Breaks at job when programming

[McLaren]

Hello,

do you make breakes? How long, at what intervals?

As I have read somewhere we need to make at least 10 minute breaks from computer each hour. But I feel a bit uncorfortable to do that at my job, becasue my project manager is not doing them. Or he is doing but break from programing and does something else but not rests his eyes.

Also the breaks are good to cool down head. If I code without breaks, my head starts heating. The best thing would belike in pomodoro technicue (totaly 20 minutes of short brakes in 2 hours + adidional long brake of 20 minutes after those two hours). Then you rest your brain better. But it might look that I am lazy if I have such long brakes.

Tell your stories about that.

How is my article? :)

[Ancient Dragon]

When I was working I never, or rarly, took breaks that laster longer than just a few minutes, such as get up and get a cup of coffee. It really annoyed me to no end when someone interrupted me while I was deep in thought coding, especially those pesty bosses who want staff meetings occasionally. Lots of times I brown-bagged my lunch so that I could eat it at my desk while working. But that was me. In your case may you would be better off just getting a cup of coffeed and chatting up the girls or something for a little while. Ten minutes every hour seems a little excessive to me. The state where I live requires employers to give 15 minute break every 4 hours plus a 30 minute lunch break if the shift is longer than 7 hours.

[McLaren]

oh those bosses usually don't make you rest. Maybe only your eyes can rest. But not brain.
yeah, I would like to chat or listen some nice people talking, I mean who don't annoy while talking. In earlier job it was perfectly normal, even the boss said - when we work we usually work for some time, chat bit, then again work.

And the bag with lucnh I think is bad for your health. But of course if you like it then nobody can tell you otherwise, you eat what you want.

And I have one hour for luch, and if I eat quicker, I usually don't sit at computer, I then walk outside, to get fresh air, not that fresh maybe, because its where lot of cars are passing by, but still maybe better to be away from compute if posible.

What others could say about that?

[Lardmeister]

Two 20 minute breaks each working day are best for me.

[Dani]

I take breaks in between mini-projects or tasks. For example, in any given day I'll do some programming, advertising, forum moderation, checking email, SEO, etc. I'll usually take a couple minute break between tasks, unless I'm in the middle of a coding project. I hardly ever take a break if I'm deep into coding.

[McLaren]

where are those who browse facebook or other sites when working? :D or you don't want to tell in public about your bad habbits :) somehow its hard to believe that there all are hard workers, who don't take breaks.
also it looks that you don't care about your eyes.

One article I read today on this topic:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/47056743/

[jkon]

In my previous job I worked for more than 12 hours a day, not programming all of them, but with many meetings. When I am programming I need 15 minutes each two hours, to go out, chat or take a small walk smoke a cigarette (bad habits), talk to cell phone. Of course none could consider telling me anything because I work more hours (or even days) than job hours. There are times when I don’t do breaks , because I am creating an UML diagram or something like that (many drawings), that my mind cant take a break without finishing it. As I seen the problem for you SPeed_FANat1c is that your supervisor is “steeling breaks” without going away from his office. Let him be fine with that, its better to stay one more hour to work and have 4 , 15 minutes brakes.

[McLaren]

As I seen the problem for you SPeed_FANat1c is that your supervisor is “steeling breaks” without going away from his office.

Or maybe he is doing brakes, but I don't know, I don't see his screen :)

Let him be fine with that, its better to stay one more hour to work and have 4 , 15 minutes brakes.

Or even better option - just have same amount of hours, but choose slitgtly smaller wage if others are so good that they can work without breaks. Still I doubt that its true for many people. I will not die if I will get sligtly less than others with same skill as mine if they actually do more without taking breaks.

[cereal]

A great article about this topic, in my opinion, is this: http://www.componentowl.com/blog/2012/02/zen-coder-vs-distraction-junkie/

I'm usually the cause, the "distractor-junkie" of the situation... but when I work on something interesting for me, then I can stay on that for hours without noticing anything else.

[McLaren]

good article, I like it :)

[Coloradojaguar]

I think that most know they need to break out every so often. If your job involves one task then you may want to rest your eyes and stretch out at least every hour although I admit that a two hour time frame can fly when you are involved in a larger task or project. I find that if I don't take a little break at least every two hours than my productivity starts to decline and I start to make mistakes.