This is a reflection of the practices I strive to follow in order to have a higher quality of life, taking into account the multiple fascets of life’s challenges. Actually, it’s just one practice.
It’s Physical activity!
Life is chain of challenges, which we tackle using a series of practices, many of which are repetitive:
With this post my aim is to share my Most impactful, ongoing, repetitive practices, which have been universally beneficial to my life, and to those around me. The list is intentionally short, as it has been distilled to the most influential practices. I would have gladly included more life hacks, if only I had discovered more.
For a practice to make it into this list, it is required to have a broad range of benefits, not isolated to any specific challenge. Hence, as much as I want, I will not include Emacs, even though it has had an immense impact on how I spend time in front of a computer (both work and leisure).
With those restrictions, the list is actually a single point - working out. Or more generally: being physically active.
A few years back, I switched employers and was trying to catch up with my new colleagues, fill any missing skills I needed for my new role. At that time it was common to see sheets of paper here and there around the office, trying to teach employees useful little tricks to help with work. I guess Google’s Testing on the Toilet was the inspiration for such publications. Most of these publications were about basic engineering practices like unit tests, code reviews. But not all…
Surprisingly, one of the leaflets was about working out. It stated that employees are encouraged to work out, it stated my employer actually wanted me to be physically active. I was not expecting that - it stated that physically active employees are more productive than the others.
😳 <– my reaction.
At that time, I was all about increasing my productivity, becoming that 10X developer (which is a nice myth by the way… I was young, naive… don’t judge). So I did not need a second opinion, I started working out!
Now, 5+ years later, I consider this one of the best decisions in my life! To get an idea about the magnitude of this statement - I consider my decision to have a family (wife, kids) another one!
My own definition of being physically active? I consider someone physically active if they practice one or more activities which cover:
My physical activity of choice has been body-weight workout, but there are many other options, to name a few:
Choosing a combination of activities offers unique benefits, for example activities can be easily cycled depending on external factors, like the weather. You could play mostly football in the warm moths, and occasionally go to the gym. And during the cold months, you could mostly go to the gym, and play football if you get the chance.
I’ve noticed a wide range of benefits of practicing a physical activity. Still, I’m sure different people would experience different changes. I’m also sure the majority of the experiences/changes would be positive - yes, not all would be positive. It’s actually very likely that you get injured (among other risks), so there are definitely downsides.
However, I’m confident anyone can choose an activity which can provide a wide range of benefits, with minimum risk, minimum downsides.
Regarding the benefits, I’ve noticed many. But note it’s just that - I’ve noticed them. The benefits are consistent with what I have researched, however, I have not verified them in any pseudo scientific way. So take them for what they are - my subjective personal observations, that I’m 100% confident in, I do recommend, but can’t back up with scientific evidence.
It’s worth going into details about each on of these, especially for some of the less intuitive ones like “discipline”. I’ll consider a follow-up deep dive post about some of these.
I firmly believe all of the above can result in amazing benefits, and I personally do practice many of them in one way or another. However, some do require significant sacrifices, so they did not meet the bar for being my Single Most Influential Life Hack, that I can recommend to anyone.
I would recommend practicing some form of physical activity to everybody - regardless of age, profession, schedule. Because I’m 100% convinced of the benefits!