My experience was that I found the data initially interesting (mostly that the idea anyone was under the Nike "average" staggering - I have a desk job and don't consider myself massively active but easily hit it most days) but the problem I had was that in a busy life I found relatively little room to flex what I was doing in any substantial way.
My week day routine essentially goes - get up, get ready for work, get kids up, leave, drive to work, work, drive home, get kids bathed and into bed, tidy house, get dinner, eat... and by that time it's about 9pm and I've either got to do whatever jobs need doing or relax. In itself that routine is relatively active outside the desk job (kids...) but there isn't a lot of wiggle room.
My commute isn't easily changable (I live in a rural location so anything other than driving is out), I can sometimes get out and go for a walk at lunchtime and I try to do walking meetings if possible (maybe once a week) but generally speaking my day is my day and I can't really change much.
As a result measuring it didn't feel like it had much point - the number was the number and it was relatively rare I'd look at it and think I could have done better.
I have roughly similar problems; for instance, I could walk more by taking public transportation instead of driving, but that would add overhead disproportionate to the benefit (I'd lose about 1.5 hours out of every day, and a huge amount of schedule flexibility).
But: can you do things like park further away from work?
When I lived in Ann Arbor, I was walking distance from the office. I really miss looking forward to that walk (listening to music and clearing my head for an hour a day), and I was definitely healthier then than I am now.
I spend 8 or 9 hours a week commuting - that's the biggest waste for me. I don't dislike it - I listen to podcasts, mull things over ahead of getting home (which really helps with not taking problems home) and so on - but I can think of so many better ways of spending that time including on my health.
Ideally I'd live closer to work but I like living rurally and that's not ideal of IT jobs. As I work in management remote working is a relatively limited option, at least for most of the opportunities around here.
Parking further away is possible but really I'm just adding more time to the commute - 15 minutes walking rather than 3 minutes driving. If I could free up that time I'd probably be better off just taking it off as a 30 minute chunk and going for a walk a lunch.
Walking meetings have been a good solutions - I have a few informal one to ones which can be done walking in the nearby park. Similarly I'll sometimes do calls where I'm not expected to be taking notes or doing anything else on my mobile phone.
Sounds like you're flirting with the answer. Eventually, you hit a point where your health becomes more important than 10 billable hours a week.
I made this leap this year, explicitly cutting down to 4 day weeks and making fitness a priority again.
The previous 3 years were my least healthy on record. Two separate month-long flus and that annual six-month cold thing that never seems to go away. Coincided nicely with committing to a 40hr/week contract.
I'm 5 months in to this now. A bit less billed than this time last year, but not a sniffle in all that time.
My experience was that I found the data initially interesting (mostly that the idea anyone was under the Nike "average" staggering - I have a desk job and don't consider myself massively active but easily hit it most days) but the problem I had was that in a busy life I found relatively little room to flex what I was doing in any substantial way.
My week day routine essentially goes - get up, get ready for work, get kids up, leave, drive to work, work, drive home, get kids bathed and into bed, tidy house, get dinner, eat... and by that time it's about 9pm and I've either got to do whatever jobs need doing or relax. In itself that routine is relatively active outside the desk job (kids...) but there isn't a lot of wiggle room.
My commute isn't easily changable (I live in a rural location so anything other than driving is out), I can sometimes get out and go for a walk at lunchtime and I try to do walking meetings if possible (maybe once a week) but generally speaking my day is my day and I can't really change much.
As a result measuring it didn't feel like it had much point - the number was the number and it was relatively rare I'd look at it and think I could have done better.