S2:E07 - Taking Breaks

Jeremy: Hi folks.

Welcome to the retrospective.

This is a podcast where we explore the world of engineering leadership.

I'm Jeremy.

And as always with me is Peter And the format of our podcast is

Peter and I taking turns to cover a topic in a little bit more detail.

Our goal is to make the topics actionable and to cover them in about 30 minutes.

So, yeah, Peter, what's the topic that you wanted to talk about today?

Péter: well, it's very topical.

This is going live on the 24th of December.

So I was thinking about, uh, talking about breaks, taking a break from work

and just slowing down a bit, I want to walk around this topic a bit holistically,

cause, I think a lot of people are naturally thinking about vacations and

the holiday season that's coming up now when they're hearing the word break.

But, I hope that by the end of the episode, I showed everyone that there

are different sizes of breaks and all of them have a very important role

in resilience, energy recharge and even mental health and wellbeing.

Jeremy: yeah, I think this is a very timely topic from many perspectives, not

just because we're putting this out during The Christmas holiday break that many

people are going to be taking, I hope.

Um, it's interesting because I read in one of the recent

pragmatic engineer, newsletter articles that there's, an increase.

In, um, in burnout and, uh, middle management.

And this is relates to an article in a fortune magazine, which is not

really focused on engineering managers, but just middle managers in general.

basically the main point that they were saying was that they're predicting

a crash for managers because, a lot of middle management roles

have been cut over the last year.

A lot of layoffs.

That's the layer that many companies wanted to remove,

to save money at the same time.

It's a role that, you know, managers often are encouraged to spend a lot of

time, seeing how are their team members and making sure they're doing okay,

and especially during this period.

But the managers of those managers tend not to do that at the same, rate.

So as you move from an , individual contributor to a manager, you

often actually have less support and less care because you're

expected to manage it for yourself.

and right now I think specifically in engineering management, we're expecting

managers to be more hands on, closer to the code, and do everything else as well.

And it's actually making the job super, super hard.

So this, how do you survive in this environment?

it's a, Even

Péter: Yeah, that's a very good addition.

And if you read the recent, Dora report, it showed also that, unclear

organizational priorities, it's the biggest contributor to burnout.

And if you're in line management, you're managing a team of engineers.

I would argue that this is hitting you the hardest because you need to provide clear

priorities for your team, but you lack the support from your manager and from above.

Of stability and the clear non changing organizational priorities.

So it's a, it's a really hard situation to be in.

So as you said, it's, uh, it's very timely both because of the year and both because

of this, unfortunate coincidence of, the situation for engineering managers, so.

Yeah, I would urge all of our listeners to pay attention and do

some breaks, during this season.

and after in the year, that's about,

Jeremy: So can you give me a short synopsis of, you

know, the whole topic, Peter?

And then let's dive into the

Péter: let's do that.

So I'm going to talk about three kind of breaks.

I broke them down by sizes and this is not my work.

There are studies that show the impact of these different sizes of, breaks.

I'm going to start with the macro breaks, the big ones.

So everybody associates breaks with vacations and holiday season, mezzo

breaks that are smaller, like, one hour, two hour during a day, a few times per

week, and then micro breaks, which are my favorite because they are really

frequently happening during the day.

And if done well, then they can have a strong positive

impact on your energy levels

Jeremy: yeah I love it.

I love , the way that the, those are broken down.

Um, honestly, I think I'm biased and mainly thinking about the bigger breaks.

Péter: I think everyone, like before I learned about this, there was a

course I did, last year or two years ago that, that helped me realize

these and formalize these categories.

And before that I was thinking like, okay, I'm looking forward to August

because I'm going to take a big break in August and, and then just

pushing in the hours before that.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Yeah.

That's exactly it.

Even in my career, I've taken several sabbaticals and I've mainly, you know,

I've used those to have, some kind of level of, um, how do I put it?

Recovery in between, in certain phases of my career.

Um, but yeah, focusing on the smaller ones is an important factor in avoiding getting

to some level of burnout over time.

Péter: Definitely, yeah.

