How Slackbot Forced Us to Work Out

We made Slackbot our team’s personal trainer. Here’s what happened so far…

A lot of us are guilty of never finding enough time to work out.

I know I am.

As a software developer, I noticed that more and more of my days were spent sitting, and I started noticing the effects of this increasingly sedentary lifestyle.

This was becoming a problem…

So we got Slackbot to force us to work out.

It’s been pretty effective.

The results have been pretty neat. If you’re not the one selected to do an exercise, you get the even greater joy of joining your other coworkers to revel in the fact that none of you are on the floor, forced to do pushups/situps/planks/wallsits.

And that’s the greatest joy of all.

Our productivity has skyrocketed. It gives a nice little breather when your focus is getting a little too narrow, a little extra circulation, and keeps you just a little more energized throughout the day.

The great thing is that it doesn’t take a huge time commitment, just a minute or two every time you’re selected. And we couldn’t be happier with the results. We’ve made pretty good headway on these last couple of days.

We all found it dramatically difficult at first, but now we’re even considering increasing the number of reps on each go. 50 pushups was unfeasible at first and now 50 pushups is cake.

If you’re interested in using the script for your own team, check out the project @ github! You’re simple steps away from terrorizing your team with mandatory exercise!

Hope you have as much fun with it as we are!

Edit: I’m also working on a new project called Polymail — an email app designed around productivity and contact management. We’re rolling out a private beta very soon & would love to have you check it out! You can request an invite here 📬

Also, if you end up using slackbot-workout, let me know how it goes on Twitter!! 💯