If like many people Covid 19 has forced you to start working from home, it might have taken you some time to adjust: Set up a home office if you didn’t have one yet, some just use a laptop, some require space dedicated to that. Then you had to set up a schedule that would work best for you while keeping you productive. You might have less work than usually, but if your job involves working on a computer, you nevertheless do need to take breaks from it. When you are engrossed in a project, especially if it’s time sensitive, you might be tempted to push and neglect taking breaks. I found out more than once at my expense that this didn’t help productivity, on the contrary, and of course would take a toll on my degree of fatigue and therefore on my productivity and the quality of my work – I’m a freelance translator – Taking frequent, short breaks made a huge difference for me. From taking a short walk, or simply do a few stretches, go get some juice or take a coffee break, go check on your garden, there are plenty of ways you can get away from the computer for a few minutes and come back refreshed, including short naps – I have a couch in my home office – Now we also have considerable resources online to help us take a break, such as yoga videos for example.
Here is one that is short and sweet, for yoga exercises you can do on your chair:
And I discovered this little gem the other day for a little Qi Gong to strengthen the lungs:
I also have an old elliptical machine I found in a thrift store that I installed in my office so I can still get some exercise on rainy days. It doesn’t have to be complicated, it can be just as simple as go sit on the couch with a coffee or tea and browse a magazine, go empty the dishwasher, whatever takes you away from the computer. A break for your body, but also for your eyes. And your mind.
