When I first started working from home, I would sometimes find myself spending 12-14 hours glued to my office chair. While that time was all “work” those days were often my least productive, simply because I stagnated at some point and couldn’t push through that back to a place of productivity.
This week Fast Company published a story where it spoke to several productivity experts and as for tips on how to beat distractions and get things done. One of their suggestions is one that I personally adopted a while back: short bursts of physical activity.
Getting up and getting your blood pumping can be a great way to reset during the day. It helps promote creativity and can help quickly dog you out of a slump if you’re finding yourself slowing down in the middle of the day.
For me, I typically break up individual tasks with a small burst of activity. For instance, after I finish writing this posts I’ll probably make the trek down three flights of stairs to see if the mail came. The journey to the bottom floor and back up probably won’t take more than 2-3 minutes, but it’s enough to convince my body we’ve gone on an adventure, and I guarantee you I will come back to my desk with a fresher mind than I had before I went looking for mail.
If you don’t have a job that can be broken up into small tasks like stories for the website you work for, most fitness trackers have a setting you can activate that reminds you to walk a certain number of steps each hour. An hour is a good suggestion timing wise for how often you should be moving. Set that alarm on your fitness tracker, and then when it goes off force yourself to take a short break and walk around the office for a minute or two.
The key here is to give yourself frequent short breaks and do something that’s going to get your heart rate up for a few minutes. That could be a walk, a handful up desk-side jumping jacks, or a quick journey down the stairs. If you’re having trouble focusing during the day, it could be just what you need to reset your brain and set yourself up for a more successful rest of your day.
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