I’m 15 months into daily exercise. I began with the goal of doing 9 minutes of intentional exercise everyday and recorded my exercise in a daily planner that I have with me at all times and use everyday. I saw another commenter mentioned making a spread sheet. The daily planner works the same way. Looking over a month of activity and seeing blank days on the calendar doesn’t feel good.

9 minutes of intentional exercise can be a lot of things. I began with a calisthenics routine: doing 100 hundred jumping jacks, 20 squats, 20 push ups, a one minute plank, 1 minute of high knees, etc, and have since branched out quite a bit. In the beginning, doing calisthenics everyday was too much for me, so I intentionally walked with hand weights first thing in the morning. Then I started running. Now I run three or four days a week, often between three and eight miles and I go to the gym to do weight training two or three times a week. If I’m pressed for time, I go back to doing calisthenics.

Having a routine that you can do anytime anywhere is very important. And so is pressing past the 60 day point, which is when more complex habits like exercise begin to take hold in our physiology.

I also recommend making an Accountability report every week and posting it online. I did that for a year and a lot of people here helped motivate me through the times when my energies waned.

Good luck to you!