In “Kill your Chair,” Alexander Kjerulf’s suggests people sitting at desks should get up and move around every 30 minutes. That’s mind blowing to me so I decided to take his advice.
I downloaded and installed a free digital stop watch called “Cool Timer” . There’s also an Internet stop watch at Timeme.com.
Tuesday morning at 7 a.m. I set the stop watch for 30 minutes and went to work. Every 30 minutes a fog horn sounded and I briskly left my office, waved to the receptionist and took a 2.5 minute walk around the building.
Here are my observations
- Slicing the day into 30 minute segments rather than one hour segments created two deadlines per hour. I accomplished more.
- Taking a break every 30 minutes increased my ability to focus and stay on task.
- You might think it was disruptive but it wasn’t.
- Walk like you’re on a mission or people will interrupt you.
- I tend to lower my head when thinking so I intentionally held my head high, observed my surroundings, listened for sounds, and breathed deeply.
- If no one was looking, I raise my hands over my head and stretch. (It helped that it was sunny.)
Results
I love doing this. I’m continuing this practice until I find a reason to stop.
If you can’t leave your office, try standing up and moving around once every 30 minutes. If you are at home with the kids you need to sit down for 2.5 minutes every 30 minutes, if you dare!
Read more about getting out of your chair at: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/stand-up-while-you-read-this/?em
Why don’t you take the challenge and try this for a day? Let me know what happens.
Anyone already doing something like this? What are your thoughts?
Read the follow-up post – 2.5 minutes that changed my day – community update
Leadership Freak
Dan Rockwell