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?
Oldest comments (45)
I find I don't take enough breaks lol. But when I do I usually will go for a short walk outside the office (unless the rain is really coming down).
I use my pomidoro timer to take breaks (25 minutes work and 5 minutes break). And I actually take breaks when the buzzer goes off.
I usually do the following
How do you deal with taking a break when you're deep in a problem? That was always my problem with pomodoro, I'd be deep in a problem and the timer would go off.
This is tricky because it depends on the personality type. I personally have no problem getting back to it after my break is over because 5 minutes is so short. If it were longer (like 10-15 minutes) I may have a lot more trouble with it.
Sometimes I find that when I do take the break, even when I am deep in a problem, the "fresh" start actually helps and I start hitting the ground running. My intent is always to get back to it after my break, and I am pretty good at it!
It's hard to tell if this is just who I am (personality) or if it's actually my mindset.
I will say though, even if you don't take the full break like I do...we could all benefit from taking a few breaths and remembering to drink water :D
Pomodoro technique is awesome, been using it since last year to work on my daily task.
The notifications for pomodoro apps, can help in reminding you to take a break when you have a earpiece.
Yeah, I have one on my desktop at work!
Something that helps me here is not to divert your attention on your breaks to anything that requires concentration e.g. striking up conversations with co-workers, thumbing through emails, social media etc. Doing something like a short walk or getting some water like Lindsey suggested helps your subconscious keep working at the problem while the working memory gets a break.
same here,
pomodorohas never worked for me.Changing up the time in pomodoro to 45 minutes of work and 15 minute breaks works for me. Adjusting it to your work style could help prevent untimely breaks when trying the conventional 25/5 split.
Yeah I've totally heard of this too! Whatever works best for your productivity 😃
Thank you! I'm also going to give your Working Remotely post a fresh read later today 🙏🏽
10 things I've learned from working remotely
Lindsey Kopacz ・ 5 min read
I take regular coffee breaks, usually once every couple of hours. It's a nice short walk to the coffee machine. If I'm reaaaaally stuck on a problem I'll go out and buy a coffee and walk around a bit. That usually helps clear my mind. especially if it's a nice cold winter day.
I work in the basement so getting water/coffee means leaving the dungeon. Here's my list:
I'd also be hypocritical if I said I do these all the time, so I'll phrase it as these are things I strive to do when working from home.
Now that my calf is healed, I'm going to see about gym sessions at lunch as well.
I feel like Lindsey nailed it already.
Bonus: "Deep Work" and "A Mind for Numbers" are two fabulous books I had recommended to me about how our brains work, productivity, and time management.
I tried everything but nothing worked. So I either take one break per day or just don't take any breaks. I know that's just a bad practice — so help me god.
I tried various things like pomodoro timers, screen timeout software and other techniques.
What worked for me in the end is a combination of the following:
I actually use 47/13 rule to take breaks throught the day. As the name suggests, I focusedly work for 47 mins and then take 13 mins of break. In breaktime I usually take walk or have coffee or try to solve someone else's problem or have a conversation with someone. I'm not yet perfected this technique, I'm still try to develope it.
My watch pings me when I have sat still for an hour. I get up and walk around for a minute or two, usually getting a glass of water.
I try to walk to have lunch as often as possible (I have a couple of places ten minutes away) to have a longer break in the middle of the day.
When in the office, I take a couple of coffee breaks (around 15 minutes) to chat with coworkers. When working from home, I often take the dog out for a short walk in the afternoon.
I initially misread this, thinking you have lunch as many times per day as possible. 😄
But I definitely agree about going for a walk at lunch time.
Lunch as many times per day as possible does sound awesome though.
I am really bad at it. If I am deep in the problem, nothing works: my watch vibrates at the end of the hour, I ignore it, a timer in the browser goes off, I just close it. Water is too close and somebody already made coffee. There is nowhere to walk in the office without disturbing other people.
I split the type of tasks into (1) Reading, and (2) Coding.
For every 25 minutes of active reading, I take 5 minutes of eye break, and drink a glass of water, get up and stretch.
For every 45 minutes of coding, I take 15 minutes of break which includes a drink of water, followed by a small walk.
In both scenarios, every alternate break, I would just take a 10 minute break to calm down and breathe.
Not advocating it as a sensible thing unless you can put the time and flexibility aside that owning a pet requires, but if it fits your lifestyle get a dog.
My partner and I both work from home and the tendency is to absolutely headsdown at problems which was becoming an issue with getting enough exercise during the day, and longer term with becoming totally burnt out on projects.
It can be frustrating at times when he wants to go out or needs walked just before meetings, but having the enforced exercise during the day - a half hour at 11am, and another at 4pm -- has improved my sleep schedule and forced me to be more mindful about how I plan my day, how I organise my time with my team, and how my time is best spent.
Plus Whisky is cute af and makes weekends way more fun.
I take walks at times when focused work is going to be interrupted anyway. This is usually before or after morning standup, at lunch, and late afternoon when my kids get out of school.
I was listening to podcasts or audio books while walking but found that having no inputs was more beneficial. Leaving my phone at home also makes it easier to ignore slack during breaks.
It depends. When all is good, I don't take breaks at all and just work... And when it's shitty times, I sometimes take a break from my breaks to work a bit.
I'm using a standing desk at home. I can only stand for so long. If my body starts to get tired from standing, I'd take this opportunity to
bum aroundrelax by sitting down for a bit. So it's similar to pomodoro but instead of fixed time, i depend on my leg's fatigueness.