2012: The Year of the Schedule

The news is official: I will not be playing basketball in Borken next season and we will be moving to Münster on the 1st of June.  Dana and I are both sad and excited.  Sad because we will miss the people here in Borken and because basketball will be over.  Excited because, well, it's Münster. Also excited because we will (hopefully) get our schedules/priorities back in order.

Over our Christmas break, I had to reassess my overly hectic and unsustainable schedule.  The last 4 months had been brutal.  A 70-80 hour week (counting work, basketball, and commute time) is ok if done once in a while.  I get this adrenaline rush from the stress and nonstop running around.  I actually like it and feel that I do some of my best work on this schedule.  Doing this type of demanding schedule, however, for 14 weeks in a row without a break leading up to Christmas is a recipe for disaster. A lesson that I have learned first hand.

Remarkably, the adrenaline thing worked for about 11-12 weeks throughout the months of September, October, and November.  The 'take it one day at a time until you get to Christmas' mentality worked quite well.  Sure, there were good days and bad.  But overall I was somehow making it work.

That is until I hit the wall.  I understand now that the term 'hitting the wall' is extremely accurate, as it felt in the somewhere in the first week of December that I had literally ran into a wall, both mentally and physically.  I remember a Thursday night basketball practice that week, where I literally felt that I my body might shut down and I would collapse to the ground.

For the next two weeks, I would often get dizzy and light headed while sitting at my desk at work or while playing basketball.  I was so ill one night that I couldn't play in a game.   The week leading up to Christmas, it took all of the energy I had to do even the simplest task.  I was totally overwhelmed and totally out of gas.  Not a feeling I ever want to have again.

I am failing to mention Dana and Dylan up to this point.  As much I as I have tried to do date nights and spend Saturday and Sunday's (at least the time before my games) with Dylan, family time was clearly lacking and Dana needed a break at Christmas just as much as I did.

Christmas break could not have come fast enough.  A couple weeks of rest was precisely what I needed.  The light headed/dizziness is gone. I have as much energy as a 31 year old could possibly have.

To avoid 'hitting the wall' in 2012, I am bound and determined to keep my schedule under control.  I track my hours every week in an attempt to keep everything (work+commute+basketball) under 60 hours per week.  Up to this point, I have been successful about 50% of the time this year.

Eliminating basketball from the schedule will free up 15-20 hours per week.  Additionally, moving anywhere remotely close to Münster will cut down immensely on travel time.  I am currently averaging 13.5 hours per week of travel time alone.  Combine the two and I will have nearly an entire additional work week of newly found free time in June.

Münster, here we come!