A Schedule Experiment

 One of the great things about being willing to experiment is getting things wrong - and realizing it.

About a month ago, I made the decision I would try to change the time I went to the gym.  I go three days a week and, once upon a time ,would go Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays - alternate days from my Iaijutsu class.  Then class times changed as the dojo moved, and suddenly that schedule was not possible.  Instead, I have been going Tuesdays, Thursdays, and some "floater day" on the weekend.

The advantage, of course, is that I had a hard training day on a day that was also not an Iai day.  It also allowed me to train with sword or weight at approximately the same time.  The disadvantages were 1) It is very easy to sluff off that "floater day" of training due to a variable schedule or simply being lazy; and 2) my travel over the last two years means I am essentially gone one entire set of days that I struggled to make up.

The experiment I tried was going back to Monday, Wednesday, and Friday training, but early in the morning.

The advantages of this were 1) A very regular schedule; 2) A more focused workout (in the evenings I tend to slow down as I have nowhere I have to be, while in the mornings I have things to do); 3)  Having evenings where I did not have to leave the house; and 4) A little more regularity in my pre-travel/travel weeks (I usually do not travel on Fridays).

I have given it almost a full month of exercise.  And I am returning to the old schedule.

I was in fact able to make sure I was up early to make it to the gym (I tried to get there at 0530 - with the drive, that is about an hour workout).  The difficulty is that  - due to my sleeping arrangements (e.g., with my wife) - a 0430-0500 wake up alarm is, well, difficult (marriage ending difficult I suppose, given long enough).  So I found myself waking up a great deal earlier on work out days (0300-0400) and then laying down to try to sleep another period of time or just eventually getting up too early and being tired all day. 

But my sleep pattern became disrupted all the time.  On the days I was not going to the gym, I slept later simply of sheer exhaustion, thus destroying the concept of a "schedule".  And frankly, I have been so darn tired all the time, tired to the point of impacting everything I do.

The other - unlooked for - side effect was that my entire morning schedule got pushed, even though I was waking up earlier and in theory was on track.  Walks with Poppy The Brave got shorter or did not happen (and I need cardio workouts to combat the nascent diabetes in my family tree), reading became less focused, and journaling/blogging became not my best effort.  And, I had to rush to the point I sort of breathlessly arrived 4-5 minutes before my first meeting at work.

Simply put, I had "solved" one problem, but created a host of others.

But the good news with experiments is they can be undone.

I will go back to Tuesdays and Thursday (with a little more zip in my workout, to be sure), and make some kind of regular plan for the floating third workout (to be honest, as my last workout - Deadlifts - is the shortest one, Saturday or Sunday mornings may actually work).  I can reset my rising time at where I had it before (which looks a lot like 0600 on most days).  Poppy The Brave will be happier for the longer walks.  I will feel less rushed in the morning.  Maybe the content of my writing will improve (probably a vain hope there).

It is always good to try to doing things differently in order to do them better.  But when it creates other issues, it is also always good to be willing to undo the change.