Coffee break AKA Time management
In order to maximize your work, it’s important to take breaks. Sometimes it even takes me longer to plan my breaks than to plan my actual work. Why is it important to have breaks?
First of all, we can’t concentrate for more than 20-40 minutes at a time. It’s just not possible. If you try for longer than that, you are just wasting time, getting frustrated, or doing things automatically.
Secondly, if you don’t have a nice, restful break, you will become burnt out faster. Well that’s not good… who wants to get burnt out?!
So… How can you have effective breaks?
Set a timer for short periods of concentrated work. This will help you maximize your productivity so you are forced to stop before you are on automatic mode. Set it to 20-40 minutes of work.
Build your work around several short breaks. Don’t expect yourself to work for 3 hours straight. It’s just not going to happen, not effectively anyway. You will achieve the same amount of work in less time if you plan the breaks, expect them, and allow yourself to rest in between “concentration blocks”.
Plan your break. What? What’s the point of planning a break? If you plan a break, you will have the motivation to complete a task. It will also help you be productive and concentrate on quality work because you have a reward coming up.
What’s a break? Ok, so now we are talking. The breaks should be 5-10 minutes and can be a variety of small activities such as reading a book, drinking coffee/tea, or checking Facebook. If you want to call or chat with a friend, I would time that carefully so it doesn’t suddenly eat up too much of your break time.