Ask HN: How often do you take breaks during the day?

&quot;stepping away from the desk is seen as a loss of valuable work time, time we could otherwise use to tackle the next item on our to-do list&quot;<p>This sounds a bit of an unhealthy culture.<p>The idea shouldn&#x27;t be to look busy at all times, but rather, to work on problems and solve them, solving them don&#x27;t have to happen in front of the screen, sometimes, doing something else entirely allows you to arrive at a solution faster.<p>I&#x27;m working in an office, so it&#x27;s probably easier for me than someone who works at home and might already feel some additional pressure to &quot;prove they&#x27;re busy and not just doing laundry and watching Netflix&quot;.<p>I take whatever amount of breaks I happen to take on any particular day, some days, I only go for bathroom and lunch, other days, I spend more or less hanging around other peoples offices to discussion work (if work happens to be interesting) or whatever is interesting. Some times, I go and turn on the arcade and have a game or two (Tetris Grand Master 2 Plus is my favorite). I might take a cup of coffee and go outside and just sit for a bit and stare into the sky. I know some colleagues who don&#x27;t do this, and look busy much of the time, but none of the data I have available to me seem to indicate that they&#x27;re being mor e productive.

3 times. Once in the morning, once for lunch and once in the afternoon, around 15 minutes each, lunch about 30 minutes. I won&#x27;t sit at any desk for 8 hours without interruption. I do work in a place with heightened hygiene requirements, so I cannot usually drink coffee at my desk.<p>I keep up my productivity by not giving a rats ass about productivity. It isn&#x27;t a healthy way of solving problems for the sake of it. Sometimes I skip breaks when I am focused on something. I do the break later though. I think breaks are more important if you have overhead of switching work context to different topics often. I you have that large project, I think work is far less stressful.<p>Sometimes I visit HN when I do &quot;compiling&quot;. Not really compiling, it is mostly moving data from a to b, but I have to wait for it anyway.<p>Rarely do I doom scroll, but it does happen if no peer is in the vicinity.

It depends. My discipline fluctuates a lot.<p>On good days I set timers to go have tea on the balcony. Walking the dog is even more effective if you have one. Try not to eat lunch at the computer.<p>On bad days I am so engrossed with my work that I forget to take breaks. I just end the day when it wears off.