Would it be better to just keep working, and get it done faster? Or should I take a break? Did you know that – taking a well-earned break is going to make you much more productive in the long run?
Let us explain why.
Why are taking breaks at work so important?
A lot of people fight against the notion of break taking at work – as more often than not in today’s society, too many breaks are seen as lazy or unproductive.
This could not be further from the truth!
Breaks allow you to rest, maintain focus, be more creative and fill your time more productively.
But, what even is a work break? How exactly do they help us?
What is a work break anyway?
A work break is, oddly enough, a rather specific type of break, characterised by certain important factors.
For a work break to be described as such, it needs to be:
+ Time spent away from the task at hand, but not time spent performing another work-related task. So jumping from one work task to another doesn’t count.
+ If the task you are working on is screen-heavy, breaks should be spent away from your chair, and other screens – so don’t just scroll on your phone.
+ If the work you are completing is very physically demanding, your breaks should involve active rest and recuperation.
How does this benefit your work life though?
Benefits of taking breaks at work:
Give your brain a rest. Or your Prefrontal Cortex a rest to be precise:
Have you been focusing for too long on one task? The Prefrontal Cortex is the part of your brain that controls your focus and motivation. Resting it often will allow you to return to your work with renewed energy and excitement for the task at hand.
Helps you process and retain information:
Stepping away from work allows you a moment to reflect on the task you are completing, giving you a better perspective on the steps you are taking and the direction the work is moving in.
Processing information takes time.
Allows you to see the bigger picture:
The reflection time helps you look at the finer details of a project, and allows you to see the bigger picture.
It’s easy to get bogged down in detail and lose sight of the larger goal of the work you are doing.
Cultivates good habits:
When you fill your work breaks with healthy choices, you facilitate positive habits within your own life.
Using your breaks to do some light exercise, prepare and eat a healthy snack or spend time meditating will instill those habits into your cognition, and you will find yourself doing them in other areas of your life.
Increases your memory and assists in creativity:
Memories form during rest, that’s just the way it is.
Never taking a break diminishes your cognitive capacity significantly, making it hard to process and store information.
When you do not rest, this lessened capacity sorely impacts your ability to make novel, creative connections. Waking rest is as valuable as sleep for problem-solving, memory recall and novel idea creation.
Increases your productivity:
Work breaks slice your day up into manageable, plannable deadlines that you can feel confident about, plan around and feel proud of finishing.
You will feel more successful throughout your day, and in turn, will feel more motivated to work hard and complete tasks.
What is the problem with working long hours?
Still not convinced to take a break?
Well, a study by S.Park, H.Kook, H.Seok, J.Lee, D.Lim, D.Cho and S.Oh (Published by Plos One)
Looked at the negative mental health impacts of long hours in young Korean workers and found that:
+ With long hours come negative impacts on your sleep, making you more fatigued, with higher anxiety and a lack of focus. This led to higher levels of depression.
+ Relationships begin to suffer as your cognition is affected. These relationships also suffer because you are simply not around to cultivate them properly.
+ There is less time to exercise. This impacts your mental and physical health, with dips in serotonin and dopamine. There is a higher likelihood of body aches, weight issues, strokes and heart disease.
+ Overall, productivity suffers. No matter how hard you attempt to work, without rest and in a state of fatigue, you cannot achieve at a high level.
Feel like maybe planning some break time into your day?
Great!
Now, let’s learn how!
Tips and tricks to increase your daily productivity at work:
Now that you’re feeling more energised during your day, you will have more time to create an environment of productivity that you can use to finish more tasks, have better ideas and have more time to yourself!
Here are some outstanding tips to squeeze the most out of the time you spend at your workstation.
One thing at a time:
Try your best not to multitask, as tempting as it may be. Take a look at all the tasks in front of you and prioritise them based on urgency.
Then, set time-frames for completing these tasks, and do not deviate from the task until it is completed, or you have exceeded your time-frame for it.
Avoid answering calls, messages or emails during these times set up an entire time frame just for those tasks.
We’ll get into what to do with complex or long-term tasks in a minute.
Take a break, and make it quality time:
It is not a break if you spend it answering emails, you are still working!
Experiment with different stress-relief strategies during your breaks until you find a strategy that gives you the most out of the time you spend not focused on work.
Slowly slowly catch the monkey:
Break complex tasks up, and focus on the completion of the smaller elements of your larger goal.
Setting many, attainable, smaller goals is a sure-fire way to keep yourself from being overwhelmed at a major task you have ahead of you.
Climb the mountain at sunrise:
Try to complete your biggest and most daunting tasks as early in your workday as you can. Sunrise, in this context, is purely metaphorical though.
Take some time to learn when you are at your cognitive peak and plan these intense tasks around those times. You will be backing yourself strongly when you give yourself your most heightened cognitive strength.
Clean out the corners:
While all the major tasks get completed, do not neglect the tasks that seem trivial or menial. Sweep the floor sure, but don’t forget to clean out the corners.