So let's start with the big one still, because I think a lot of people know

that it's important to take a week or two weeks of vacations, but, maybe the aspect

I can talk about here that's maybe new is the preparation and execution of it.

it's critical to plan well ahead, get the necessary approvals, put the dates

in your calendar, discuss with your team take it into account when planning.

Um, what's less frequently practiced that everywhere is that I think you

should be entirely cut off of work when you're going on a vacation, meaning you

shouldn't check emails, shouldn't check Slack I know that some of our listeners

will say that I can't afford that because there might be an emergency, an

incident or something where I'm needed.

It's fine.

Leave a contact number with your team or your manager and be explicit that you're

not going to check email, but you're thankful for them that you're allowed to

do this because You know, that they are going to call you if you're really needed.

It happened to me also, uh, two years ago, I was on a big summer vacation

and I got a phone call from one of my peers, another senior engineering manager

about someone in my team, uh, quitting.

And I was grateful that they called me so I could give him my peace

of mind, and opinions about how to handle the situation when we hanged

up and we dealt with the issue.

I didn't feel the need to check email and Slack because I knew that if

something similar would come up or if the situation would have escalated,

they would have called me again.

And this gives you a great peace of mind to to be able to disconnect.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Yeah.

Now I make it a habit to sign out of Slack on my phone.

Péter: yeah, same.

Jeremy: it's like the number one email.

Honestly, I don't have a, any, I don't check email on my phone

Péter: I guess it depends on.

The work culture because some companies are very heavy on email still and uh,

some there's just nothing in email

Jeremy: Yeah, on this, I think there's an important part of what

you said about planning ahead.

And for me, planning ahead, isn't just about organization of work and making

sure things are covered, uh, you know, and, and, and all the rest, as we go

into this holiday period, end of year, people are often reflecting, doing,

looking back at the past year, planning the current year ahead and so on.

The thing that I would say is look at the kind of holidays you This year,

think about the kind of holidays you'd like and what you want out of them.

Um, I know Peter, you have a few really nice rituals.

You do at least one bike packing trip a year, you know, a few things.

And I think planning those kind of adventures too, and not be, I think the

planning isn't just about the timing and then I'm going to go on holiday, but it's

being very, you know, Specific about what you're trying to get out of your holidays.

And obviously if you have kids, you're probably being forced to

plan ahead already because of the school holidays and everything else.

But I think that's a really important part of planning ahead.

Isn't just the scheduling, but the,

Péter: The content

Jeremy: the content of it.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Péter: yeah.

Yeah, that's that's a very good tip.

So you're sure that when you're back from vacation?

You're not like oh shit two weeks has passed and I didn't go biking.

I didn't do the hike I didn't I don't know work on that little woodworking project.

I wanted to do or whatever.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good tip

Jeremy: Yeah, I didn't have the weekend with my mates that I haven't seen

Péter: Oh, yes, yeah

Jeremy: months to catch up and just, you know, chill out together

or whatever, you know, those are the, those are really energizing

and you need to plan those ahead.

Péter: And my advice is that don't think about work, but what I mean is don't

think about the day to day and don't think about your current work, but what

vacations can be good for is thinking more holistically about your career.

Like, am I in a good place?

Am I moving the right direction?

Cause when you're away.

After a few days or a week you gain some distance and perspective

that helps you steer your career in the direction that you want to.

So I saw, especially with sabbaticals, I, that was even a running joke in

one of my earlier companies that, um, it was a benefit that if you work

there for two years or three years or something, you could take a one month

sabbatical or something like this.

Jeremy: Um,

Péter: Um, Everyone who took this and returned quitted in, in six months after.

Which, which really scared us because we didn't want people to leave.

But on the other hand, it made me happy for them.

They gained this perspective and they realized that they already

spent like five years, six years, 10 years at this company.

They want to try something else and they couldn't make this decision

while being in the day to day.

So.

To wrap it up, I advise you to distance yourself from the day to day during

this vacation, both to recharge and both to get some perspective

about where your life is going.

Jeremy: Exactly.

