The Exact Amount Of Time You Should Work Every Day

New research reveals exactly how much downtime you should be taking.

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You know that taking frequent breaks is good for your productivity, focus, and creativity, but you just never seem to get around to it.

You feel stressed and exhausted when you hammer away at your keyboard all day, and the evidence is everywhere. A study earlier this year from the University of Toronto on lunch break patterns of office workers revealed the absence of a proper lunch break can actually lower productivity. John Trougakos, associate professor of Organizational Behavior & HR Management, who coauthored the study, argues our brains have a limited pool of psychological energy.

"All efforts to control behavior, to perform and to focus draw on that pool of psychological energy. Once that energy source is depleted, we become less effective at everything that we do," he says.

Recently, the Draugiem Group, a social networking company, added to this growing body of research. Using the time-tracking productivity app DeskTime, they conducted an experiment to see what habits set their most productive employees apart. What they found was that the 10% of employees with the highest productivity surprisingly didn’t put in longer hours than anyone else. In fact, they didn’t even work full eight-hour days. What they did do was take regular breaks. Specifically, they took 17-minute breaks for every 52 minutes of work.

"Turns out, the secret to retaining the highest level of productivity over the span of a workday is not working longer—but working smarter with frequent breaks," wrote Julia Gifford in The Muse when she posted the study’s results. Employees with the highest levels of productivity worked for 52 minutes with intense purpose, then rested up, allowing their brains time to rejuvenate and prepare for the next work period.

The Draugiem Group’s study highlights what researchers have been saying for years—that our brains simply weren’t built to focus for eight-full hours a day. "The best way to refresh your focus is to step away and take a break," says productivity expert Cathy Sexton, who says the results of The Draugiem Group’s study aren’t surprising.

What was particularly surprising about the study’s results, however, was what the most productive individuals did during their breaks. "Those 17 minutes were spent completely away from the computer—not checking email, not on YouTube" says Gifford. Taking a walk, chatting with co-workers (not about work), or relaxing reading a book were some common activities the most productive employees did while on break.

While many of us often feel the need to look like we’re working hard and putting in long hours at our desks, Gifford says the study shows managers the importance of ensuring employees know it’s okasy to step away without fear of appearing lazy or unproductive.

Follow these tips to ensure you’re getting enough breaks in your day:

Schedule breaks into your daily calendar. Ideally every 52 minutes.
Set a timer to remind you when to take your break and when to return to work.
Make realistic to-do lists. "We often bog down our to-do lists and make them not feasible for us to accomplish [plus] we underestimate how long it’s going to take us to do something," says Sexton.
Prioritize tasks. Choose three major tasks to focus on for the day and add other tasks as they pop up throughout the day to a separate list, readjusting your priorities throughout the day if required. It’s a lot easier to look at a list of three tasks than 30. Once you knock off the first three items, choose your next three priorities from your lengthier list.

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[Photo: Flickr user Phil Roeder]

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26 Comments

  • Joe Huergo

    Lisa, I want you to know that I come from a place of love and understanding when I say this, but I'd suck your toes any day

  • Interesting research, but I wish the article mentioned what kind of jobs the subjects had. Working for only an hour before taking a break isn't productive for many types of work. For example writing software code often requires concentration and continual effort for longer periods. Otherwise you risk losing momentum and harming productivity. The same can be applied to detailed financial calculations. However I definitively believe that taking optimal breaks enhances productivity, but the timing is not always one-size-fits-all in my experience.

    -Scott, VacationCounts - Take More Vacation Time Off
  • kirsten

    As usual, corporate culture totally misses the point. "Schedule breaks into your daily calendar, ideally every 52 minutes. Set a timer..." It's not about rigidly scheduled start & stop times, but when your mind needs to come up for air. If you're actually listening to yourself, you'll be able to take a break when you realize you need one, and get back to work when you've had that space and time away from what you're working on.

    In a corporate grind, you're expected to ignore all the signs from your body that tell you "I need to stop" or even "I have an idea brewing", and just push push push. So your timer will go off right in the middle of the productive work you might actually be doing, you'll interrupt it and get up and walk around numbly until the clock says to go back, and it'll take you another ten minutes to figure out where you left off.

    If you're in touch with your breath and body, you'll have a better idea of what you really need. But then you might quit your 9-5 job.
  • Ben Finklea

    I'm sorry, Lisa. While I like the article and even agree (in principle if not in the specifics) with the idea, it's bad science and worse logic.

    "Productive people take 17 minute breaks." is NOT the same thing as "If you take 17 minute breaks then you will be a productive person."

    Correlation <> Causation. If it were so, these would also be true:

    "Happy people eat apples, therefore if you eat apples you are a happy person." "Dead people lie horizontal, therefore if you lie horizontal you are dead." "The president is male, therefore if you are male you are president."

    It just doesn't work out.

    What you might say is that it's worth looking deeper or even trying an experiment. I'm curious about how many people participated in this study, what their particular job descriptions are, and how "productivity" got measured.

  • Jeb Harrison

    When you're 60 and still puttin' in your 8 hours, it simply becomes a matter of diminishing returns. If you don't take those nod-off breaks every hour you'll either be a babbling fool by noon, or...dead.

  • There is an interesting video on YouTube which is a recording of a lecture from Monty Python's John Cleese, in which he discusses creativity and productivity in the work place.

    It is called "John Cleese on Creativity" and having just read your article, Lisa, I HIGHLY recommend you watch the video.

    Creativity favours the relaxed mind and I daresay true productivity follows this.

  • It's interesting when you compare this to the 80/20 principle - the days when my schedule is completely full of billable hours can feel less focused, while the days where maybe only part of the day is working on client projects and the other portion is catching up/marketing/operations, feel far more productive.

  • It is not just a matter of hours on the job but creating the opportunity to give our analytic brains a rest.

    In a world where the "hurry up" rabbit brain is the primary requirement for work we neglect to see that the "slow down" tortoise brain is essential for our most creative thinking.

    One executive installed a shower in his office because he did his best creative thinking there. Another took half an hour a day for meditation. Yet another would jog during the lunch hour break. Turning off our analytical brain helps us to begin to make creative associations so necessary for innovation.

    The message, get off the mental treadmill and and slow down the body and the mind.

    cedricj.wordpress.com Inspiring leaders to inspire others
  • nik_it_as

    working for someone with the terms of today's company world is by definition a stupidity. Move to Asia and stop being a slave. Period. Stupid article. Oh yes!