The Stack

One of my son’s favorite past times is stacking blocks. He builds towers, cities, and worlds and then in typical boy fashion, crashes them to the ground.

We can stack in our own, adult lives too. Stacking is simply pairing activities together strategically. You can think of it as a 2 for 1.

Now, I am a huge proponent of Gary Keller’s book and concept, The One Thing. This basically says that it is most productive to choose one thing, that if you did it, would have the biggest impact on everything else. Once you have your one thing, put all your efforts into completing it without distraction until it is done. Then repeat.

I also know that multitasking is a myth, and what we are really doing is dividing our attention and in turn, being less productive.

However, I do believe there are certain tasks that are excellent candidates for stacking. We just have to get creative.

Here’s one example. Last week I needed to get my scheduled 20 minutes of cardio in. I typically do this by running, but life got in the way and it was looking like the run was not going to happen. So I asked, what needs to be done? How can I stack them?

Well it just so happened our newly adopted two-year-old twins needed to dance around to nursery songs after dinner, because well, that’s just what they do.

Opportunity to stack.

I put on a 20 minute jam session of Baby Shark, 10 Little Monkeys, and more and danced with my girls. (If you don’t know Baby Shark, I beg you not to look it up..I warned you). I even had my interval timer on and increased and decreased intensity to make it interval training.

Stack successful.

Connect with the girls, fun with the family, workout complete.

What other activities pair well? Here’s a few:

• Walking/Running the Dog + Walking/Running Yourself + Nutrition Podcast

• Driving + Educational Podcast

• Stationary Biking + Reading or Podcasts

• Playing at the park with the kids + Body weight exercises (preschoolers make great weights by the way)

• Watching a show + Exercising

• Walking + Talking to a friend

• Chores + Exercise (vacuuming is exercise, or after we take out the trash we do 10 pushups...make it fun)

• Recreation/Sports + Exercise + Social interaction (obvious one)

• Walking/Running Stairs + Going somewhere upstairs

• Standing/Walking + Working + Exercise (could you set an alarm and take a break from work every 30 minutes or after each phone call and do push ups or burpies or whatever?)

Think about your day. What activities are ripe for stacking? When would stacking be a poor choice.

For me, connecting with my family while checking email is a terrible stack.

Get creative and be flexible. Life happens, but it does not need to hijack our healthy habits.

So, let’s stack our way to our healthiest selves...one minute at a time.