[Phil Eastabrook]

Is this off-topic? No. Despite our fixation with kit of all kinds, there’s one piece of equipment that is absolutely vital to our business survival, and that’s our bodies.

There are some great thoughts and ideas in the posts responding to this. One I haven’t seen (although I didn’t get all the way to the end) that made a big difference to me was simply recognizing this fact and putting aside the guilt that by going out for a run, a swim, a bike ride, or going to the gym I was just indulging myself when I should have been working.

If I add up the hours spent fixing, updating, resolving software conflicts etc (even reading the Cow so I can avoid the mistakes of others – boy, am I glad as an XDCAM user right now I haven’t UG to Snow Leopard yet!) then exercising for an hour a few times a week seems like a sensible and justifiable precautionary maintenance schedule.

Also, I used to suffer from bad backs a lot more than I do now, despite the fact that I’m a lot older now. Part of the improvement I think is down to lots of core exercising and stretching.