How to stay productive by taking microbreaks

Remote working is clearly not a fad, with businesses, large and small shifting to fully remote or hybrid working models. In fact, 87% of US workers said they would prefer not to be in the office all the time. 

However, for many remote workers, maintaining productivity can be a challenge. Microbreaks, short pauses during the working day, have emerged as a solution to help workers reset, clear their minds, reduce mental fatigue, and improve their daily productivity. 

With this in mind, we’ll use this article to outline effective microbreak strategies for remote teams, focusing on daily habits such as stretching exercises, quick meditations, and the benefits of brief social interactions. 

We’ll also discuss how microbreaks can be integrated into virtual workflows, using various tools, techniques, and collaboration to maintain high productivity and positive well-being. 

The benefits of microbreaks

Productivity can dip when remote workers continuously work for long hours and try to push through fatigue to clear their to-do lists. This fatigue can grow throughout the week, potentially impacting sleep and having an adverse effect on overall function, not just at work. 

This is why microbreaks are becoming more popular, with many organizations encouraging their remote staff to integrate them into their working day, helping to avoid burnout, improve productivity, and boost job satisfaction. 

Let’s use developers as an example, who are known for working long hours. Microbreaks can help clear the haze that can sometimes arise when completing tedious or difficult tasks such as data extraction, changing platforms, bolstering security, or other tasks requiring a high concentration level. 

No matter the workload, simply pausing for a few minutes to stretch, walking around the room, and maybe grabbing a glass of water can work wonders in terms of resetting the mind. 

Increased productivity 

Concentration and efficiency levels can drop without regular breaks, resulting in reduced productivity. Microbreaks can stop workers from losing attention in the afternoon when energy levels tend to drop, resulting in a more consistent level of work throughout the day. 

A more rested mind is also a more creative one which is why regular short breaks are highly recommended for job roles such as programmers or designers. 

Tiredness throughout the day can also induce stress. When a person becomes stressed at work, their job satisfaction naturally declines, sometimes leading a person to seek out new career opportunities. By encouraging microbreaks, a business can reduce employee churn by allowing remote staff to create workday routines that suit their needs. 

Promote better wellbeing 

The shift to remote working can make it even more difficult for employees to ‘shut off’, with many people working beyond their normal hours and struggling to disassociate their home environment from their work environment, impacting their overall well-being. 

Taking regular microbreaks can provide various mental health benefits and reduce stress. A brief period of meditation a few times a day can be an effective method of improving a person’s mood, support their mental health, and help them to relax. 

These periods of relaxation, combined with team engagement and healthy habits, can ensure remote workers maintain a positive mood throughout the day, reducing the chances of them feeling over-pressured and isolated. 

Boost physical health and avoid burnout

Burnout refers to mental, physical, and emotional exhaustion that can be caused by working long hours. As well as impacting productivity, burnout can be linked to mental health problems, while also having impacts on overall motivation and enthusiasm. 

In a recent study, over 36% of participants experienced cognitive weariness in the workplace, highlighting a widespread issue. 

Additionally, sitting at a desk for long periods, especially when maintaining poor posture can result in poor spine health, as well as other issues such as cardiovascular problems or high blood pressure. 

Don’t forget—microbreaks should involve some sort of stretching, walking, or even gentle exercises such as squats or lunges to improve circulation and relieve pressure on the spine. 

5 effective microbreak strategies

The benefits of microbreaks for remote workers are undeniable, but to be truly effective, they need to be maximized to ensure they have a positive impact on enhancing productivity. Below are five microbreak strategies remote workers can consider to stay at the top of their game. 

1. Take a short walk in a different environment

By changing up their environment and taking a short, brisk walk, a person can completely reset their mind, stretch their muscles, and lower blood pressure. A brief walk in the afternoon each day can avoid a lull in productivity while also offering many health benefits. Heading down to the local park to soak up a little nature is ideal, but it could be as simple as walking to the nearest store. Either option can help a person re-energize so they can return to their desk with a fresh state of mind. 

2. Regular stretches

Regular stretches, perhaps every 30-45 minutes, are extremely beneficial in terms of relieving any muscle tension and improving blood circulation. When stretching, it’s important to target the arms, neck, back, and legs to experience the full benefit. 

This microbreak can also be a prompt to hydrate, head to the kitchen to grab a glass of water, or top up a water bottle. Dehydration is proven to impact a person’s mood and concentration, resulting in reduced performance. 

