by Richard Stokes
A recent survey by Hotels.com revealed that the United States ranks close to the bottom of the list when it comes to the number of vacation days allowed compared to 29 other countries across the world. On average, Americans receive 20 days off, which is comprised of 10 days paid vacation and then another 10 days in national holidays such as July 4th, Labor Day, etc.
The global average is around 28 days and in some countries, such as Russia, it is 40!
So what does our lousy national vacation standard have to do with this week’s Tech Tip? The answer is simple: breaks are important to maintaining good health and keeping good health means you can continue to be a productive member of the workforce.
If you ask any physician they will tell you that your body and mind benefit greatly from simply getting out of your chair and away from your monitor from time to time. The catch is that since I can’t get your employer to give you any more time off (although sharing this Tip with him or her might be helpful), how do you get in the habit of remembering to take these short, healthy breaks?
Take a look at Scirocco Take a Break. This is a great, free download that keeps a timer running in the background on your PC and prompts you to stop what you are doing for a brief interval.
The default timer is set to 1 hour with a break interval of 10 minutes but you can customize those in the ‘Options’ and ‘Preferences’ menu to whatever intervals fit you best.
You can also customize the tool to go so far as to lock your workstation when the timer is up so that you’re less likely to choose the ‘Remind Later’ option and then never actually take that short break.
Just remember that taking a break doesn’t mean getting out of that excel spreadsheet and then jumping right on your iPhone to Facebook with friends! Get-up, walk around and stretch.
Network 1 Consulting is a 15-year-old, IT Support company in Atlanta, GA. We become – or augment – the IT department for professional services companies: law firms, medical practices and financial services firms. Our IT experts can fix computers – but what our clients really value are the industry-specific best practices we bring to their firms. This is especially important with technology, along with regulations and cyber threats, changing so rapidly. We take a proactive approach to helping our clients use technology to gain and keep their competitive advantage.
[…] up and walk around for a few minutes periodically. See Richard’s great Tip about Taking A Break during your […]
[…] levels should decrease. Here’s a great article that Richard wrote last year about just that – Taking a Break. Another hint is to only access your electronic communications websites (e-mail, texts, social […]