Last updated on April 13th, 2021 at 10:30 pm
It may seem like a luxury to enjoy hikes during the week. However, carving out time for nature may actually make you more productive. Hiking can clear your mind, begin healthy habits, and structure your work week. As our days become more jam-packed, nature can indeed seem out of reach. To help you with your busy schedule, we’ve put together these 5 simple tips to make more time for hiking.
Hiking can be easily worked into the schedule with a little finesse. Specifically, by prioritization, creating goals around the trip, and waking early will help you make more time for hiking.
1. Make Hiking a Priority
When finding time for a weekly hike, it’s imperative that you make it a priority. Schedule out your week, practice good time management, and make projects that you must accomplish.
To do so, rank items on your weekly list as ‘must do’, ‘should do,’ or ‘If there’s time’. By staying focused, you will be able to keep yourself from procrastinating.
Sometimes we tinker in our smaller task list to avoid large projects. As a result, we simply make less and less time for things we actually want to do, like hiking. However, by assigning hiking as a ‘must do’ item, it feels even better when it is accomplished.
More so, establishing this rating system will help with overall productivity. When we’re able to accomplish our other large tasks, heading into nature is more rewarding and less stressful.
2. Trade Off
For some people, it’s possible to replace a weekly chore, task, or vice with a nice hike.
Say for example, you play online chess twice a week, or you have a habit of binging network television. Making a commitment to trading that time for nature may be a simple one to one trade.
After the difficult decision is made to tear yourself from the indoors, you may find that hiking is addictive. Thus, becoming your new daily or weekly vice.
3. Consolidate Errands
Build hiking into your daily routine. It can be helpful to group tasks together that bring you closer to trails. If you’re looking for a good hike, plan to run errands near where your hike will be.
For example, hiking takes me further away from amenities of the city, however I always plan to grab groceries on the way back. As long as I have wet wipes (for muddy trails) and an extra pair of shoes in the car, I’m ready for anything.
By allowing ourselves a hike, sometimes we feel that productivity is set to the side. Alternatively, if we add some to-dos to the journey, we may feel that there was less of a trade off.
4. Get an Early Start
Not only does an early start give you energy for a successful day, it’s usually more quiet on the trail. Maybe a long hike doesn’t make sense before your 8am workday, but weekends are a perfect place to start.
Beginning Saturday or Sunday with a sunrise hike ensures the trip doesn’t continually get pushed off during the weekend.
RELATED: 7 Benefits of Hiking Before Sunrise
You may be able to get a 5 mile hike under your belt before brunch even begins. Hiking early in the day may also help us make healthier meal decisions (source).
5. Start Small
Finally, begin slowly if the time commitment or difficulty are too demanding. It’s never advisable to throw yourself into something at full force. Most of us would burn out quickly or get injured if we did. Not only that, if we obliterate our actual responsibilities during the week, we may have more stress when trying to make up for them.
If you’re an experienced hiker, this goes for you as well. Demanding jobs and our current world can leave us with very little free time.
However, we can remedy this by finding just a small window during the day or week for a hike. Whether it’s before work, on the way home, or between weekend plans, hiking can be flexible.
Setting aside 30-60 minutes can do wonders for your mood, sense of achievement, and self-esteem. If you’re new to hiking this can be life changing. For those missing the call of the trail, this commitment can help you begin reprioritizing your schedule to honor yourself.
Furthermore, when starting out, don’t let hiking gear become an obstacle. There are so many options for everything under the sun, we even have quite a few guides to help. However, with a good pair of hiking shoes, a water bottle, and a fanny pack, you’ll have just enough to get you going.
All You Need is a Little Push
Sometimes all the motivation we need is something like a new bandana or shoes to feel appropriately pumped to get out there. Although, these days it can be easy to set aside hiking in favor of the couch or phone.
Hiking is great exercise for both your body and mind. In fact, if we give ourselves a mental break during the week, we begin to feel more fulfilled in every other moment. When we make a commitment to getting into forests, our brains actually produce more feel-good chemicals (source). However you find the time, be ready to fall in love with nature. You may find hiking a worthy priority that you look forward to every day.
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Image Credit: Esmée Winnubst | (source) | Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) — reduced file size and image
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