3. The 20-20-20 rule

The eyes can be subjected to significant strain, especially when working a remote job that involves staring at a computer screen for hours each day. This can be a particular problem for jobs such as content and UX writers, which require a lot of proofreading. To protect the eyes, remote workers can practice the 20-20-20 rule.

The 20-20-20 rule involves taking a 20-second microbreak every 20 minutes and focusing on something that is 20 feet away, allowing the eyes to readjust and avoid strains. Simple desktop notifications can be extremely effective in reminding employees to rest their eyes, an activity that is quite easily overlooked during a busy workday. 

4. Deep breathing and meditation

Deep breathing exercises and meditation help to calm the mind, reduce stress, and allow remote workers to reset so they can perform more efficiently. Taking a break every hour or so to perform one minute of focused, deep breathing can have a big impact on productivity. 

For a quick form of meditation, close your eyes and slowly breathe in and out while saying the words ‘breathe in’ and ‘breathe out’ in your head when you inhale and exhale. 

5. Quick desk exercises

There are many easy desk exercises a remote worker can perform during their microbreaks to improve flexibility and avoid stiffening joints. 

Exercises could include:

• Shoulder blade pinches
• Wrist rolls
• Neck rolls
• Seated torso twist
• Ankle rotations
• Toe and calf raises
• Arm pulses

Educating remote staff on the importance of microbreaks

As part of implementing microbreaks into your work environment, it’s important to communicate the benefits of microbreaks, over sprints or longer breaks, to staff. This can be through internal messaging and various forms of educational and instructive content, which can be easily managed as digital assets and used during onboarding processes for new employees.

Many organizations that have shifted to a remote working model place great importance on developing content that focuses on maintaining a positive well-being. This could be in the form of short video tutorials on how to meditate or perform simple exercises or by deploying apps that prompt employees to take a break and hydrate. 

Providing clear guidelines on remote working practices and how to avoid fatigue is essential for maintaining a happy and productive workforce. Microbreaks are also not specific to industries such as tech, marketing, or data engineering-based roles. Imagine a finance department tackling issues during rapid growth, which is a particularly challenging, but at its core, still monotonous activity. 

Regardless of the job role, all remote workers need to take the necessary breaks to protect their eyes, spine, and overall health. 

How to integrate microbreaks into daily workflows

As an employer, it’s important to take measures to provide direction and assistance to preserve the health and well-being of remote workers. This includes ensuring staff are well-rested and take the necessary breaks. However, to truly make an impact, you need to go a step further

1. Develop a healthy work culture where teams collaborate and remind each other to take a break and look after their mind and body. This could involve group meditation or exercise sessions via video call or employees scheduling daily phone calls to catch up while taking a walk. 
2. Implement a system that reminds employees to take a microbreak every 20-30 minutes, such as setting custom reminders on collaborative platforms like Slack or managers personally reminding their team via a group chat. This can be done in a way that staggers microbreaks throughout the day to ensure there is always a member of staff present to deal with phone calls or handle an emergency. 
3. Create video content that instructs remote workers on how to perform desk exercises and how to meditate. Calming podcasts can also be recorded to help employees relax during breathing exercises. 
4. Issue printed collateral that can be given to employees, informing them of the various activities they can do during their microbreak and their benefits. 
5. Curate wellbeing kits that contain items such as water bottles, green tea, eye masks, cooling spray, and helpful reading material to serve both as something useful and a sign of gratitude. 
6. Request feedback from employees on how they feel microbreaks could be best implemented, the activities they find helpful, and the benefits they have experienced. Sharing positive feedback from colleagues is one of the best ways to promote healthy working habits throughout the workforce. 

Whatever strategy you choose to integrate microbreaks into your remote working practices, it’s important to emphasize their importance in a way that makes employees feel valued and that their well-being is a priority. 

Final thoughts

The value of microbreaks is being recognized by organizations worldwide regarding protecting the well-being of remote workers and enhancing productivity. By taking regular, short breaks, remote workers can refresh and refocus by performing a range of activities such as a brief walk, deep breathing exercises, desk exercises, and stretching. 

Integrating microbreaks into daily workflows is extremely simple and employees can be encouraged to commit to this healthy habit with the help of scheduled reminders and by providing supportive material to ensure they make the most of each break. 

Author bio

Magnus Eriksen is a copywriter and eCommerce SEO specialist with a degree in marketing and brand management. Before embarking on his copywriting career, he was a content writer for digital marketing agencies such as Synlighet AS and Omega Media, where he mastered on-page and technical SEO.