I think, um, Bill Gates does a reading holiday fairly often, and that's another

good example of that kind of reflection.

Péter: Nice.

Jeremy: Okay.

All right.

So.

Péter: I mini tip, but I found it very useful.

When you're planning your holiday in the first days, when you're back, do some

big one day or half day block outs of in your calendar for catching up, because

you really want to avoid trying to jump on a running train when you're back.

So, allocate at least a day to catch up.

So people don't book meetings in your calendar.

Just a mini tip.

I found it very useful.

Jeremy: Yeah, great point that if you come back to work and you have to try

and run full speed and at the same time catch up with, you know, a week

or two weeks, you basically lose the effects of your holiday instantly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Péter: Indeed.

And, and, and it's very internal because when I'm returning in August

from a two week, three week holiday, I have some internal guilt that

others were working and I was not.

So I'm trying to prove myself and jumping quickly into meetings and

everything, others are very understanding.

That you need some time to catch up.

So just be very explicit about this, block it in your calendar.

It's perfectly fine.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Okay.

Peter, I get the idea of this, the big macro breaks, but what are meso breaks?

Can you help me understand

Péter: So mezzo breaks are like one, one and a half hour activities during the day.

Maybe it's easier to understand if I say some examples, like, instead of eating

at your computer or quickly grabbing something, you go out for a proper

lunch or you take a longer walk during the day or you watch a webinar about

the topic that interests you or I would even say having a proper day closing

ritual at the end of the day where you, assess what you achieved set some

goals for the next day and everything just this closing ritual, I would say

that's also a kind of a mezzo break.

It's, um, it just helps you maintain resilience and, uh, some physical

and mental recovery in the day to day

so then these mezzo breaks,, put it in your calendar.

Um, I, I really like putting everything that's about time in my calendar, both

to keep my plans and force me to Go with the plan that I had, but also to

signal to my team, both my availability and both that this is okay to do that.

If I explicitly, and my calendar is open for within the team.

So that's a cultural thing.

Some companies don't do that, but I really like that because it helps

people see what I'm doing and decide if they can try to schedule a conflict.

So, Putting in something like going for a walk after lunch or putting in

a two hour lunch break not every day.

I'm not saying that, but putting this explicitly just communicates

that this is okay to do.

And I don't expect people on my team to grind 10 hours every day without a break.

Cause, cause that's burning them out.

Jeremy: Yeah, I think this is the bit where this can make a big difference.

Um, if you know, to how you, Come out the end of your day.

Do you feel like you've been in the, in the ringer and you just survived and

then you collapse and you're no good.

Or, do you feel like, you had a sustainable pace?

Péter: I would say it's even longer term.

Like I feel the effect of this rather towards the end of the week.

So if I could do this during the week, then my Thursdays,

Fridays and weekends are easier

Jeremy: There's a lot more to unpack on this beyond the breaks and kind of

time management tasks and calendars and so on that you went into.

But what I would say is that most of us, when we're in crunch and basically

I'm a major, I am, I'm an offender for this is the things that I drop

are those, you know, I, I don't go outside then I won't go for the walk.

I won't do any exercise.

I, I cut all those things to fit in.

Work and I prioritize work first.

So, it's a good reminder.

Um, hard, hard, hard to do.

Péter: It's easy to drop this, but it's much easier to not do it at all.

If you're not even putting it to the, to your calendar.

So it's the end of the year.

Now, everybody's doing new year's resolutions.

Maybe this is something you could try to do, not just you, Jeremy, but our

listeners, like, uh, what does good look like for you on a personal level?

How often do you want to take a one hour walk once a week, twice a week,

put it as a recurring event in your calendar now, and then you're still

free to move these a little bit and adjust for your regular meetings.

But at least you have something in your calendar.

I read it somewhere.

I really liked it that a to do list that's not in a calendar is a wishlist.

What you're getting accomplished, it starts out by being a

block in your calendar.

Cause otherwise you're just wishing you would walk or wishing you would exercise.

And it's not going to happen.

Jeremy: I've tried every approach to personal time management and time

blocking is the only one that seems to be effective for me, at least in my schedule.

