Tipmas - Regular breaks with the help of your phone

Day 5 of Tipmas

Today is all about the art of taking breaks, with a little help from your phone.

Working from home is hard, you don’t have the walk across the office to the printer like you used to. You don’t have that colleague to go and grab a coffee with and have a quick catch up.

It’s important to make sure that you take regular breaks for all sorts of reasons; it’s good for your eyes to rest from the screen, it’s good for your body to move, it’s great for your mind to switch it up… the list goes on.

You may however have found that working from home has really made your breaks go out the window. Or maybe you have never been good at taking them in the first place!

There’s something on your phone that can really help… it’s called a timer. Simple I know. When you get up to make yourself a drink (for me that is always 11am) set yourself a 10-15 minute timer, and you aren’t allowed back to your desk until that timer goes off. Go and stare out the window, do a loop around your housing estate, garden or the local park - whatever you fancy, just not your desk or screen!

If you are really bad at remembering to take them, schedule them into your calendar for the day, one in the morning one in the afternoon, just 10 minutes that’s all it needs and see what a difference it makes to your day.

For the iPhone users out there if you are familiar with and use Shortcuts App (more on this in a future Tip Tuesday if you have no idea what I am talking about!), there is a take a break shortcut… brilliant to use and makes a great addition to the Home Screen

Happy screen breaks!