Boost Work Productivity: Untapped Power of Strategic Breaks

People spend over 7 hours a day staring at screens. But remote knowledge workers spend more than 13 hours staring at screens everyday.

While not all data analysts are remote, it’s easy to see that you’re driving this average up if your job is in front of a computer all day. Yet disconnecting from anything you’re deeply involved in is one of the hardest things to do.

If I can just get this one thing to work…

If I can just finish polishing this presentation… (3 hours later)

If I can just <insert the thing you’re hyper focused on>

It’s like anytime I use the word ‘just’ I mean it will take a few more minutes, but inevitably I look up 2 hours later feeling like I got nothing impactful done. Even if I powered through the thing I was working on.

Layer in the pressure of life obligations. I need to leave at 4 sharp for a kid program. I’m ordering groceries during a quick lunch break.

The thing is – stepping away is one of the best things you can do to boost work productivity, creativity & problem-solving superpowers in any knowledge worker roles – like data analytics.

The Challenge of Constant Connectivity

This is not a debate on how much screen time you should have. Being an analyst means your working hours are your base screen time PLUS whatever else you use in your world.

When my role was capacity planning, a good rule-of-thumb was that each employee was about 70% productive. Paid breaks, training & development, and such add up! Assuming you work 8 hours on average, that’s 5.6 hours of productivity. Well, the training & development is likely at your computer, too, so we really can’t throw that out. When I would take the bus in, that was almost a guaranteed 2 hours of screen time.

Our minds are always on.

But that doesn’t mean we’re productive.

It doesn’t mean we’re able to churn out our best work.

The Power of Disconnecting

It almost feels cliche to say that you need to take breaks throughout the day. It recharges. It refreshes. It will help you perform your best. It will boost work productivity & more.

Yet it is incredibly hard to do in practice when you feel like 20 more minutes will be the magic you need or a deadline is tight.

I worked until 7 PM one night last week trying to power through a problem. I ordered takeout even though I had the groceries & a plan for a weeknight dinner. I missed the evening walk with my husband and dog. I wasn’t able to listen to the stories of my kiddo’s day.

I was looking for some data using a database that isn’t well-documented. If I could just find the table & join to filter out the records that mattered, I was golden to move on & get what I was trying to do done. Just this one thing, and tomorrow will be set-up. I had a hard stop at 7, so I felt defeated & frustrated when I stepped away.

I obsessed over this all evening. I thought about it when making my coffee. When I logged in that morning, I was able to do what I needed in 20 minutes. The fresh perspective & rested brain simply needed space. And the solution was frustratingly easy.

No matter how much we fight this – creative problem-solving, your best work, and productivity is not defined with how much you keep yourself glued to your desk or keyboard.

And the research backs it up. Being outside. Treadmill. Outside in nature. Outside in a city. It doesn’t matter. Your ability to approach a problem in a creative way is improved

✅ Being outside

✅ Walking

✅ Walking outside

✅ Disconnect & switch to a new problem (but be thoughtful – task-switching has negative outcomes when you’re bouncing around)

✅ Thinking of anything other than the work at-hand

Research backed: Give your idea some legs: the positive effect of walking on creative thinking

By stepping away & coming back, you have a reset that occurs in your brain. The act of reactivating helps pull your mind to see the macro level again. As an analyst, the ability to be detailed to do my analytics yet high-level when I need to share is a constant struggle for me. Yet this simple act of reactivating lets a new path forward can emerge whether you know you needed another path or not.

Plus, you know what it feels like when you’re over the problem or over the day. Tired is tired. And that can turn into burnout beyond the innovation conversation in your day-to-day.

Strategies to Disconnect

Since disconnecting can be so incredibly difficult, I’ve been exploring how I can better make this fit into my life – whether it be for vacation or during the daily grind. The funny thing is that it really isn’t that difficult to do one thing everyday to disconnect. Well, in theory. What I’ve found to work fits into 2 buckets – scheduled breaks & clear boundaries.

Scheduled Breaks

Scheduled breaks during a workday is one of the hardest things for me to do. When I was in the office, my breaks weren’t scheduled but they happened. I’d grab a cup of coffee & sometimes chat with a colleague for too long. That’s great for relationship building and tangentially learning about what else is going on in the company. It helps me connect dots & add more value in what I create.

