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Sure, but does it “blow your mind” that I might choose not to do any of those things and prefer to just get to the grocery store as fast as possible so I can sp

• ChuckMcM 6y ago
  Not at all! Every minute of every day we all choose what we're going to do with that minute and perhaps many of the minutes that follow. When I make those choices I balance off what I want to do against what I need to do and what I should do and what I could do. That is the essential choice of being an adult. My experience with walking, before I started walking, regularly, which was forced on me by a requirement to get more physical exercise as part of a weight management program, was that I felt very strongly that I had much better uses for my time than getting slowly from point A to point B. That attitude was supported by my ignorance with regard to what else I could do while walking and so stack time usage. What I learned by being forced to walk at least 30 minutes a day (its now up to 2.5hrs a day) was that there were things I did while sitting around. Those things included calling people, having meetings, and thinking about solutions to problems or the days events. What I experienced was, that I was no less productive during the day where I spent time walking, and there were tertiary effects that were completely unexpected. For example, I have always been plagued with the issue that as soon as I lay my head on the pillow to go to sleep, my brain starts kicking up all the things I didn't have time to think about during the day. As a result, getting to sleep could take an hour to an hour and a half. Just laying there, in bed, trying to stop my brain long enough to go to sleep. Walking massively mitigated that problem. I found, after I had been walking, that I had spent some, if not all, of that time thinking through things that had been pushed aside by the immediacy of email or social media or "honey do" projects. Not only had I thought about them on my walk, I started recording on my phone notes to myself of actions to take to move forward on things I was stuck on. This meant that when it was time to sleep, not only was it much easier to go to sleep, I already had a good idea of the things I needed to get to the next day or in the near future. That blew my mind. That I had traded laying immobile in my bed for some moderate exercise that effectively took no additional time out of my day and has lead to better sleep and better fitness. It also blew my mind how much more effective 1:1 meetings with direct reports were while walking than they were sitting in an office. I was pretty ignorant about both the time saving aspects of walking and the effect it would have on my mental acuity and well being. If someone reading this decides to try it out for themselves, it is my hope they will see the positive benefits I have experienced. I wouldn't go back to a non-walking lifestyle now, I have come to rely on those benefits.