The importance of taking breaks and recharging your batteries

Get closer to a more conscious work-life balance.

In the busyness and hustle of modern work culture, it’s easy to get caught up in the 24/7 working mode. We often push ourselves to the end, forgetting that we need to step back and recharge to deliver our best.

Like a battery running dangerously low, waiting until you’re completely drained might be too late. This is why I’ve learned to prioritize regular breaks.

If we aren’t at our best, how can we expect to give our best?

Why is it so important to take breaks?

Taking a break is not a sign of weakness but a strategy for long-term endurance and success.

Your career is a marathon that can last over 40 years. If you sprint through it all the time, you won’t be able to reach the end. It’s not just unrealistic. It’s unsustainable.

There’s no athlete who can spring through the whole marathon.

Regular breaks help maintain our stamina and focus.

Battery energy levels.

Benefits of taking regular breaks

Increased Productivity

I’ve found that I’m significantly more productive after a period of rest. That’s not a coincidence. It’s biological.

Breaks allow us to maintain a healthy work-life balance, crucial for our overall well-being and efficiency. They give us a chance to reset and return to our tasks with renewed energy and perspective.

Optimized Learning Process

Taking breaks is not just beneficial, it’s necessary. It’s akin to sleep in the learning process. While resting, our brains are surprisingly active - rewiring, making new connections, and transferring short-term memories to long-term storage. Without these pauses, our ability to learn and remember can significantly diminish.

Mental Clarity

The mental clarity that comes after stepping away from a problem is a well-documented phenomenon. Often, the solution to a problem seems to magically appear after we take a break. This is the brain processing information in the background, solving problems without conscious effort.

My personal strategy for taking breaks

1. Regular weekend breaks

Every one or two weekends, I step away from all work-related activities for at least a day. Usually, it’s Saturday, but it depends. This regular disengagement helps me avoid burnout and keeps my passion for my work alive.

2. Digital detox

When I take a break, I completely disconnect from all digital devices - a practice known as “digital detox”.

What I do is to:

• mark my calendar as out-of-office

• silence all work notifications

• turn on “do not disturb mode” on my iPhone

• put away my devices

This helps to create a mental and physical space between me and my work.

3. Nature and outdoor activities

One of my favorite detoxes and recharges is going outside in nature. The simplicity and tranquility of nature help me reconnect with myself away from the hectic everyday life.

Hiking.

Camping.

4. Traveling

Traveling helps me to broaden my perspective, explore the world, and satisfy my curiosity about life.

That’s another favorite hack of mine to recharge my batteries.

Traveling.

5. Align personal and work achievements with breaks

I find that planning time off to coincide with the completion of major personal and work milestones or just after product launches provides a double benefit. It allows me to enjoy the success and recharge before pursuing the next big challenge.

⭐ TL;DR

• Do regular breaks. Recharge your batteries every one or two weekends.

• Do a digital detox from time to time by stepping away from your digital devices.

• Find your preferred type of breaks and recharging activities. Mine are nature and traveling.

• Treat your career as a marathon, not a sprint.

• Align the completion of personal and work milestones with your breaks to enjoy double benefits.

• Regular breaks help maintain stamina, productivity, mental clarity and prevent burnout.

📣 Articles worth reading

• How to Scale an App to 100 Million Users on GCP by

  Neo Kim

• How to Communicate With Impact as a Software Engineer by

  Jordan Cutler
  and
  Jay Sullivan

• Empathy is a superpower in the engineering industry by

  Gregor Ojstersek

• Distributed Services can't exist without Eventual Consistency by

  Raul Junco

• Ask First, Code Later: The single, most important question by

  Fran Soto

🗞️ You may also like

How to improve your focus & productivity with simple Second Brain in Notion?

Stay Positive and “it is what it is” or The Power of Positive Thinking

✌️Get in touch

You can find me on LinkedIn or Twitter.

---

This newsletter is funded by paid subscriptions from readers like yourself.

If you aren’t already, consider becoming a paid subscriber to receive the full experience!

Think of it as buying me a coffee twice a month, with the bonus that you also get all my products for FREE.

You can also hit the like ❤️ button at the bottom to help support me or share this with a friend to get referral rewards. It helps me a lot! 🙏