Getting things out of my head by writing them down on a note (I always keep a pencil in my pocket and small notes in my cardholder). That way I don’t feel like I’m missing things or appointments.
This is advice I’ve taken by listening and reading things by David Allen.

I do a simple morning workout before work each morning at 05.30. The workout is available both on DVDs and YouTube and is Gilad’s Bodies in Motion. It covers warmup, exercise, and (most often) situps and only takes around 20 minutes. That way I never feel guilty for not exercising enough. For free days or hoildays I have two longer workouts – one called Abs and one called Fat Burning. These are around 40 minutes each and I rotate them.

@Danielle – something is better than nothing! If your peak hours are 4-8, then, yes, you probably won’t get them daily. But you can get them sometimes. And once a week (maybe twice a week if you try!) is certainly better than not getting them at all, or telling yourself it’s impossible.

@Daniel – I probably average about 35 hours/week for work. Running takes about 4 hours weekly, as I only average about a 5k/day. It doesn’t take that long to run 3.1 miles! As for reading, I’ve calculated it at somewhere between 10-15 hours/weekly, usually in the time that other people would watch TV (which I really don’t do much of).

I can see that jobs and chores might be stressful, but hobbies shouldn’t be a source of stress! Those are for fun!

*using these hours to write, i should say. as an academic, this is golden.

Alas! My peak hours are 4-8pm. It’s a terrible time! Before i had kids it clashed with my favourite group exercise activities. Now that i have small children, I can’t exactly not pick them up from childcare/give them dinner/put to bed! BUT I do carve out once a week to use those peak times, which is better than nothing. Something I’ve learned over the years of reading your stuff.

@Byrd – it’s always good to know yourself, and if you’ve figured out that 1-3 is your peak time, by all means use it! Unfortunately, I think a lot of people either don’t know when their peak hours are, or if they do, don’t think about planning their days to take that into consideration. Some work can’t be controlled/planned, but much can be too.

@Monica- I sometimes look at email on weekends, but I generally won’t answer until Sunday night. I assume a lot of other people are only checking sporadically (if at all) so there’s no rush.