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Want to be more productive? Keep your nose to the grindstone, or your fingers on the keyboard and your eyes on the screen. Because the more time you put in, the more you’ll get done, right?
Wrong. A growing body of evidence shows that taking regular breaks from mental tasks improves productivity and creativity — and that skipping breaks can lead to stress and exhaustion.
I think I’ll go to the gym now.
Mental concentration is similar to a muscle, says John P. Trougakos, an assistant management professor at the University of Toronto Scarborough and the Rotman School of Management. It becomes fatigued after sustained use and needs a rest period before it can recover, he explains — much as a weightlifter needs rest before doing a second round of repetitions at the gym.
Breaks are great. But I feel guilty taking too many of them.
Breaks can induce guilt because they’re “this little oasis of personal time that we get while we’re selling ourselves to someone else,” Trougakos says. But that’s just the point.
Employees generally need to detach from their work and their work space to recharge their internal resources, he says. Options include walking, reading a book in another room or taking the all-important lunch break, which provides both nutritional and cognitive recharging.
It’s shortsighted not to take this time, or for managers to discourage employees from taking it, he says.
I mean, if you think ... uh, what I mean to say is ... oh no, my head feels a little fuzzy. I think I need to walk around the block.
Try to take a break before reaching the absolute bottom of your mental barrel, Trougakos says. Symptoms of needing time to recharge include drifting and daydreaming.
After that walk, I’m “in the zone” and want to keep working. Do I really have to take another break anytime soon?
There is no need to take a break if you’re on a roll, Trougakos advises. Working over an extended period can be invigorating — if it’s your choice. What drains your energy reserves most is forcing yourself to go on, he says.
Well, I don’t want to strain myself. What if I can’t do this topic justice? I need to get another cup of coffee. Oh look, someone brought in her baby. I need to update my Netflix queue. Maybe I’ll visit Fred on the seventh floor.
Don’t go too far with this, Trougakos says.
Too many breaks can abet procrastination. “Anything at an extreme level,” he says, “is not going to be good.”
Mostly, though, workers don’t take enough breaks — especially breaks involving movement, says James A. Levine, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic. He has done studies showing that workers who remain sedentary throughout the day are impairing their health.
“The design of the human being is to be a mobile entity,” says Levine, who is also a proponent of standing, and even walking, while working and during meetings.
I want to make some more calls, but I’m so sleepy! I wish that I could take a nap underneath my desk.
Levine is a supporter of nap breaks, but only if they are allowed by management, he says. Otherwise, nappers can be perceived as slackers — though research shows that naps improve productivity.
When it comes to productivity and concentration, everyone has a different capacity.
Management should encourage employees to devise individually effective break routines, Levine says. But he also has some general guidelines: Try working in intense 15-minute bursts, punctuated by breaks, in cycles that are repeated throughout the day. This works because “the thought process is not designed to be continuous,” he says.
“Long hours don’t mean good work — highly efficient, productive work is more valuable,” Levine says, and frequent breaks promote that.
They also encourage those flashes of genius that employers value so much, he adds, noting that Albert Einstein is thought to have conceived the theory of relativity while riding his bicycle.
When you come right down to it, Levine says, “the work should break up the break.”
Now that’s an idea I can get up and walk around the room to support.