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Ask: How do you decide when to take a break?

2 points by 20andup ↗ HN
The question mostly directed at developers that are working for themselves either as a consultant or an entrepreneur. There is no shortage of work to be done when you are working for yourself, so when do you decide its time to take a break?

What are you working patterns within a day and a week? How long do you work before you decide that its time to take a short break or even a holiday? And does this decision strategy change when working on different tasks?

I am just curious how other developers decide.

1 comment

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smt88
I don't think my experience will be helpful to you because it has a lot to do with my biology, work flexibility, and lifestyle, which aren't necessarily identical to yours.

What I will say that's universal is this: get enough sleep, even if you think you can function without it. Choose a consistent bedtime, and stop using any screens 2 hours before that time. Take those hours to cook, clean, run errands, call family/friends, read, or whatever, but reserve them religiously. Then get as much sleep as your body needs (probably 8+ hours for most people).

I can't find it now, but a study recently came out that people operating on 6 hours of sleep per night didn't feel impaired after 2 weeks, but they were just as impaired as people who had been awake for 24 hours straight. That is somewhat consistent with my experience.