Even Marathoners Take Breaks

/in /by

The deadline is Monday, it is Friday night, and we have to finish the final write-up to bring to our group Sunday. With this type of extended task we gain the advantage of changing it up by strategic use of short breaks. 

We’re in a marathon situation here, and marathoners take breaks. A marathoner breaks to rehydrate and maintain electrolytes–and we should be doing that too throughout our work day or study day.  Nutrition, sleep, exercise–brain and body work better for us if we maintain them and manage our time to allow for self-care (just thought I’d mention time management, in case I haven’t mentioned it before).

But creatively strategizing our breaks goes beyond bathroom and thermos calls. How we break and how often we break can really help optimize our performance, but they can also be a distractor or even an outright disruptor.

First, why take breaks? Surely 100 per cent of time on task is better than 90 per cent. 

Actually, the science says, “Not.” Students who take short breaks perform better in terms of both efficiency and effectiveness than those who work straight through. If you’ve ever gone back to a game of Solitaire or Monopoly interrupted in midgame, you might have been struck by how obvious something was that you simply didn’t see before the break. An interesting side note is that breaks taken by cellphone use, while better than no break, are not as effective as a paper break or a computer break (Sanhoon Kang and Terri Kurzberg, 2019). I recommend that you actually get out of your chair and stretch some muscles at the very least.

How do we avoid the trap of the break becoming a distractor or a total disruption? Again, creative strategizing. The basics:

  1. Plan your break. Choose your short break wisely, and choose it ahead of time.
    1. Getting up for water, then a short game; checking the mailbox; stretching and then responding to some email, then stretching again can work.
    2. The break activity needs to be something you enjoy—but not too much! 
    3. Gaming that risks sucking you in for an extended period of time is probably best scheduled as a reward when the task is done, rather than as a break.
    4. Mark in your mind the endpoint of the break. Maybe it’s 5, 10 or 20 minutes. Maybe it’s when you’ve returned 5 emails, or drunk a cup of tea, or done 10 chin-ups, or read three poems.
  2. Find your optimal break time–the point just before you start to lose focus. 
  3. When you start the task, set a timer to go off just before you’re likely to start to lose focus.
  4. When the timer goes off:
    1. Stop.
    2. Make a note of where you are. Bookmark it, or tap it on your finger.
    3. Mentally mark what you are going to do when you come back.
  5. Break. Endorse yourself for taking this break.
  6. Return to the task when you have achieved that point in your mind that marked the end of the break point
  7. Repeat.

Customize, adapt . . . and let me know what works for you [email protected]