTC, which has select bodyweight workouts that you can use anywhere. We’ve also posted quite a few here.

Make your working lunch into a workout lunch

It may feel like breaking away for even 45 minutes is impossible, but it’s completely crucial for your sanity and health. You’ll be able to recenter yourself during a quick session at the gym and come back to your desk reenergized and ready to finish your day.

The question for a lot of women is “how do I go back to work looking like I didn’t just workout?” Dry Shampoo is your friend. Shower off from the neck down, wash your face, spray the heck out of your hair with dry shampoo, blow-dry, style and go.

Change an after-work dinner/drink with a friend into your own sweatworking event

If your plans with a friend suddenly feel like the barrier between you and a workout, loop your friend in. Ask her to accompany you on a run, to a class or to your favorite gym. This will help you to sweat while feeling social, which studies show keeps you feeling happy and happiness is a part of your whole healthy.

You can also grab a friend and Sweatwork with us, June 25.

Find a high-intensity class that burns a greater amount of calories in less time

There are a lot of people like you who don’t have an entire hour to fit a workout in. Studios and gyms get it. Shorter, more intense classes are cropping up in response. You can see greater benefits from a HIIT workout in a shorter period of time than if you were doing a moderate intensity workout.

In Chicago, try a quick-burn class at Pow!, Sproing, Flywheel, ENRGi, TRAINology or Atlas Performance.

How do you fit fitness into your busy schedule?