Here are some various ideas for stretching the legs or taking your mind off your work, while not appearing to be lazy:
- Eat breakfast at work! I used to bring an instant oatmeal packet and an apple to work every day to eat for breakfast. Not only to I get to walk to the break room to get hot water for my meal, I get a good 5-10 minutes of mindless snacking while staring at the computer.
- Plan out “long distance” trips when you can. This can be a meeting with someone over in another building, a trip to the technical library to get or return a reference book, walking to your car because you forgot something important… whatever. Nothing like stretching your legs or even getting outside for a couple minutes to clear the mind.
- Time your bathroom trips. I know this may sound strange since people tend to take these small breaks whenever they need to rather than want to, but usually your body adjusts it’s schedule quite easily. Try utilize times between 10-11am and 2:30-3:30pm to break up the work day even more.
- Go to meetings. Sure some might be voluntary, and some might even be a waste of time, but these can be good breaks from whatever work you are doing. Even better, you can block off the time on your calendar or leave a little note saying where you are so everyone knows you are doing something work related. This also lets you network with fellow employees and can really help you in the future.
- Bring an mp3 player. Work can be a very distracting place, especially if you work in a cubicle and can hear the person next to you talking about his son’s baseball team lineup every damn day. If I can drown out a lot of the background noise at work, it helps me stay stress-free while working and alleviates my need for breaks. I can also just sit back for a few minutes and listen to music while trying to think things out in my head.
Remember to use these tactics in moderation. The whole point for me is to take small breaks from my work so I can actually perform better in the long run, while not blatantly seeming to be sleeping on the job. Most of being a successful employee at a company is accomplishing things that create value, and making sure people know you accomplish things. It doesn’t help your cause if you are doing a lot of work and people think you are some lazy guy/girl that vanishes at random times during the day and things their office is a lunch room.
It should also be noted that the culture at your office may be completely different, and these tactics may not work in that culture. Software companies can be a little… different.
