FIND YOUR WORK RHYTHM

Not too sure how to include regular breathers in your workday? Here are some tried-and tested-methods:

1 THE POMODORO TECHNIQUE

This method is named after the creator’s kitchen timer – which was shaped like a tomato

(pomodoro in Italian). The idea is to work in short bursts – 25 minutes of focused work, broken up by five-minute breaks. Once you’ve done four in a row (two hours), you can take a slightly longer break. Having a defined amount of time helps you to make decisions faster and adds a sense of urgency.

2 90-MINUTE INTERVALS

Need more time to get your head in the game? Sleep researchers William Dement and the late Nathaniel

Kleitman proposed that 90-minute work stints are ideal as they mimic the body’s natural rhythms – a full sleep cycle is 90 minutes. This has also been called the ultradian rhythm. Professor of psychology K Anders Ericsson studied violinists, athletes, actors and chess players, and found that they performed at their best during focused 90-minute sessions.

3 THE 52-17 TECHNIQUE

Option three is a compromise between the first two. Work for 52 minutes, break for 17, then repeat. International tech company the Draugiem Group studied the data gained from a time management app called DeskTime and concluded that this was the best way to split your time, as it pushed you to work with purpose. The most productive 10% of their users treated their working time as sprints.

4 TWO 15-MINUTE BREAKS

Not a fan of such structured time blocking? Sometimes, when you’re in the zone, having a forced break does more harm than good as it breaks your concentration and interrupts flow. If that’s the case in your line of work, consider scheduling two 15-minute breaks during the day

– one mid-morning and one mid-afternoon. Research shows that productivity slumps at 3pm – that might be a good time?