How Often Should You Take Breaks When Working From Home

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One of the things I really struggled with when I first started working remotely was that I was finding myself working continuously for hours on end. 8-12 hour work days in front of a screen become the norm with me barely stopping to eat or do any other activities. It’s no wonder then that my well being took a hit.

When working from home you should take a 5 minutes break every 25 minutes followed by a 30 minute break every hour and a half. Short frequent breaks are best and you should aim for 5-10 minutes away from your desk every hour, especially if you stare at screens all day. 

So how should you best use your breaks when working from home? And what are some great techniques to ensure you take breaks when working remotely? Keep reading to find out more. 

(Just a heads up a lot of people reading my blog are in the process of designing their own home office. If you want to save some of the painstaking time I did in designing my office, you can find my recommended products here)

How often should you take a break when working from home? 

Speak to any wanna-be millionaire or YouTube “influencer” (anyone else hates that term?) the idea of remote working or working from a home office is synonymous with the idea of achieving your goal whatever it takes and sleep is an option rather than, you know, essential for living. 

Whilst this is especially apparent for those budding entrepreneurs like Gary Vanerchuck ,the same applies with you, after all,  remote workers tend to work as much as 16.9 days more per yeast then there office based counterparts. 

What’s even worse is managers tend to encourage this behaviour with a whatever it takes attitude. 20% of employees feel as though their bosses think they don’t work hard enough and so it’s natural for us to push our limits even more when working from home. 

Heck up until recently Arianna Huffington called out Elon Musk for working too many hours. 

When you add all this up it’s clear us home workers are on a one way trip to burnout and so ensuring we make breaks a priority in our work days is going to be essential to our longevity and success. 

So how often should you take a break when working from home?

According to the health and safety act of 1992, by law, breaks should be taken regularly when working for a significant amount of hours. This is great but it does not give us a lot of guidelines.

Guidelines from the Health and Safety Executive of Northern Ireland  (HSENI) stipulate that you should take a 5- 10 minute break every hour away from your desk when staring at a screen. This works much better than taking a longer break after 3-4 hours of staring at a screen. 

During your workday, you should aim to take 5-10 minute breaks every hour in order to stay focused and productive as the day goes on. Shorter, frequent breaks are better especially when staring at a screen every hour. 

During a typical day then I found the following table works best: 

Time you should take for a lunch break	20 minutes allowed for every 6 hours work
Time allowed for daily rest between work	11 consecutive hours of rest in between shifts when working
Best time to take breaks at work	10 minutes every hour

So if I were to schedule out my day I would do the following for a typical 9-5 day: 

9am – 9.25am (25 mins)	Work
9.25am – 9.30am (5 mins)	Break
9.30am – 10am (30 mins)	Work
10am – 10.05am 5 mins)	Break
10.05am – 10.30am  (25 mins)	Work
10.30am – 11am (30 mins)	Break
11am – 11.30am (30 mins)	Work
11.30am – 11.35am (5 mins)	Break
11.35am – 12.35pm (60 mins)	Work
12.35pm – 1pm ( 25 mins)	Lunch Break
1pm – 1.30pm (30 mins)	Work
1.30pm -1.35pm (5 mins)	Break
1.35pm – 2pm  ( 25 mins)	work
2pm – 2.05pm (5 mins)	Break
2.05pm – 2.35pm (30 mins)	Work
2.35pm – 3pm (25 mins)	Break
3pm – 3.30pm (30 mins)	Work
3.30pm – 3.35pm (5 mins)	Break
3.35pm – 5pm (85 mins)	Work

Total time spend working: 370 minutes (6.1 hours)

Total time spend on a break: 110 minutes (1.8 hours) 

So you might be thinking that’s quite a lot of break to take in a day, the truth of the matter is that most people are only productive for about 3 hours per day and so by breaking your day up like this you will be getting at least 3 hours more work then those of you who work in an office full time.  

This is especially important to follow when working at home, as a lot of these five minute breaks are likely to build up via natural breaks in an office environment, in speaking with your colleagues or having tea breaks. 

How should you take your lunch break when working from home?

So now you have an idea about how you should take your break, what about lunch breaks? Are you entitled to them if you work from home as an employee for a company? 

UK employees are entitled to a minimum 20 minutes break if they work more than 6 hours per day. It’s worth mentioning that this is not legal advice. This advice also might not apply to everyone who works remotely such as emergency workers or care staff. 

According to Forbes, employees who take their Lunch break are happier and more productive. 

I would actually recommend taking an hour lunch break as opposed to a 25 minute lunch break as you have more time to fit in other things such as going for a run, going to the gym doing your groceries. 

One of the major benefits of working from home is this flexibility so you might as well make the most of it. 

What happens if you don’t take enough breaks when working from home? 

If you don’t take enough break when working from home the following may start to happen to you: 

• Poorer quality of work 

• Less attention to detail large bits of data 

• Lack of interest in your job 

• Resentment towards your team 

• Poorer sleep 

• Weight gain from lack of exercise 

• No clear distinction of work life balance 

• Lack of energy and lethargy 

• Poor time management

• Lack of creativity 

• Eye strain

What does a productive break look like? 

So we know that breaks are important, but you being the go getter that you are, you want to make the most out of your breaks ensuring that you are still being productive even when resting. 

