[gt_]

I have been tracking my productivity with rescuetime on my work machine over the past year and paying particular attention to the value of exercising. I genuinely enjoy exercising, but in many stages of life, productivity is far more important than things I just enjoy doing. Also, I don’t care about losing weight. My productivity is critical these days so I wanted to know if exercising was contributing to that or taking from it.

Alternating 3 months on and 3 months off of jogging in the summer an elliptical in the winter, 4 days a week, with a steady program that took 45-55 minutes tops including changing clothes and a shower. My records do not support exercising for productivity gain; they support the opposite.

It was clear that exercising simply depleted my energy. It doesn’t take very long to do and it feels good, but it sucked my energy and my productive hours (mostly coding) were shortened by an average of 3-4 hours per day. Although I felt energetic, I didn’t “have more energy” as they say.

I will continue exercising when I can afford that, because keeping my body healthy is important long-term.

I am now curious about the wider justification of this common advice. I doubt it’s just a virtue signal. It’s hard to beat catching a morning run that moment before the sun comes over the horizon. Great way to start the day. But, my goal here was to be honest with myself. It does not make me feel better throughout the day. I wish it did, because I love feeling better, but it doesn’t do that. Not for me.

[jakevn]

It seems those that benefit most from exercise from a productivity standpoint are those like myself. Exercise has been very helpful fighting depression, and thus, my productivity. I could imagine that those without depression would not get the mental benefit that easily overrides the effort of exercise.

[gt_]

I can actually sympathize with this. It was the reason I originally began exercising, and I know it helped with that. I don't know how much. I got more committed to meditating over the years and found the returns on meditating to be undeniable. I figure there are many sources and types of depression, and I think lower productivity undermined some of my efforts to fight it.

Best of luck to you!!

[pixelperfect]

I reached the same conclusion for myself - that a ~40 minute cardio workout actually results in less productivity rather than more.

However, I switched to a 10 minute cycling workout with high intensity intervals (4-5 intervals 30 seconds in length). I have only done this for a few weeks, but I find that it boosts daily energy rather than depleting it.

[gt_]

Makes sense. I may give it a shot. I can have a hard time quitting sometimes. I can get uncharacteristically competitive with myself when exercising.

[tajd]

I work in the morning from 0700/0800 to 1600/1700, I find that a mid-afternoon session perks up so I can crank out a few more hours. I could stay longer than that at work of course, but it would be of little benefit to anyone as I'd be effectively useless.

[bosie]

did you find that the timings of the work hours and workouts make no difference?

I.e. working out at 7am with workhours from 9-5 are suboptimal but workhours from 4am to 8am with an hour of workout between 8 and 9 gives you a boost for the rest of the day