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Paul Strickland
Paul Strickland

Posted on • Originally published at pestrickland.co.uk

Changing my working day

The latest iteration of my working day is as follows:

  • Run first thing
  • Start work between 07:30 and 08:00
  • Break for 10 minutes every 50 minutes
  • Finish work between 15:30 and 16:00

Moving my running to the morning was originally to avoid the heat that we've been experiencing lately. At weekends I've preferred a morning run for years; the reason I didn't initially do that during the week was this idea that I wanted to get the working day over with as soon as possible. If nothing else, running is a great way to wake up and probably gets my day off to a better start.

The most significant change is the introduction of 10-minute breaks every hour, i.e. 50 minutes working, 10 minutes break. This is similar to the more traditional pomodoro ratio of 25:5 minutes. The 50-minute working window seems quite well suited to me at the moment. It's long enough to get some meaningful work done, but not too long to get bored. And the best part of it so far is that it makes the days fly by. I don't always manage to stop after 50 minutes, and that's OK, but I do try to keep the pace going by having these regular, short breaks.

I'm publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload. You can join in yourself by visiting https://100daystooffload.com.

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