Hi Stefan,
Good questions, all around!
Middle age has been challenging on the exercise front. I always imagined my physical powers would gradually decline, but no, it's been sudden shocks, some recoverable, to a degree, some possibly not, and others still in the recovery process (I hope!).
First it started when I could no longer run during early covid when I was so excited at all the running possibilities presented by this eerie, shut down world. I promptly got runners knee and after two years of PT exercises and laying off, I still can't really run anymore...
Shovelglove, my inspiration for schedulaistically significant time, I no longer measure in terms of time, but in terms of reps per movement. Those had to go down with my "golfers" elbow injury in October, so freeing up some additional time for all the stretches, etc. I now have to do on top of it. The pushups and pullups (mostly on hiatus now as well until golfers elbow is 100%) take a very few minutes -- they are very intense. It's really all the stretching that is time consuming and I can't wait to be able to reduce it. The hole business currently takes closer to half an hour than 14 minutes, but again, my hope is when the stretching goes down the total time will as well. I have to start waking up my middle daughter in the middle of it (6:30) and my wife needs the TV for her exercise routine at 6:45 so there are some hard external constraints.
So in terms of how I make time for all this, not being able to run anymore helps in that regard.
I loved it, and miss it, but it ate "timeboxes" for breakfast.
And of course, early rising also helps. My week-daily alarm is set for 4:44 am, on weekdays I let myself sleep in to 5:55. I've experimented with earlier and later, and this seems to be the right balance for me between exhaustion and keeping a grip on chaos. Plus the rep-digits aka angel numbers are irrationally motivating.
I sometimes worry this doesn't add up to quite enough sleep, but I'm very regular, and my quality of sleep is good. I'm usually out like a light well before 10, and my fitbit gives me good sleep "quality" scores for what it's worth.
It's during that 2 hour early morning period before everyone else is in my business that I stuff most of my routines. That way I prioritize them by doing them first, and at a time when other competing pressures can't often interrupt them. If I have piles of work or other todos (taxes, say, or a big presentation to prepare for) that do manage to intrude on this time, I flex my routines by still doing them (usually) but with shorter timeboxes. Sometimes ridiculously, almost uselessly short, just to preserve the habit. 14 will become 10 or 7. 7 will become 5 or 3.
I'll try to give a fuller picture if I get around to doing that "Aristotelean Self-Portrait" episode I mentioned, which is basically an exercise in habit/routine mapping against a calendar.
My inspiration for early rising is Anthony Trollope. I love his novels, of which he wrote 47 (plus short stories and non-fiction), and he attributed the secret of his success to "early rising." By which he meant being at his desk by 5. Then 3 hours of methodical writing to a word count quota with his Victorian stopwatch equivalent, then down to the ministry for his day successful job running some important government post, then to the theater or the club or the races or dinner with his family -- he had a full life!
Hope this is illuminating? Thanks again for your continued feedback and encouragement!
Reinhadr
