REAL LIFE NEWS: SCIENCE SAYS YOU SHOULD TAKE 17 MINUTE BREAKS FROM WORK
by Hazed
Your brain is a muscle. It gets tired from repeated stress and needs to have a rest every now and again. Sounds like a slacker’s excuse but new research shows that in order to keep up productivity you should take regular breaks because, like a runner who starts to flag after a few miles, your ability to perform tasks has diminishing returns over time.
The perfect length of time for the break, it turns out, is 17 minutes, alternated with 52 minute bursts of work.
This comes to us from the makers of a productivity app called DeskTime, that tracks employees’ computer use. They used the app’s data to study the behaviour of their most productive workers and discovered that the top 10% performers tended to work for 52 minutes then take a 17 minute break, preferably away from the computer.
Sounds plausible, and it does fit with previous research that shows how efficiency and productivity plummet when workers spend too long working. But try telling your boss that!
