When you work from home, what are the “break” rules you should follow?
Rule #1- Take breaks before you are tired
Why? If you take a break after you feel tired, it takes much longer to recover your energy.
Rule #2- Take a 15-minute break
Every 90 to 100 minutes take a 15-minute break away from your screen. Why? The brain cannot sustain peak concentration for too long, and if you push that limit, your day will end with fatigue. Also, our bodies were built to move around rather than sit in a chair for hours and hours. Prolonged sitting causes physical issues like poor circulation and posture, and your body tries to give you this message by distracting your focus. But what do we do in response? We get distracted and check social media but don’t move. During a break, avoid stimulating the brain further with digital content – especially social media. Instead, connect with someone, take a walk, drink some water, or get some fresh air, so that you get back to your desk rejuvenated and end the day without burning out.
Rule #3 – Take microbreaks every 20 to 30 minutes.
Our evolutionary history has led us to be able to have intense focus in short bursts (from days when we needed to escape attack by predators). Our brains have not evolved to deal with our current work situation, where we feel we need to be “on” all the time. So if you don’t take these microbreaks, the quality of your focus and attention degrades slowly, and the brain sort of manipulates you to become distracted. Stretch, walk, do some desk push-ups, shake your hands and legs for a few seconds, drink some water, check in on family, get some fresh air, and get back to work. These breaks are 1 to 5 minutes long, and this is not a time to get into WhatsApp and Facebook – please do spare a thought for your overstimulated brains.
If you’re taking longer to complete tasks and stay focused, the deeper problem may be demotivation. Read this blog to find out: Tackling Demotivation at Work – My 3 Step Approach.
Break rules are important…
When used properly, breaks help sustain peak performance for a longer time, they get you to be more mindful, and they even help you come up with creative solutions to things you are trying to solve. Research shows that it’s good to take a break in the middle of a task rather than after completing it. Why? The brain tends to chew on open loops and when you take a break mid-way, some unconscious processing continues to happen – so when you get restarted, you may have a fresh outlook and come up with answers you didn’t think of before.
But what if you take a break and start watching Netflix, or you intended to take short break but that just got stretched? If you have a tendency to do that, build in an accountability check where you tell your team that you are taking a 15 minute break and you will ping them when you are back. Or take your break before scheduled meetings so that you are forced to get back on time.
If you are the “unbreakable” type who is just not used to taking many breaks, your question will be – how do I make sure I take breaks? For longer breaks, ideally put them on your calendar and for micro breaks, use a stop clock for either 1000 seconds or 25 minutes, and whenever it beeps you take a micro break and reset the clock before you sit down. You can use an online clock as well.
Break rules, whether in office or at home, help us pace our day and end on a high. As a Happiness@Work Expert, it is my opinion that these rules can really set you up for a productive day and a productive life. Are you ready to ‘break’ rules?