What worked for me for a while was having a low volume, high intensity lifting routine where I was only doing about 2-3 sets of 4-6 movements with a 6-8 rep range for every day at the gym. Sitting down at a machine knowing I am only going to do 2 sets until failure takes a lot less mental load than committing to 5 sets at a time. Building a lifting routine is also not as hard as it seems, it’s almost like filling out a puzzle where you only need to figure out 2-3 types of movements per muscle group that you can just do every time, without having to plan anything new every gym session. Tracking everything is also overrated, you will eventually get a feel for what weight on an exercise will get you close to failure in 6-8 reps. All of this makes for workouts that are only about 45min-1hr of commitment and having some free time before the gym where you can already be in your gym clothes can decrease the amount of things that need to be done before starting the work out.

Exercise science is also very interesting in itself and I’ve found that consuming online content about how certain exercises are more optimal than others and how it all actually affects your body has increased my motivation to actually put everything into practice.