successful home working
3 ways to take a break without leaving your desk when you work at home
1. Hook up with fellow home workers and freelancers on Twitter
At 11 am in the UK the hospitable San Sharma (Charmer?) of Enterprise Nation hosts #watercoolermoment, which has a daily topic for you to chew over. On Fridays you can eyeball each other on the video chat.
I’ve recently also discovered #elevensestime, which I popped into for the first time today and found a very friendly and welcoming bunch of tweeters. @MartinGBEdwards is the main man and there’s also a blog Elevenses Time, which brings me neatly to my next point:
2. Give your brain a rest
and gather some inspiration by reading a blog or two totally unrelated to your work. One of my absolute favourites is The Sartorialist, a photo blog of stylish ‘ordinary’ people in the streets of New York and the cities Sartorialist Scott Schuman visits to record fashion shows. I also like Wee Birdy, a fresh, colourful design blog by an Australian living in London with lots of equally good links.
3. And just for a change
stop looking at that computer screen and give your eyes a rest. We tend to spend far too long for the health of our eyes gazing at computers. Keep your eyes open while cupping your palms gently over them and look into the soft, warm blackness for a couple of minutes…aaaahhh, what a relief!
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Well, I suppose you could walk on the spot, David! Chairwalking? But I don’t think it would be quite as beneficial somehow. Certainly not as good as sleep working anyway. (Sleep working is the name David has cleverly given to the practice of generating great ideas on a topic by thinking about something else entirely, or leaving it till tomorrow).
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I’ve just been having a look at WeeBirdy, (THANK YOU… LOVELY) and I also look at Sartorialist every day, Ian’s finally registered with vouchercodes.co.uk this is brill for cheap stuff and worth looking at every day too. if you’re going into a town where they have Pizza Express or similar etc it’s worth checking out cos you could print out a voucher in advance and get a free pizza etc…now back to the drawing board! xx
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Thanks for this useful reminder Judy, it’s good to remember to take a break. I’ve been doing [The Pomodoro Technique][1] this week — it gives you 2 mins rest for every 25, then a longer break after 4 Pomodoro’s. It’s brilliant.
In the breaks I’ve been taking up juggling (something I used to do as a teenager). It’s a really good rest, gets the wrists in motion (hopefully helping reduce RSI) and uses different parts of your mind to the more focused ‘screen-mode’. Well recommended.
I keep missing #WaterCoolerMoment… I’ll try it next week, hope to see you there sometime soon!
[1]:http://www.freelanceadvisor.co.uk/managing-your-business/freelance-focus-the-pomodoro-technique/