Taking Breaks
One of the hardest things for me to try and build into my schedule is the time when I'm not working. And I know that sounds odd because why am I scheduling a time when I'm not working? But the truth is that we do need to take breaks while our mind tells us that we might want to just push through our entire day and get as much done as.
That isn't actually the best way to get as much done as possible. In fact, it's one of the worst ways and that's because there are actually a lot of benefits to taking breaks. When we take breaks, it separates our workflow into more manageable chunks. We can figure out what we need to be working on at a certain time and just do that with.
I know I've talked about this before, where, when I know what I'm working on, I can focus on doing just that one thing. And when I can focus on doing just one thing, then I know when I'm getting off track, because I'm not doing the one thing I'm supposed to be working on. When I don't have that specific chunk that I'm working on, really, I could be working on anything.
So am I ever really off task? And so this is a huge advantage of breaks because it gives us discrete chunks of time that we can assign our intentions. But more than just giving us those time blocks. It makes us more creative by refreshing our cognitive capacity. As we well know when we've got ADHD, we can only stay focused on a task for so long.
And the longer we try to force ourselves, stay focused on that task. The harder it is, we need to take those breaks so that we can refresh our ability to stay focused. And when we're focused, we actually do better. Creative work breaks. Also, allow us to step back and reassess what we're working on. When I come back from a break, I'm essentially seeing what I'm working on with new eyes.
I have a better sense of the bigger picture and I can more easily see the next steps. And one way I like to think of this is that breaks our maintenance times when we're not taking breaks, we're going to break down sooner or later by taking breaks. We're giving ourselves the time we need to be our best selves.
But as I said, it can be really hard to schedule a time when you're not working because, well, what are you actually putting on your couch? So a great way to start is to think about how you're structuring your day. I like separating my work into time blocks, where I'm working on a specific thing. And then in between those blocks, I have breaks written into my calendar because I know if they're not there, I'm tempted to just schedule over that time, and time blocking is just a time management method where you divide your day up into various blocks of time.
Then each of these blocks is dedicated to accomplishing a specific task or a group of tasks. But the important part here is just those tasks. So it really defines your focus for that time period. So I'll often time block my writing, but then separate that into different categories within it. Because if I have a four-hour time block, I'm still going to need breaks in between that I'll just probably need a longer break at the end.
So this brings me to another idea, which is Pomodoro. Which is basically just the idea of working for 25 minutes and then taking a five-minute break. And then after a few Pomodoros taking a longer break, although the specific time for how long your Pomodoro is, can vary quite a bit. I've done 10 minute Pomodoros and I've also done 15 minute Pomodoros.
It really depends on what you're working on. And that's an important thing to remember here. Not all work is. If I'm working on my taxes, that's going to have a much bigger drain on me than if I'm doing my writing, or if I'm doing something physical in my yard, like laying bricks, of course, I'm going to need a break from laying bricks.
That's going to be very physically draining, but the type of break I take is also going to be very different than the break I take from doing my taxes. And of course, the type of break we take also is going to have a lot of other factors that come in. If you're sick or maybe you didn't get some good sleep, that's probably going to necessitate having more and longer breaks, or let's say you're going through a global pen.
That's a huge stress factor. I imagine you're going to need to take more breaks, right? I'm sure a bunch of you are thinking, but what about my hyper-focus? I've got this great ADHD ability to just zero in on something and drop everything else out. But the problem is hyperfocus is a double-edged sword and you're going to have to weigh those options if you want to really go into hyper-focus.
When you're in hyper-focus you're at risk of missing other deadlines, I've definitely gone into hyper on stuff that really wasn't important for me to work on it. Hyper-focus is also very detrimental to your executive function. We're essentially front-loading all that effort and the longer you're in hyper-focus, the more your EFs are going to drain.
And that can be a trade-off you might not want to make because if you drain all your executive functions, you could be spent for the day you could be spent for today. Maybe it's worth completing the project at the time, but that's a call you're going to want to make beforehand. If you're trying to make that call while you're in hyper-focus hyper-focus is going to win every time.
And of course, that's not a call that's easy to make beforehand. And so my go-to is to generally say, letting myself fall into hyper-focus is just too dangerous for my future.
But even if we're scheduling our breaks, we also should be knowing what we're doing on our breaks. I don't want to be using my mental resources while I'm at work, figuring out ways to not work. Although I guess that's what I've been doing all this week while working on this episode. So the first thing we should focus on is not doing work on our breaks.
It's hard to stop working and it's easy to be like, well, I'm taking a break from this work. I'll do this other work and then I'll get even more. That's not actually giving yourself a chance to refresh. And it's got a good chance of pulling you into something else that you shouldn't be doing. One of my favorite things to do during breaks is to go for walks.
A little bit of exercise can be a great way to refresh your brain. And my office is right near a park. So I can actually go out and walk in the woods and having that fresh air being outside in the sun. Although in Washington half the time it's rain, it's just a great way to spend my break. Exercise has plenty of benefits for your brain.
And when I get back to work, I am prime to go. Another great use of break time is having a snack. I know I'm not great with my own hunger cues. If I don't have my lunch on my schedule, I will often forget to eat it until I am ravenously hungry. And at that point, I just make really bad choices. So instead of having like a good salad or something, I'll just be like, let's have a pan of brownies.
