To take breaks when working from home?

[99r]

My work is very intense and requires a lot of concentration, and I often spend several days working on one single document. The past couple of days I have been really struggling to concentrate and stay motivated, I have barely any meetings in my job and I barely have any admin or emails to reply to so I'm usually spending the full 7 hour workday staring at the same document. Our time is billable, and I have to log around 7 hours of billable time per day, so I feel guilty taking breaks but it is tedious.

I never had this issue in other (similar) jobs, as there were always meetings, admin and emails to give my brain a rest.

WIBU to take around 5 minutes every hour or so just to let my brain relax?

Stop the clock and take a break. What is there to feel guilty about?

What industry are you in

Take half an hour for lunch then five minutes an hour to rest your eyes. That will make it an 8 hour day (guess you don't have to do the five minutes in the last hour). You stop the clock for those five minutes.

Employers are legally bound to protect their employees from the health risks of display screen equipment. While there is no legal guidance for that is, the government’s HSE recommends a 5-10 minute break every hour. There is no world in which you should be feeling guilty or shouldn’t follow this guidance.

What Didimum says. Have a read of this - notably, section 3.

Working safely with display screen equipment: Overview - HSE

If you're invoicing for an hour, I can't imagine anyone would begrudge you 5 mins of looking away from your screen!! How would they even know.
So do your day, 5 mins in each hour try and consciously stretch legs, look away from desk, make a cuppa. Take an unbilled lunch break.

You need breaks to make the best use of your brain and rest your eyes. I use focus music to help my brain switch between tasks too

Not unreasonable, sometimes good to have a puzzle book on the go for a break

Who would even know? If you’re working alone on complex documents you presumably don’t have to ask permission to leave your desk?

Get up at least once an hour and move for about 5 minutes - probably every 40 mins is optimal for concentration purposes

perhaps Grab a cup of tea
Stare out if the window to rest your eyes
Stretch your back out
Go to the loo
Grab a skipping rope

Unless you are a machine You can't concentrate for hours on end and you will be more productive if you take the break

You are behaving irresponsibly if you don't manage / maximise your productivity by switching your attention every so often

Take breaks! Take your full lunch break. We're not machines!

Of course!

Of course OP!

when I was young I had insanely high powers of concentration and I could stay on task at peak performance for hours, as long as my work was interesting

now I’m older I struggle more

my concentration and focus is better with regular breaks and therefore I am MORE productive if I stop and look out of the window, tell Alexa to play some mellow music, pop to the loo or get a glass of water.

Usually I factor in a break every hour or every two hours.

I find if I’m anxious about a deadline or phasing out, putting music on helps, or even putting on a relatively boring programme from radio4 . Having a voice droning on quietly seems to mimic “office background noise” and I find it easier to concentrate (I don’t actually listen to what’s on, it’s just having something to soothe my mind into a work-ready mode.)

This. You should obviously take a loo break mid morning and mid afternoon.

You take short breaks within the billable hours. The clients are paying for a human to work on their documents, not chatgpt. Humans do a better job but need breaks.

Brain needs a break to process

You absolutely do not need to 'stop the clock' for 5 mins breaks. Yes for lunch, but not for a quick break to make a cuppa!

Take a quick walk during the day too. Helps to think

If I were paying £300 an hour or whatever ridiculous figures are charged in the world of billable hours, I'd want 60 minutes of work for it.

Of course you need breaks too. Your employer IBU expecting you to generate 7 billable hours a day. Nobody can manage that.

What? I take loads of breaks! Tea, loo, stretch etc

I simply cannot think properly if I don’t have a break, though when the pressure is on I work for hours non stop. Funnily enough, if I take a break and go up the road to the shops, I find that stuff I’ve been working on sorts itself out in my head as I am walking. I find it difficult to stop when I’m under pressure but I know I work better if I do

No need to stop the clock for short breaks. They are essential for prolonged concentration and therefore part of the overall work.

What job do you do? I need to move from people facing to wfh so I have some flexibility but it's hard at over 40!