How Often Should You “Take a Breather” at Work?
Working too much can lead to burnout, so it’s important you take regular breaks. Not only should you take a few minutes during the workday to take a breather, it’s also important to take longer vacations as well.
Determining when to step away from your desk and take a break can be difficult, but these tips can help:
- Pay attention to when your focus starts to wane. You can usually tell when you’ve had enough work and need a break. You’ll find your eyes start to glaze over when you’re looking at the computer screen or you start to get frustrated more easily when tasks you’re doing don’t work out perfectly. Pay attention to when this starts to happen to you and monitor how long it takes before you reach that point. Then, in the future, you can take a break a few minutes before you reach that burnout time, so you don’t push yourself to the point where you start to feel frustration.
- Schedule regular breaks after routine work. Most people can only concentrate for a limited amount of time. In fact, there’s an entire Pomodoro technique which is built around the idea you should do work for 25 minutes, and then take a five-minute break in order to be as productive as possible. You can consider applying this technique to your own work. That way, you’ll always be focused.
- Step away from your desk after intense tasks that require a lot of concentration. Sometimes, work you’re doing requires a strong attention to detail or a lot of focus. In these situations, you should try to take more frequent breaks in recognition of the fact that the work is more challenging.
SmartTalent will help you find a great job where you’ll be motivated to work hard, but that also allows you the leeway to take breaks when you need them. To find out how our staffing service can help you find the right position to keep you focused at work, give our staffing service a call today. We can help you to find a great company to work for in Kirkland, Fife, Renton, Lacey, Lynwood, Everett and surrounding areas.
