Take Breaks To Get More Done

Good news! You don’t have to be working 24/7 to be the most productive you can be! To get more done, you can actually do less! Some studies show that if you take small 5-15 minute breaks every hour or so, and longer breaks at least 30 minutes every 2-4 hours, can allow you to get more done in a shorter amount of time.

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The Effects Of Breaks

Breaks allow you to reset. After awhile, your brain can get tired and accustomed to the task you’re doing and slow down your productivity. This can go unnoticed for a good amount of time, and then you’ll start to feel the effects of working non-stop for even a relatively short amount of time.

Usually you’ll have high energy and motivation going into a new task right? So why not try to keep it as fresh as possible? The key is finding the right time intervals for working and taking breaks that work for you!

Sometimes if you’re heavy into flow doing a task, breaks will be counterproductive. If however you’re doing a repetitive task, taking breaks often and short may help a good bit!

Breaks also make you more in tune with your audience if you’re writing a song; coming at it with fresh ears is the closest thing you can get to another person’s perspective without actually needing someone else's critiques. This is why when you work so hard on that chorus and come back the next day, it’s really not the level you thought it was previously! Or, maybe it’s better and you were just hard on yourself!

Getting that fresh perspective can really help you out when trying to see if other people will like your work; because those people have never seen or heard your work before. What you’ve done so far taints your perspective on it, so to get as close as you can to a person who hasn’t seen/heard your work before, breaks are necessary for a fresh perspective!

Creativity also spikes when you take breaks, much to the same reason as above. Sometimes you can get so into your work that you’re actually tunnel visioning your brain into only thinking a certain way or certain direction! This is good for when you need to figure something out, or find suitable replacements for something that just isn’t working. Need a new line in the verse after working on it for an hour? Take a break and see if you can’t figure it out then!

How To Take Breaks

You obviously don’t want to take a break when you’re on a roll. If you’re super motivated and pumping out results, by all means keep working! However when you feel even just mediocre about your productivity, a break might help! Keep them short and sweet, and make sure you don’t get distracted by whatever you do for your break.

I always got flack for this, but I was on my phone a lot at work as an electrical engineer. I would always get made fun of for being the guy always on his phone at work, but truth be told, I was actually using it strategically to be more productive (though I admit sometimes it got out of hand haha, but for the most part it’s helped me tremendously!).

They would always see me scrolling through social media, thinking I was just messing around not working; the truth couldn’t be further. First of all, whenever I was stuck, I would go straight to my phone to reset my brain. While I was on social media, I was just mindlessly scrolling to refresh my brain while also thinking about how to solve the problem I was stuck on.

It was more of a habit sort of thing. Just like taking walks, the change in scenery sort of reset my brain so I could think about the problem more clearly.

While I definitely don’t recommend it to everyone, I used social media to get a fresh perspective on the task. I only did it for a minute or two at a time, until I solved the problem or thought of a more efficient way of doing things.

I’d suggest you find a way you can change up what you’re doing without completely distracting you, that only takes a minute or two so you can keep your ears and eyes fresh to whatever it is you’re working on!

The Key To Effective Breaks: Change

I think the biggest part to having a quality break, is changing as much as you can from the environment you’re in. This is why walks are notoriously good for clearing your mind and are used by a large number of CEO’s trying to figure out problems and directions of their company.

What made my breaks so effective was changing what I was looking at, both visually and content-wise. The goal is to make as much change as possible so you can come back fresh to a “new” environment.

I think change in scenery is good for productivity in general. If you feel like you could use a change of scenery, try to work in a new location! I’ve been switching up where I work if I’m able to, like taking my laptop to the porch, another room, or even a new place entirely just to feel refreshed and motivated to work on the same stuff.

You could change things like the order you normally do things, the time you work on a task, who you’re with, etc. all of which can help keep you motivated to keep on keepin’ on!

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Breaks are a huge part of getting things done, so try to be smart and don’t underrate them!

-Michael