We live in a world where we are always too “busy.” It may seem impossible to add in some down time or break time between your busy days. However, there are different reasons to why you are so busy. It can be because you have way too much to do due to poor scheduling. Or you are working yourself way too hard and not recognize that your performance is dropping.

My goal in this post is to share with you about the benefits of down time and how it changed my productivity to allow me to do more but spend less time.

Down Time Helps You Retain Information and Make Connections

Your brain operates in two modes. One is “focused mode” and the other is “diffuse mode.” Focused mode is when you are learning something new, writing, working, coding, and etc. Diffuse mode is when your brain is relaxed and in a daydreaming state when you are not thinking so hard. Both modes are necessary for learning and solving new difficult problems.

Relaxation corresponding to daydreaming mode can allow the brain to hook up information and return valuable insights. When you are in focused mode, you are blocking your access to diffuse mode. Diffuse mode helps greatly in solving new and complex problems. To software developers, daydream mode ties closely with incubation and is a vital component to reaching solutions to complex problems.

Down Time Keeps You from Becoming Unfocused

When you are in the “zone” or “flow”, the ideas are flowing and you feel fantastic because you are getting so much done. Unfortunately, that does not last forever. Once you pass your limit to be productive in one sitting, you start to slow down and might feel unfocused.

Your brain is not built for extended hours of focused work, especially work that is cognitively intensive like programming. Luckily, you can remedy this problem partially by taking breaks. By allowing your brain to take brief mental breaks, it will help you stay focused on your task. It is as if you are starting the cycle over again.

Down Time Helps You Re-Assets Your Goals

Down time allows you to take a step back and make sure you are accomplishing the right things to meet your goals. Sometimes when you are in the “zone”, you can go off-track and not realize it. For example, you can run into a roadblock while programming, which you can easily overcome with a few Google searches. Instead, you end up learning about everything that leads to the roadblock you are facing with a refactored codebase just for that one issue.

The example seems silly and on the extreme side, but at one point of your software development career, you may find yourself in a similar situation. I hope that is when you remember this silly example and recognize that you need to take a break.

Examples of Down Time

Daydreaming

Daydreaming leads to creativity. This is when you let your imagination run wild. New and crazy ideas come to you, some of which you might realize is not so crazy after all. While you are daydreaming, you are also giving your brain a mental break from thinking too hard.

Doing Nothing

When you are doing nothing, you are giving your brain a mental break. Eventually, doing nothing will lead to boredom and boredom can trigger your imagination and creativity. When that happens, your mind ends up in a daydreaming state.

Incubating Ideas

Incubating ideas through our subconscious thought is something that many software developers are familiar with, but may not actually realize it. Have you ever experienced a time when a solution suddenly pops into your head? You might have been eating, watching TV, or walking and then suddenly a solution to the problem you are trying to solve appears out of nowhere. On the other hand, maybe one morning after you wake up, you somehow have an answer to the problem you are trying to solve.

Your unconscious thought excels at integrating and associating information. At the subconscious level, your mind is carrying out associative searches across all the information that you know. What this means is that while you are doing things that are irrelevant to the problem at hand, your brain is quietly solving it in the background. This is why sometimes when you are faced with complex issues, it is better not to focus too much energy to solve it actively.

Eat

Your brain is an energy hog. It uses a large portion of your energy when you are constantly giving it a cognitive load. In software developer, this is a common occurrence.

When you eat, you are refueling yourself with energy. Part of that energy gets used up by your brain.

Take a Walk

A short 10-minute walk can work wonders in boosting your creative thoughts. The walk can increase blood flow to the brain, which increases your brain’s performance. The increase performance of your brain allows you to come up with ideas faster and be able to see problems earlier.

Nap

Many of us probably have heard of “power nap.” This is when you take short nap ranging between 10 to 30 minutes. Such a short amount of time may seem useless, but this really works. I find that a 10-minute nap during lunch break does wonders in making me feel refresh for the rest of the day.

Read

Read a book that you enjoy for 10 to 30 minutes as a break. It helps you relax and give your brain a mental break from thinking too hard. When you go back to working in a refreshed state, it can help give you new insights to the problems at hand that you never saw before.

Exercise

Exercise can give you more energy, improve your mood, and help you gain focus. Your workout does not have to be for a long period. It can be as short as 10 minutes and that will already start giving you positive results. I have an entire post dedicated to the benefits of exercise for software developers that you should definitely check out.

Sleep

Sleep is one of the most important forms of downtime for your brain. Sleep plays a major role in memory formation and consolidation. As a software developer, you are constantly learning something new to solve a complex problem, which makes sleep especially important. In addition, sleep also influences your energy level throughout the day.

I have a post dedicated to the benefits of sleep and benefits of sleep for learning that you check out.

Two Ways to Add Some Down Time to Your Day

There are two simple ways for you to add some down time into your schedule as a software developer. One is the Pomodoro technique and the other is a program called Workrave. I will briefly go over them here. If you want to find out more, I have a post dedicated to the Pomodoro technique and Workrave.

Pomodoro Technique

The Pomodoro technique is a common way to be more productive and spend less time doing so. The Pomodoro technique focuses on working in short focused bursts. It works by you setting a timer for 25 minutes to work on a specific task and then taking a 5-minute break. Repeat the cycle for a few more times and then give yourself a longer break.

Workrave

When you are too focused sometimes, you forget to stop. During this period of focused work, time seems to fly by. What Workrave tries to do is to alert you when you have been working on the computer for too long. You get to define how long is “too long.” Therefore, if you wanted, you can align Workrave with the Pomodoro technique.

I hope you found this post helpful. If you found this post helpful, share it with others so they can benefit too.

How do you spend your downtime? If you have not considered down time, do you still feel that way? If you decided to give down time a try, did it make things better for you?

Feel free to leave a comment, send me a tweet, or send me an email at steven@brightdevelopers.com. To stay in touch, you can follow me on twitter.