Putting time aside during your day specifically for the completion of these “corner” tasks will round out your day and dismiss any nagging that might be happening in the back of your head.
This clarity makes your rest times fuller and more effective.
The little tasks are quite fulfilling to achieve, as it means there is more mental capacity left to focus on the big things.
Creating a Time Budget: Great time-management techniques
A major issue to effectively taking good breaks is constantly compounding workload that you feel like you might never get through.
Where do the hours even go in the day?
Well, they need to go somewhere, and it’s your job to find out where.
Start by timing all the tasks that you do during the day, including the “non-tasks” like scrolling social media or staring into your empty fridge.
Now, take a hard look at how you are currently distributing your time.
Timing yourself in this way gives you a visual representation of where all your time is spent, where it is being wasted, and where it can be optimised.
This is where your time budget takes form.
Once you’ve shaved away hours of aimless scrolling, you need to get your workspace organised! Create a filing system that is clear and easy to understand and make an effort to stick to it. This organisation will take time at first, but once in practice will expedite every task you undertake thereafter.
Finally, prioritise your daily tasks and activities as you would your expenses. Create a plan you know you can follow and then follow it as precisely as you can.
Plan your work, work your plan!
When do we take a break?
The timing you choose to take your breaks in is a very personal affair.
It largely depends on your capacity for focus and the type of work you are completing.
Work that requires an element of flow or creativity, such as writing, music or drawing, take much longer to really get into. As such, once you are “in the zone” and creating well, milk it for as long as you can, until you feel that flow-state minimising.
Often, the flow-state will be interrupted by mundane thoughts or annoyances. This is a great time to take a step back from your work to rest. This time can be as long as 75-90min.
Critical thinking, analysis, and intensive reading will have a much shorter attention time, and rightly so. As we have learned above, the brain needs time to consolidate information to form new ideas and solve problems.
Setting a timer for 20-30min is going to wield the best results.
On the subject of timers, there are apps you can download with different time-sequences pre-loaded.
A very popular model is the Pomodoro timer.
With this technique, Sessions are broken up into 25 min work sessions, followed by short 5min breaks. After four work sessions (90min), you are rewarded with a longer 15min break to reset and recharge.
Another popular option is the Desktime app.
This multifunctional app sets a timer of 52 minutes of work, followed by a 17min break. Not only that though, but it’s also great as time-keeping software in general, helping teams and freelancers stay on top of their time management.
These timers are great, but they really are just skeleton techniques that you can build your work schedule into. If you find that one technique breaks your concentration too early, while the other simply drags on too long, adjust!
As a rule to follow you should be taking short breaks every hour or so, with longer and more meaningful breaks every 2-4 hours.
How should we fill our break-time?
We’re here! We made it to the magic that is a work-time break!
What do we do now?
Have a coffee:
Of course, we would say this, but seriously have yourself a coffee. The act of getting up and leaving the room where you are working is a change of scenery. The act of making a coffee can be just enough of a break for what we need to rest our eyes from that computer screen. Try our You’re Special Blend – nothing like making yourself feel a little special whilst taking a break from working.
Move around:
Getting the blood moving through the body is the best way to utilise your break time, and should be taken full advantage of. This does not mean you need to nip out for a 10km run (although you can if you’re able, the results will not disappoint!)
Something as attainable as moving away from your desk and meandering the office building will do wonders for your cognition and focus. If you can get outside to soak in some vitamin D, even better!
At the very least, get some eye exercise. Try to focus your attention on something at the very back of the room for a few minutes, read a sign if you must, and allow the muscles of your eyes to relax as you close your eyes. Another great eye exercise is to shift your vision from side-to-side along your periphery, to give the muscles we neglect a bit of a workout.
Movement is medicine.
Distract your mind from the task at hand:
Do something simple, that does not require too heavy a cognitive load, to allow yourself a chance to process information and make new memories.
Be very wary here of scrolling your phone as a form of distraction, as we discussed above. Speak with people in the office instead
Instead, make yourself some food, a cup of good coffee perhaps, or even just fill a water bottle with water. Do something healthy for you, but easy to complete without much thought.
Once you develop greater resting skills you can up the ante to include light reading (no work stuff!) into your break times.
Rest :
If you can, close your eyes and take a good nap!
This might be out of reach though, due to professional constraints.
No matter though, deep breathing and meditation can have the same positive cognitive outcomes as napping, they just take a little practice to get right.
A quick break makes all the difference!
Take time to rest and your body and mind will thank you for it.
Resting at work does not need to be fancy, it can be as simple and as joyous as getting up from your desk, smiling at the kind soul sitting next to you, and making yourself a delicious cup of coffee.
As simple as it is though, it is in every way as important as the work itself.
Love yourself enough to rest, and to drink good coffee of course.
If you live in the Seaford, Melbourne area, why not take a break from work and pop into the cafe for a coffee.
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