Lack of sleep and poor nutrition can be compensated for with caffeine, sugar, power bars, or the pure will to concentrate, but nothing substitutes for genuine physical health. Sleep, exercise, a proper diet, and regular checkups maintain your physical body. This is a basic, essential priority, which provides the well of energy from which you draw the strength to accomplish everything else you need to do. Some people neglect their own physically health for so long that they forget what it feels like to be healthy and rested. Making the commitment to your physical health will have an immediately visible effect on your productivity.

• Monitor how much sleep you currently get, then increase your sleep time in half-hour increments. Studies show that getting the same amount of sleep every night is healthier for your body than trying to run on five hours a night during the week, then sleeping ten hours on the weekends to catch up.
• Choose bedtime reading materials carefully. Try reading only fiction or poetry before sleep; nonfiction, self-help, business books, and the newspaper tend to rile you up rather then settle your brain.
• Discover a form of exercise you love. Try pilates, yoga, aerobics classes, rowing, softball—anything that you enjoy and that takes your mind off the torture of exercise! Start small and don’t be overambitious. Exercising three times a week is just fine.
• Listen to business tapes while on the treadmill or out for a walk. Combining the two makes you feel your exercise time is for your work, not a break from it.
• Buy a pedometer—and walk everywhere, instead of taking the elevator or the car. Keep track of how many miles you trek a week, month, or year can motivate you to keep on truckin’.
• Find a great multivitamin and start taking it. You’ll be surprised what a difference it makes. Replace your afternoon energy booster with something more organic than sugar or caffeine—an energy bar, juice, jumping jacks, a walk in the fresh air.
• Establish a personal relationship with each of the doctors on your core team. Know each of their receptionists—those personal connections are key to swift appointments. Aim for the mornings—doctors fall behind later in the day—so you can get in and out fast. Try to bunch all of your yearly checkups at the same time of tear—autumn and springtime usually present the fewest scheduling problems.