Setting a strict schedule - Morgan Schulz

How Setting a Strict Schedule has Helped During Quarantine - 

Morgan can be found on Instagram

Once upon a time, long, long ago, we had races to run and places to travel to. To be honest, it has seemed a lot longer than a month or so since the last time I raced, and lately, I have found it increasingly difficult to find motivation to get up every morning and be productive. I thoroughly enjoy training (sometimes a little too much), but the rest of my days seem cloudy and unmemorable.

Something that has helped me during this time was to be strict about my schedule. Instead of lazily getting out of bed every morning, watching lectures and hastily taking notes (I’m a grad student), I tried to stick to a more concrete schedule for a few days to see how it would work.

I now set my alarm to get up every morning (usually around 7:00am), and make sure I’m at my desk to start to work by 8:00am. Right when I get up, I try to do some mindfulness activities using an app called “Headspace” which seems to start my day off on the right foot. I schedule in time to train in my calendar (I try to give myself 2 hours minimum), and have been increasingly conscious of my eating habits. This has allowed me to be more in tune with my hunger cues. Because of starting a more strict schedule, I have allotted more time in the evenings to devote to recovery activities. Some of these include using my Normatec boots (which I bought pretty cheap from Amazon) and taking nice Epsom salt baths. Prior to implementing a strict schedule, my routine was wacky and I seemed to get distracted by anything and everything. Now, I look forward to sitting down at night and planning my next day’s activities.

I recommend that, even when there’s not a pandemic, planning out your activities and giving yourself a checklist provides some extrinsic motivation on a daily basis. I began to realize how much time I actually had in a day when I stopped scrolling through social media mindlessly and began to use that time in productive ways to improve my recovery and promote positive thinking.

Currently, I’m thriving in this homebound state. Although I miss physically interacting with friends, coworkers and classmates, this time at home has allowed me to fine tune my productivity skills. Setting and following my daily schedule is the main facet to this newfound success.

A little bit about Morgan:

Goals for this year: crush the Spartan stadium series!! Would really love to be top three in the series.. would also love to hit as many Deka Fit events across the country as possible.

Also, this year I really want to try and win a stadium, sprint, super, beast, and ultra all in the same calendar year. I think that would be pretty epic!

Brief Bio/accolades: I just graduated from the University of Illinois where I ran for the track and field and cross country teams. Just got into the sport of OCR this year and accumulated 9 spartan podiums with 5 first place finishes and capped it off with a 7th place finish at the Spartan North American Championships in my first ever beast. I also recently placed 2nd at the NYC Hyrox Championships and 4th at the Chicago Hyrox Championship. I am hoping to hone in on some more functional fitness events in the near future! What motivates me is trying to tap into every ounce of potential that my body has. I strive to be a jack of all trades in the fitness world, and pride myself on trying to be competitive in every event I compete in- whether it be a weightlifting competition or an ultra marathon. I’m excited to continue to grow into an OCR and functional fitness athlete and am happy to do so with VJ shoes on my side!