Take a break

Whether you’re standing in traffic, waiting for a late colleague or sitting in a customer service desk waiting for your turn, don’t get frustrated. It doesn’t have to be a waste of time. This is a moment for you – take a break. Use it to get the proverbial wind in your sails.

You are waiting for the report to be approved or for another order. You have 15 minutes left to leave the house. Or maybe the hairdresser is running late or you arrived to pick up your child for school too early. These are the so-called micro-breaks. They last from 5 to 30 minutes. They usually cause us irritation. Because, after all, we still have so much to do, and here we are stuck, idle, wasting, we think, precious time. We are upset that we are not doing anything. We definitely feel more in control of life when we are cooking dinner with one hand and writing emails with the other. Such thinking is a mistake. We are doing ourselves a disservice with this. Instead of being annoyed that time is slipping through our fingers, let’s focus on what we can. All you need is a quarter of an hour and a notebook or a phone. 

You have a moment so do your research before executing the order. Prepare a draft of the material or report. Maybe plan a trip, check your emails and reply to them. Call, not necessarily business. A short conversation is enough to make a friend, mother or husband feel that we are thinking of them, that they are important to us. You can also use the micro-break to “handle” your social media. Paying bills, making a doctor’s appointment, filing a claim for a broken washing machine. How about allocating that time for a walk. So calm, not nervous walking back and forth. If you like to read, have a book with you at all times or look at your favorite portal. You can also establish with yourself that you allocate micro-breaks for language study. You’ll be surprised what progress you’ll see in yourself.

“Let’s throw out”  irrelevant tasks. Let’s prioritize. “Let’s “rearrange” with micro-tasks the time blocks, and above all, let’s listen to ourselves. Let’s treat these short breaks as a gift of nature. You can’t be at full capacity all day, because eventually concentration problems will arise, creativity will decline, fatigue, impatience and stress will set in. Along with it may come sleep problems, making fatigue worse. Eventually, we will begin to experience physical ailments. The body sends a signal: give me a rest. The best thing you can do for yourself then is to give him what he needs. Take a break to rest. Remote work, which 8 million Poles have experienced to a greater or lesser extent, has deprived us of natural opportunities for micro-breaks. In the office, when you went to make yourself a coffee, you chatted with a colleague for a while, and although you may not even know it, you relaxed a bit because of it. Now, working from home, you have to take such breaks yourself. Have some juice or coffee. Don’t look at any screen. Look into the distance. Go out to the balcony. Eat something. You can do some exercises. Take a break! Check it out! It works.