Now that I’m at home I still have that body clock that tells me to get up around 10 for coffee and 2 for tea. Now I don’t have the baked-in distractions of colleagues in an office. That has made me rush back to my computer to continue working on whatever problem I’m “powering through.”

These days I’m trying to be more conscious. I’m not 100% successful, but at 10 & 2 I add in a quick walk to the end of the block. It turns out it’s 5 minutes. I’ve recently implemented a new rule that if I’m going to let my mind talk me out of it, I set a timer & do 10 push ups, squats, something & then walk at my desk. That’s miserable enough that I’d rather do the quick jaunt. 😂 I play games with myself, but it works. Shake things up. Step away. Move your body. Talk to a colleague. Something away from the problem you were staring at for the last 2 hours.

Scheduled breaks are also your paid time off.

Your hard-earned time away is yours. I’m writing this after a 4-day long weekend spent doing holiday things. Family time, good food, walks with a good audiobook, and projects around the house. I feel so energized again. My brain space when I left last week was not that energetic. I promise. I haven’t solved all my problems. I know they are waiting for some attention when I head back into work, but I’m in a much better position to tackle them.

I once had a Jewish colleague that observed Sabbath. I don’t pretend to know the ins & outs of his spiritual practice, but he was 100% unavailable from Friday before sundown until Sunday. No phone. No email. Built into his world in a scheduled way through a spiritual practice that recharged him. This also took the form of a digital detox for him. There are a lot of theories on this, and I am not questioning this as part of the spiritual practice. That said, I’d need to white-knuckle through a full detox as it is not part of my spiritual practice. I’m trying to find less friction, so powering-through sounds like a lot of friction in my world!

If you’re interested in scheduled breaks from the digital space, I highly recommend Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. Planned & unplanned consumption, and I break from devices after 8 PM. Turning external stimulations off at some point is another break that helps you be creative when you need to be a creative problem-solver! Digital Minimalism <Amazon>

Clear Boundaries

I have to mention Cal Newport’s book Deep Work here. In it, he has a routine intended for the end of the workday that he has coined a ‘shutdown ritual’.  The idea is that at a set time at the end of your workday that you do 3 things:

1. Document what you were working on
2. What needs your attention tomorrow
3. Shut it all down & acknowledge it by saying, “Shutdown complete.”

This is intended to be type of mental boundary. I have found this practice liberating – particularly in remote positions where home & work bleed into each other. I found a lot of nuggets that have helped me succeed as a data analyst & boost work productivity (while keeping sanity in check). Check it out: Deep Work <Amazon>

Here’s how I’ve modified the process to work for my flow:

• What was I working on. I document this in OneNote with links to get right back into it tomorrow.
• What needs to happen tomorrow. I document my focus for tomorrow in the same OneNote, but I also try to time box my next day around known meetings & what needs to happen. My mind is on the current & tomorrow’s problem at the end of a workday. Tomorrow morning it takes me a minute as I reactivate to the working day.
• Document my random notes. I inevitably jot something down during the day, and I load it where it needs to go or else it ends up in a black hole of forgotten.
• Shutdown my laptop. If I leave it on, I will hop back on to check something ‘real quick’. Or I’ll hear some kind of notification, and the FOMO will pull me back into it. Plus, shutting down & restarting keeps your computer happier. It’s rare that I lose my work from an unexpected shutdown. I cannot say the same for my colleagues who haven’t mastered this very-hard-to-do exercise.
• I say “Shutdown complete.” Mentally, work is left at work. I’ll give it my all when it’s time to show up again. Recharged.
• Tidy up the desk. Take the dishes from the room. I almost always have 2-3 cups on my desk by the end of the day.

I do this every single day. I then show up for whatever is important to me outside of work – fitness, family, friends, dog, whatever. It’s your joy.

If I have thoughts of work creeping in, I try to be conscious of them. There are thoughts that feel like you’re mentally working through something. Then the are those that feel more like stewing on a problem you’re not equipped to solve tonight. One I’ll let go free & jot down what comes to mind. The stewing ones I work to shutdown through saying out loud, “Shutdown was complete. That problem is ready for your attention tomorrow.”