So one thing that I find helpful is this device to create an ideal.

Week calendar, so like create a separate calendar, you know, so you

have multiple calendars, create a separate calendar, plug in your ideal

week you know, so what time you wake up, what you do, time for your morning

routine, if you do a walk in the morning or you, do exercise or whatever.

What your ideal slots are for lunch.

Maybe you want to go running during lunch several times a week or whatever it is.

The family time in the evening, et cetera, et cetera.

What your ideal bedtime is so have a kind of like a ideal schedule, put it

out there and overlay that and look at your current schedule and try and

manage to get your current schedule.

Into, match a little bit with your ideal schedule.

So

Péter: I really like that.

Jeremy: you really, um, it's again, I think what's really helpful is you, I

put my ideal calendar when I look back at my week and I kind of cry a little

bit these days, but it's triggering at least me to think about it.

And In your reviews, and then what you can do is you can try, okay,

I'll try and fix this one thing about my schedule, my habits.

So, yeah, um,

Péter (2): Yeah I really like that.

And I, there's another respect while I like it.

And I think I'm going to give this a try because it's a very good idea.

The aspect I like is that when you're working on your ideal week calendar,

it gives you an opportunity to realize that maybe your ideals are unrealistic.

Maybe all the things to do in a week require 48 hours per day, and then

you can make the hard decisions.

Time management, task management, there is only one hard decision.

to prioritize what want to work on, what is important for you.

And it forces you to make this decision very early.

Like, uh, sure.

I want to make a big bike trip every day and I want to

cook something new every day.

And I want to spend time.

Spend time with my kids and I wanna do all of my hobbies and everything.

And when I try to put them in an ideal calendar, I realize that it's

not realistic, and then I'm forced to make, uh, decisions that okay, maybe

one hour per per week for cycling enough, or maybe one big trip per month.

And yeah.

I love that.

I, that's something gonna try.

Thanks,

Jeremy: Yeah, because that's been a hard realization when I do that is I can't

do everything I really wanted to do.

Or my, like your eyes are bigger than your stomach.

Péter: Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

And the hard thing is, and we are really going off topic, but I

love this topic because the hard thing is when you realize that

, prioritization is not about finding.

What's good and what's bad and separating it.

But you need to make a choice between very good, very important, very impactful

priorities, and that's super hard.

Like, should I prioritize my hobbies, my family, my work, my, my

mental health, my physical health?

Uh, it's really hard.

Adulting.

Jeremy: you look at your ideal, then you look at the reality and you ask

yourself, wow, the reality tells me that I did prioritize something different.

Like in my case, I didn't prioritize my health.

I didn't prioritize exercise.

Uh, okay.

So then I don't value exercise.

Is that what I, who I want to be?

And.

You know, you're right.

It can trigger a good retrospective.

Um, honestly, I have to say, I look forward to my end of year review.

So as people are going to take their macro breaks.

One thing I recommend is an end of the year you definitely reflect back.

So that's something that I'm going to be, that's definitely an input

that's going into my bigger break.

And hopefully then I can replan how I do some of my ideal week.

Péter: Yeah.

And going back to our topic prioritizing exercise, prioritizing mental health, it

has a positive impact on your work also.

So

Jeremy: Yeah.

Péter: uh, it's, there is no excuse.

You cannot say that, uh, at this part of my career, I need

200 percent focus on my work.

Yeah, sure.

That's what you want to do.

Do that.

But in order to be efficient in that, you need to pay attention to your

physical health and mental health.

Jeremy: Exactly.

Okay.

That makes sense.

Then explain to me what the micro breaks are.

Is this like when your watch buzzes and then you have to

stand up or what does that mean?

Péter (2): Could be.

Yeah.

I mean, micro breaks they are taking between a few minutes and I don't

know, like a couple of minutes or sometimes even seconds, this

can be considered a micro break.

I'm talking about, uh, what you said.

Yeah.

When your, your watch buzzes that it's time to stand up, then

you stand up and stretch a bit.

It can take two minutes maybe, but it's really helps you, um, Physically

also to help your circulation, but also mentally to get some distance.