What are some good ideas then for a productive work break when working from home? 

In order to ensure a break is productive you nit needs to fill two parameters: 

1) Be something you actually enjoy 

2) bet the opposite of what you were doing previously

The following then are my suggestions when working from home: 

Go for a run/exercise

Not only will this give you an endorphin rush to tackle your next bit of work, why not kill two birds with one stone and get healthy whilst working 

Socialize with your colleagues

One of the major problems us remote workers have is that we don’t tend to socialize at all with our colleagues, why not break up the monotony of working by yourself and meeting up your colleagues via a video call or better yet in person.

Do your chores 

Nobody likes doing chores, but doing them in your work day will make them feel like less of a brother and is a nice way to break up your day, ironing, washing up or even going to the grocery store re all great options

Eat something you enjoy 

One common side effect of working remotely is a poor diet, trust me when  I say my waistline has definitely increased, why not do some meal prep or eat something a little healthier on YouTube break to help with your work day.

Watch TV or a movie 

Giving your brain the chance to switch off and just daydream with tv/gaming can also be a great option. I would try to keep this for the longer breaks though as you might find yourself easily going over the 5 minute break

Consider mediating 

Mediating, when done correctly  can be a great way to energize yourself during the workday, what’s even better if you can do this a few times per day to keep yourself going.

What do the studies say about taking breaks when working from home? 

Now it’s all well and good me filling you in about the benefits of taking breaks when working from home but what do the actual studies show? 

Luckily I’ve compiled together all the ones I think are relevant below: 

Study	Key Stat
TORK	Employees who take a lunch break are a lot more engaged then employees who don’t
University of Minnesota	Going outdoors for a break can massively realty increase your focus for the remainder of your work day
Draugiem group	The idea work to break ratio is 52 minutes of work followed by a 17 minutes break
University of Illinois	Mental breaks help you stay focused on your tasks
Time	Taking breaks is essential for improving creativity

All of the studies, as you can see, highlight not only the importance of taking a break but that shorter frequent breaks are better. 

How much daily rest do you need when working from home? 

One type of break us remote workers don’t talk about enough when working from home is the time in between our shifts. 

It’s not uncommon for us to work 12 hours a day, sleep for 6 hours and then get straight back to it. 

A good guide would be to follow the HSE recommendations to give you 11 consecutive hours of rest in a 24 hour period in between shifts. 

Even for those of you who are self employed I would definitely use this as a good recommendation. 

Does every role need to take a break when working from home? 

Breaks are recommended for every role you take. Even if your role is a front line remote working role such as that as a call out doctor or carer I would definitely recommend taking breaks throughout your day.

Whilst you might not be able to take the five minute breaks as frequently ensuring you take 15 minute breaks every few hours is super important so that you don’t have any of the negative outcomes we talked about earlier.

What’s the best way to take breaks when working from home? 

So for those of you still struggling to find ways to take breaks using the information above I found the following to be super useful for myself. 

Use the pomodoro technique

The pomodoro technique allows you to work for 25 minutes, takes 5 minute break and then work for another 25 minutes.

You would do this consecutively for an hour and half and then take a 30 minute break. 

Following this system will ensure you are taking shorter, more frequent breaks as requested. 

This work type is so so popular that there are tons of apps and fd timers that can help you with this. 

Schedule your day

Another great way to add breaks into your day is to schedule in your tasks.

I would recommend putting the hardest task for your day in the earliest period and then follow this up by the longest break.

This goes back to the theory Brain Tracey talks about in his book Eat the Frog which you can check out here. 

Journal

Whilst it might sound slightly new agey, journaling can be a super effective way to track your breaks and how you feel. 

There will definitely be a bit of trial and error involved when deciding how many breaks work for you so having some hard data to help you figure out what works for you is going to be the most effective way of managing and tracking your breaks. 

Start a hobby 

If you are a workaholic I think taking even 5 minutes away from your work is going to be a challenge for you so what not make it easier and start a hobby. 

Doling a hobby on the side will give you something to look forward to during your break. Just make sure it’s the polar opposite of your day to day. 

For example, if you write copy all day, you might not want to start  writing your own books as this might start negatively impacting your day job. 

What are the benefits of taking breaks when you work from home? 

Taking breaks when you work from home has a huge number of benefits with studies showing the following: 

• Decrease back pain and mental fatigue 

• Help maintain motivation

• Keeps you focused throughout the day

• Improve wellbeing

• Improve creativity

• Help build healthy habits

• Breaks help you to focus and retain information 

• Breaks  help you to improve creativity 

• Breaks will help you get a sense of the bigger picture 

All in all taking breaks is vital, especially if you don’t get out and are staring in front of your screen all day. 

The best way to do this is by taking smaller breaks, every hour, to maximise your focus and enable you to build strong habits. 

 

Now if you struggle with staying productive or feel tried during the work day I’ve written a few blogs below that I definitely think you’ll enjoy:

• Tricks to staying awake in your home office 
• Is working from home productive 
• How many breaks should you take when working from home 

Finally a lot of people reading my blog want to know what products I recommend for a home office/remote working. You can find out my recommendations here and learn how I make money whilst working remotely on the side here.