As an analyst, it took me YEARS to realize that there is no such thing as a to do list that you can fully mark everything off. There is always something else that needs your attention. I give my work my all during work time but not a second beyond it if I can help it.

Yes, I still work late on occasion. Deadlines are real. Fire drills can be real (but not always). But if I give my role my all during the workday & keep on top of deadlines, the work that deserves your family/friends/dog’s attention should be minimal.

Take your vacation. Hold hard boundaries with them. I’ve worked in many organizations where it varies how much is expected of you when you’re out of the office to freaking recharge.

Fortunately, one of my roles was at JP Morgan Chase. Who knows if the policy still exists, but EVERYONE IN THE ORGANIZATION was required to disconnect for a 5-day workday stretch. If you’ve ever seen Office Space, you’ll understand why. In essence, this was a way to let things ‘go’ & see if fraud is uncovered. Plus, you likely do not prop the organization up, so they ensure everyone is truly dispensable. Contingency planning is real. If you don’t do your work for 5 days, does the team stop delivering products to a customer? Do anyone’s paychecks stop? Does anyone die?

If the answer is no, you need to recharge. Take your vacation. I’ve also worked with companies where everyone is connected even on vacation. Their out of office message says text me instead. Uh no.

As much as I value that colleague’s expertise, they are dispensable. Figure it out.

And I hold my boundaries, as well. I was never a fan of cruising until I got a role where disconnecting was a luxury. There was an expectation that you were available even if you were in Thailand on a vacation you strategically saved for to enjoy. I couldn’t connect on a cruise in any reliable, cyber-security-safe way. Done. Yes, I’ll plan a vacation that forces a hard line of my employer. AND MYSELF!

The Bigger Picture – Beyond Work

The week I went into labor with my son I worked 58 hours. I don’t even want to talk about the number of times I’ve been on a short leave for surgery, and I’m all sneaking in my office to do a quick thing.

I started a new role, and my grandmother passed. I wanted to grieve & help my mom, but the whole time I was clouded with guilt for my employer while out of state. I see the absurdity in this as I write it out.

Two weeks later, my dad fell ill. He was in a hospital over an hour away, & each evening after work I would go to him. My literal entire family had gotten COVID & couldn’t visit. Then he passed. It was a gut-wrenching experience, but I felt guilty for work & what the perception of me was as a new employee in a remote role.

The boundaries and breaks are not about taking a hard line with your employer. They are boundaries for yourself, too. It’s taken me years to get to a point where I force the boundaries. Recharge. Grieve. Do what you need to do to get energized to do good work.

While those stories are my extremes, I’m sure you’ve heard the deathbed scenario where no one says they wish they had worked more. Spend time doing what you love, making memories, and all the stuff that makes the world go ‘round.

Playing Chutes & Ladders with a kiddo or taking the dog for a walk is more worthwhile than tweaking a PowerPoint deck for a 30 min call in the morning. Perfection is subjective & a moving target anyhow.

And when it’s time to log in the next day, your work performance will benefit from your disconnection. Rest allows dots to connect mentally, so you truly will show up better from shutting off from work at a decent time, daily.

You Need Breaks to Boost Work Productivity & Thrive

As knowledge workers, particularly in data analytics, the very essence of our productivity and creativity needed to solve complex problems is in the power of taking breaks. Disconnecting is not just a luxury; it’s a fundamental requirement for peak performance and sustained creativity.

Experimentation is Key

I encourage you to experiment in your own professional lives. Start small. Schedule a short walk, enforce a hard stop at the end of the day, or even play with a digital detox over the weekend. How do you feel the next day? Did you boost work productivity or just feel fresher? None of the above? All of the above?

In a world dominated by data, numbers, and continuous analysis, it may seem counterintuitive to step back when every problem feels like it demands more of your time. However, our best work doesn’t emerge from relentless hours of staring at a screen. It comes from a mind that is refreshed, a perspective that is renewed, and a creativity that is recharged. Working smart means recognizing the power of a well-timed break!

Comment below with how you solve what feels like unsolvable problems or how you recharge to be fresh for a fire drill or day-to-day analysis.