Am I doing the right stuff?

Am I working on the good important things you can?

Another good example is taking some deep breathing exercises.

Um, you know me, I'm a very punctual person.

I try never to be late from meetings, which means that oftentimes I'm

the first one to join a meeting.

And, um, I used to use this time to review the agenda or just, you know,

browse the Reddit, check some Slack rooms.

Nowadays, what I'm trying is to stay in front of the Empty room and just

breathe deeply do some exercises.

Think about what I want from this meeting and just stay in the present

and enjoy this few seconds of break.

And I found that it really helps both my mood and and my resilience during the

day and call to, to not start something new in the beginning of a meeting.

Um, this is, this micro bakes are especially useful

for back to back meetings.

Another quick tip, uh, if you're using Google calendar set up speedy meetings, it

means, uh, by default meetings are going to be scheduled 25 minutes or 50 minutes

instead of half an hour and one hour.

And it allows you to, if you're working remotely, get

a break or just stretch a bit.

And if you're working in an office, then go to the different

meeting room and not be late.

Jeremy: Yeah, speedy meetings is something I've ritually done everywhere.

I've worked for quite a long time.

I will say though, sometimes.

It's very hard to stick to that last five minutes because it's

like a, it's always like a buffer time that you can always use.

And the worst is when you have half the team in the office, they're always

late because you have to kick someone out of a meeting room and whatever.

Péter: but actually, if the organization is disciplined enough then they

are living on time, even if they couldn't finish, and this allows

people to use the meeting rooms

Jeremy: not always easy.

You have to kick, you know, a boss out of the room and depends on the

company culture and all the rest.

But yeah, I,

Péter: but let's talk about how to use this few minutes.

Cause there's the opposite side that you schedule a meeting for 25 minutes and you

manage to finish on time or even finish a bit earlier and you have a little extra

time it's a typical pattern for managers to pick something from their virtual

backlog or real backlog and just answer some emails, uh, catch up on Slack rooms.

I would advise not to do that.

Cause this.

robs you from the positive impact of these micro break

that you have between meetings.

So get up from the computer, grab a glass of water, uh, stretch a bit, just,

you know, stare into the sun, whatever.

Just yeah, relax.

Uh,

Jeremy: Yeah, I think you pile on the stress if you use those moments in between

to, run on the hamster wheel a little bit.

Whereas if you like I, I always, I have, I think one tip that I remember from is

you look far away and you need to get your eyes like looking, changing focus.

And, um, I like to stand up and look out the window just for a moment, because if

I don't, and I just, basically have like a dinosaur kind of posture, more and more

hunched and more, you know, it's not good.

And then I get to the end of the day and I'm really tense and my shoulders

and my neck are in a really bad way.

So it's like physical signs tell you, are you doing it right or not,

Péter: Yeah, and you know what?

It's really, really evil how our bodies work because you could do this without

any repercussions when you were in your 20s or maybe even 25, 30, but both of

us are in our 40s now and if we do this for a day or two, like, uh, I, my neck

is killing me now because I, a few weeks ago I had a stressful preparation and

I neglected taking breaks, I needed to finish a presentation and everything.

And it's really, uh, It really shows after.

So it's like, yeah, like car maintenance, like you change the oil every year you do

these regular checkups, uh, not because it, it helps in this moment, but you do

it for the longterm resilience and health.

Yeah.

Jeremy: And is there any science to all of this, Peter?

Or is this just like good common sense,

Péter: No, no, no.

There, there's a lot.

We're going to link it in the show notes, like, there is.

Significant increase in vigor, for example, for people who are taking

breaks there is this desk time dot com time tracking software company

that were doing some studies about the ideal time of work and break.

Earlier, they found it 52 minutes of work followed by 17 minutes of break

is the most ideal for performance, but they switched it now to 112 minutes

of work and 26 minutes of break.

I'm laughing at it because I found these widely artificial, uh, sure.

I'm pretty sure the data points, but I think everyone is different

and I think whatever works for you, you should stick to it.