Clearly not the best choice. And you can do the same thing with your snacks just by planning them ahead of time. Be like, okay, I'm going to have a snack with a little bit of protein in it. So maybe I'll have some almonds and some cheese, or maybe I'll use this as an opportunity to get some vegetables in and have a snack like carrots or snap peas.
And a point here is to try and have a healthy snack because if you're just eating junk food, we know that that's going to be detrimental down the line. But since you're planning ahead, it's a lot easier to just pack a healthy snack and be like, I'm eating blueberries after this. And that's all I have in my bag.
So I guess that's what I mean. Another good option for breaks is meditation doing a quick five-minute meditation can be a great way to clear your mind and help you find your center so that when you get back to work, you're actually going to be able to focus on what you want to be focusing on. Although another alternative there is to just zone out and let your mind think about what it wants to think about.
You don't have to be on all day. So equally as important as what you should be doing during your breaks is probably what you shouldn't be doing during your breaks. We've already talked about how we shouldn't be doing work during our breaks, but there's still a lot of other ways that we can take breaks that are going to be detrimental to our work or make it so that we never get back to the task.
We're supposed to be. So one of the things we probably don't want to do is reach for our phones. I know it's got an endless amount of entertainment on there, but often when I pick up my phone, I don't have a clear idea of what I'm going to set it down again. I'll open something like Twitter, and then I can scroll forever.
There is no end to that Twitter. Sure I could hit those tweets. I read that morning, but there's always more to explore. And the same goes for phone games. They often don't have a definite end for when you stop playing and they're designed to keep you engaged. And that's what we really want to avoid during our breaks, things that are going to engage us and not let us shake that engagement.
Remember our episode on nudging last week? That's exactly what's going on here. Our devices are designed to keep us from putting them in. Another thing you might be tempted to do is check your email, arguing that it's not really work, but I only see a few possible outcomes with a quick check of my email.
One, there was nothing important in my inbox, so I didn't need to check it anyways to there's something I do need to take care of and I decide to do it right then. And I get so sidetracked that I don't come back from my break. So that means I should have checked it when I actually had time to do the thing.
Three, I see something important, but do nothing about it. So I don't get sidetracked and then completely forget to ever do anything about it or for, I see something emotionally charged in there. And then I get caught up thinking about it during my work session and still get nothing done. So really you can see that there's no reason I should do be doing a quick check on my email because there's no such thing unless I didn't need to check it anymore.
Remember, if they emailed you, it can wait for things that are urgent as in, they need to be answered. Now they're going to come in with a text message or a call. The point here is that we don't want to be doing things that are going to engage us so much that we can't come back to what we were supposed to be doing.
Our breaks are supposed to refresh us. So we don't want to be doing things that are going to require using executive functions to get out of.
Taking a break can also mean actually taking time off and going on vacation. And I know that's a little hard to think about right now. I mean, I can't imagine when the next time I'm going to be heading out on a vacation is, but this doesn't mean that I shouldn't think about taking vacations. This means I need to rethink what my vacation time is going to look like, because it's still important for me to take time off and recharge my.
Taking time off can help prevent burnout. I did an entire episode on burnout right before the pandemic episode, 23, getting off the hamster wheel before you burn out. And I think it's even more important to think about now because we often think about taking time off as going somewhere and doing something, or at least that's how I do.
So let's work on some ideas of how we might rethink this whole vacation idea. Of course, there's always the fun word, staycation, which admittedly is a little bit depressing when you're going, I'm stuck at home and now I'm going to be stuck at home. So one idea I saw was turning your staycation into a placation oh, geez.
That looks so much better in writing than saying it out loud, but we're going to go with it. So let's think about this placation so what does that mean? Or really what's our focus here? Well, it's finding fun things to do at home. A big reason that we need to take time off is that we can get so entrenched in our routines that every day feels like it's the same.
So one way we can think about this is how can we change up our routines and add a little bit more fun into our day. One thing I've been thinking about is what are some of the projects I've been wanting to work on at home, but haven't had the time for, if I take a few days off, I could schedule the time to really clean out my garage or work on that new place structure for the kids.
Of course, it's also going to be important to make sure you're giving yourself enough time to do these projects because you don't want to be on the last day of your time off frantically trying to finish that. Remember, everything takes longer than we think it's going to take. So make sure that you're giving yourself well more than enough time.
And I think it's important to remember that this is a time that we're not working. I know that whenever I take time off that I'm tempted to keep working and be like, “oh, I'm going to secretly use this time to get ahead,” but that's not a real vacation. And right now is more important than ever to make sure that we're actually letting ourselves return.
This Episode’s Top Tips
Taking breaks allows us to separate our work into more manageable chunks. They let us refresh and come to our tasks with more energy.
We should be scheduling our breaks so that we don't forget to take them. To help out our future selves we should also be planning what we want to be doing on those breaks as well.
As important as knowing what we are doing on our breaks, we should also know what we shouldn't be doing on our breaks. Avoid things like phone games and social media that are going to be hard to tear yourself away from at the end of your break.
It's also important to take time off entirely from work to recharge your batteries. While it might be hard to take a traditional vacation right now, we can still work on thinking about other ways that we can take time off, like working on fun projects at home or just taking a few days to catch up on Netflix.
Mentioned in this Episode
Episode 22: Getting Off the Hampster Wheel (Before you Burnout)
