Taking a longer lunch break has been a terrific decision.
I started doing so after last summer’s move, mostly because of the heat. Mid-day was terribly hot, and I don’t have air conditioning in my home office (or anywhere else in this home). Even with the ceiling fan on, sometimes I couldn’t think straight.
I took a longer lunch break. Instead of forcing myself back to the desk to be unproductive, I spent more time on the acupressure mat, or reading on the porch or the balcony. Or reading or writing something not related to the workday, just noodling with ideas or reading about something that caught my fancy.
When it cooled down for me to think straight again, I went back to the desk and worked later into the evening before stopping for the day. Or went back for another work session after dinner, if it was a very long, hot afternoon.
I adjusted back in the fall and winter, but found that I burned out by mid-afternoon.
So I’ve started taking a longer lunch break, no matter what the weather. After years of rushed lunches, or half hour breaks or eating at the desk, or unpaid lunch time, I’m taking at least an hour, often an hour and a half to two hours. This is not errand time. Errand time is separate. This is rejuvenation time.
Sometimes I sit in the rocking chair in my reading corner, reading something that has nothing to do with work. Or I’ll lie on the acupressure mat. Or I’ll sit on the front porch or the balcony, with a book, or a notebook to noodle around with daydreams, or just look out at the mountains.
When I return to work, I am refreshed, and have a more focused, productive, and creative afternoon.
This is a European-style attitude, and they know what they’re talking about.
When I skim job listings and see a full-time position only pays “37.5” hours, or that the workday is 9 hours because of the lunch break, I don’t even bother to send an LOI anymore. I hope those days are over for me.
I will take a long lunch break. I will come back refreshed. And it will be about the quality of the work, not the quantity of the hours at the desk.
How do you spend your lunch breaks?
Hmm. I always book an hour for my dinner break (midday meal), but I’ve noticed I’m ‘taking it’ sitting at my desk, so I’m not actually taking a dinner break at all. I have a reading chair in my office and we have a small table in the kitchen overlooking the garden. And, of course, we have the garden. I really ought to take my break away from my desk and it’s not as though I don’t have anywhere else to go. Thanks for the timely reminder.
I used to push through or sit at my desk, but it hurt my creativity and productivity in the afternoons. A few years back, I had a client who insisted on me working in the office, from 10-2 three days a week, which meant I wasn’t technically “allowed” a lunch break, but she’d say, “oh, go ahead and eat” (I had to bring lunch, because there was nowhere to get food in the area), and then ask me to do things constantly while I was trying to eat. If I was lucky, I had maybe 5 mintues to shovel food into my mouth, and then felt sick all afternoon. Taking a real break means I’m fresh in the afternoon and ready to work.