Um, I think this is the time to mention the Pomodoro technique and timeboxing.

Both are working very well.

You set a time box of 45 minutes, 50 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever

works for you with a clear outcome that you want to achieve.

You work on this, uh, set a timer, a Pomodoro timer, and then you

take a break and then do this kind of sessions, multiple ones per day.

Uh, I found it working very well for me.

Thank you.

I I can concentrate easier if I know that I have only one focus during this session

and I can close emails , everything without guilt, because I know that I

have only one goal for this 40 minutes.

And, um, one interesting lesson for me was that the.

Pauses in these sessions are equally important.

When the timer is off, I often find myself in the middle of flow and I really don't

want to stop because it's very, you know, it's, it's a good feeling to see progress

and work on something being deep in it.

But I found that if I skip on the breaks and continue then by the end

of the day I'm much less energized.

And so on, on the long run, I advise everyone to keep it.

And, um, actually it's.

easier to pick up on a task if you leave it, if you leave something in the middle.

One of the writers were saying something, I don't remember who, maybe Hemingway, but

Jeremy: Yeah.

Yeah.

Péter: that.

They stopped working when a sentence is half finished, because it's easier to

pick up the continuation of the thought than ending at the end of a chapter.

And then you

Jeremy: Having a blank page.

Péter: Having a blank page is super blocking.

So this is what I try to do in work also.

And if I'm coding something or writing an article presentation, something

I just stop, I just stop on the timer rings and get away from it.

And it's easier to pick up the thread.

Jeremy: I have to say, like coding, um, yeah, I like it like half finished,

but honestly I find it really hard.

I'm maybe it's my OCD or I don't know what, like, but I find

it really hard to leave a half finished line of code or whatever.

I want to get it working.

I want that little buzz, that next

Péter: Same.

Yeah.

It's really hard.

It's really hard, but, uh, okay.

So don't switch your work style.

Just make an experiment next time, treat it as an experiment.

Next time, set up a timer and when it rings, walk away from the

computer and just see the effect.

Uh,

Jeremy: yeah.

Péter: it's not that hard

Jeremy: we're going to

Péter: to context.

Okay.

Jeremy: This is brilliant, Peter.

I really think the topic is great and hopefully people

find it useful and actionable.

Um, we're actually coming to the end of season two.

Season two has been an experiment evolve the format a little bit.

Um, and I was curious, what do you think we haven't covered on this topic?

And, as we look forward , what would you love to cover around this in season three?

Péter: So, so on this topic, so just to summarize, we talked about the

importance of taking macro breaks, meso breaks and micro breaks or micro breaks.

I advise everyone to balance the three and have some of them all.

What we didn't talk about that Could be a very interesting discussion

is the team aspect of this.

Like how does taking a break for a team look like on all the three sizes,

like, uh, I would say that maybe a team building event can count as a

meso break or maybe even a macro one.

Having an icebreaker.

in the beginning of an update call can be a micro break.

That's something I didn't think much about yet, but I think

this can be an interesting topic and season three, I don't know.

I really liked the new format.

I think we should continue to this back and forth of topic, uh, responsibilities.

And I really liked the target audience.

We are aiming for engineering managers who want to learn about this.

Jeremy: Yeah, um,

Péter: What about you?

Jeremy: so, um, yeah, I think the team aspect is really important,

getting, and I think maybe we can tackle that rhythm of the team a little

bit more, um, in, in season three.

I really enjoyed season two, um, I hope that audience finds it.

More actionable and helpful, I will say the stats that I've seen, we seem to have

a little bit more listen time from people.

So that, that's great.

As you listen to this, if you can drop us a note to let us know what

you think and how we can improve that would, I would really appreciate that.

I know that Peter and I are going to do a bit of a

retrospective on the retrospective.

Oh, your feedback on that would be great.

Péter: And thanks a lot for sticking with us, uh, this year.

Yeah, I have an ambitious attainable and, uh, resilient 2025.

Jeremy: Yeah.

Yeah.

Wish you all the best for the, for the year ahead and,

uh, appreciate your support.

Péter: See you next year.