That is pretty close to how I deal with breaks intuitively. I do many small (<5min) or medium-sized (15 min) breaks and even micros-breaks where I just look around (like Logan in Duncan’s quote) or quickly open a fun website or check mail. I would consider these guilt-free breaks in the sense of Soares in Deregulating Distraction.
But I also want to add that people have different relaxation period habits on very different time scales:
Some people take very short breaks (like me)
Many people seem to take the recommended screen time breaks every hour.
Many people only do lunch breaks.
Some people can work ten hours uninterrupted but then take a day off (I know one person).
Some people prefer many one-day vacations or extended weekends.
Many people take one or two-week vacations.
Some people work high intensity but then take a whole month off (I know one such person).
It also strikes me that school teachers (at least in the UK) proceed on the model of working all hours during term time, then using the (long, paid) holidays/vacation to recover.
Interesting. I’ve read bits of research into work breaks in the office—the length, and what people do with them, and how they affect subsequent work—including microbreaks of a few seconds to a few minutes. I’ll say more in Part 2 of the article.
I don’t know anything about longer breaks of days/weeks, though no doubt there is research into that (for employment, tourism etc. purposes).
That is pretty close to how I deal with breaks intuitively. I do many small (<5min) or medium-sized (15 min) breaks and even micros-breaks where I just look around (like Logan in Duncan’s quote) or quickly open a fun website or check mail. I would consider these guilt-free breaks in the sense of Soares in Deregulating Distraction.
But I also want to add that people have different relaxation period habits on very different time scales:
Some people take very short breaks (like me)
Many people seem to take the recommended screen time breaks every hour.
Many people only do lunch breaks.
Some people can work ten hours uninterrupted but then take a day off (I know one person).
Some people prefer many one-day vacations or extended weekends.
Many people take one or two-week vacations.
Some people work high intensity but then take a whole month off (I know one such person).
Some people take sabbaticals for multiple months.
It also strikes me that school teachers (at least in the UK) proceed on the model of working all hours during term time, then using the (long, paid) holidays/vacation to recover.
Interesting. I’ve read bits of research into work breaks in the office—the length, and what people do with them, and how they affect subsequent work—including microbreaks of a few seconds to a few minutes. I’ll say more in Part 2 of the article.
I don’t know anything about longer breaks of days/weeks, though no doubt there is research into that (for employment, tourism etc. purposes).