I've been working from home a lot more often recently, and without the commute and normal hum of office activity and side-conversations, I've been having a hard time stepping away from the computer.
I'm confident that I'll be substantially more productive if I can break up my work in the right way, but I've been finding it difficult to build the right habits and reminders.
So, how do you break up your work throughout the day? How often do you take breaks? And what do you do during them?
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I like to split up my tasks for the day into smaller subtasks that take around 30min (could be 10, could be 60). I write those on little post-it notes and hang them on the wall next to me.
I take one, start doing it and when I'm done, I have a moment to see if I want to take a water/coffee break or take on another one.
I hang all finished post-its to each other. Seeing the line of notes gives a feeling of satisfaction and helps me say when I deserve a longer break (like 15, 20min).
I tend to keep those groups for the rest of the week, so it's easy to reflect what I've done when as well 😅
Mostly I work in 3 groups: morning, afternoon, evening. Between those I take a long break (at least an hour). I would eat something and go for a walk or do some exercise
I got pretty good using a Pomodoro timer in the office recently, after a spell of burning myself out staring at my screen for pretty much 8 hours straight.
I found getting up and walking out the back of the office round the garden area they have, then back to my desk was exactly 5 mins.
I'm still having issues using Pomodoros at home strangely. I need to keep trying but I seem to get too focused on work and forget about it.
Listening to records is a good shout, but even then I don't always remember to get up and change sides. Need to try harder!
short break (5-10 mins) every hour, this excludes lunch break :)
What do I do during those breaks?
Usually its the need to go to the bathroom that finally propels me out of my seat. I drink a lot of water, some tea and a little coffee during the work day and my kidneys still work quite well despite my advancing years.
On those days when I eat more than one meal a day, lunch is a much looked forward to break.
I usually listen to vinyl records when working from home. This forces me to get up every few minutes to change sides or switch records. Otherwise I might forget to get up, and pay dearly for it later (lower-back issues from too many years of office work).
I should take more breaks than I do. I like to take walking breaks.
I keep a guitar next to my desk to help me shift gears when it's time to work on something different. It also gives my fingers something to do while I think.
I'm still relatively new to remote work, and reading all of these comments has been a great help!
Working in a sky scraper I find it much harder to take breaks to get some air outside the procedure of getting out and in is too time consuming and inside the building
Grab some water/soda/coffee, listen to podcasts, bug co-worker friends who're on the opposite side of the building.
Though I wish I had the luxury of working from home, alas, I do not. I'm an IT technician in a boarding school, working varying hours approximately between 7 am and 4:30.
During term-time, when things are more hectic, I get one break aside from lunch at about 10 o'clock, in which I escape to the staff room for a piece of fruit or a biscuit and a cup of tea. I think this break is really effective because I can talk to members of staff outside my department. It's nice chatting with the Psychology teachers or the PE staff about the news or weekend plans. However, if they start asking me to fix their problems whilst I'm clearly not working (as some staff members are known to do), then I'll hide away in one of the other, lesser-popular break rooms with a book (my current read is Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, which I'm thoroughly enjoying and would recommend). These breaks are about 20 minutes.
Outside of term-time, things are luckily more relaxed. The whole team takes their break together in these instances, again in the lesser-known Housekeeping break room. Cup of tea. Biscuit. Nonsense nattering about holidays and TV from last night. These vary from 20 to 30 minutes, once at 10am and again at 3pm.
In either case, I think getting away from a screen is crucial. Real, human interaction or peaceful quiet time is equally important - simply whichever tickles your fancy more.
I use a pomodoro app (this one is my favourite) that sets 25 minutes of work with 5 minute breaks. I also installed a pullup bar at my room door. Having it conveniently nearby makes it much easier to remember to get some exercise
Working from home, I lose track of time very easily with the constant silence. A timer does the trick for me. I use the 'Take A Break' chrome extension - simple yet very effective. Keeps reminding me every 15 minutes to take short breaks. These breaks are as simple as blinking my eyes, stretching my arms or staring outside the window :)
I like to use Pomodoro timer as well, but I don't always use it as a break timer. Sometime's it's simply a replacement for my biological clocks saying "drink water" or "go pee please!" since I tend to ignore things like that (like Lindsey said).
On days where I don't use the Pomodoro timer I still follow a Pomodoro style where I work awhile, stop and context switch for a few minutes, then get back to it. I'm pretty sure I'm far more productive on Pomodoro days though.
As a person who is pretty new to remote work, I can totally relate to this!
I'll typically take a big break in the middle of the day and do something active paired with a small lunch (I snack pretty frequently during the day, but keep my snacks downstairs, another trick to get me up and down a few times). The physical activity keeps my stress down and it's a nice change of pace. Also, I find if I don't move my body around enough, I get really sleepy toward the end of the day. A midday workout is often what I need to get that extra jolt of energy!
Another tip that I use for myself is to keep on a schedule. I'll take my lunch/gym break some time within the window of 12-2. I leave a little flexibility there depending on how much work I have going on, but this is generally when I like to take my extended daily break.
I have a Fitbit which has an activity reminder if you don’t do enough steps each hour. It reminds me to stretch my legs and get some more tea or water. I try not to have too much coffee, a max of two per day.
+1 for Fitbit. Only problem is often when the reminder comes up I tell myself "just a couple more minutes" and then forget about it :P