The Art Of Post-Pandemic Productivity Breaks

A top executive coach and the author of The Practice of Groundedness, Brad Stulberg talks about how to ace back-to-work season

01 Has working from home shown us how to be more productive?

People are realising the importance of little breaks throughout the day. Whether you’re an Olympic athlete in training, or you’re a worker focusing on a spreadsheet, the sweet spot for work is between 30 and 90 minutes, followed by breaks of five to 30 minutes.

It’s almost like interval training.

02 How can we treat work like interval training in an office?

Instead of one-hour meetings, schedule 50-minute meetings. Instead of having 30-minute meetings, schedule 20-minute meetings. Use these 10-minute periods to walk around the office or listen to music. It doesn’t have to be physical.

03 What are some other productivity hacks?

Power naps work for some people, absolutely. Do we have to get all fancy and have corporate napping rooms? Probably not. You can probably do it at your desk. We all did it at our desk at school.

Try walking meetings, too. Walking doesn’t fall into the category of [distracted] multi-tasking because you’re just moving your body.