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.