We are spending more and more time at our computers; you don’t have to work in the IT field to find yourself staring at a screen for hours on end. Because we spend entirely too much time in such a state, carpal tunnel is a very real problem most everyone will face at some point unless our habits change. Studies show that even taking just taking a break of a few minutes for every hour of use is often enough to minimize any of the repetitive stress injuries that can occur. However, RSI or carpal tunnel continues to plague us because we become some involved in our computing activities that we forget to pause for those few precious minutes.
Workrave is a free utility for Windows and Linux that can aid in gently reminding you when it’s time to take a computing break. Once installed and running from the desktop tray, Workrave encourages you to take micro-pauses and full rest breaks as you go about your business. The timing intervals are fully configurable by the user; Workrave defaults to every 2 minutes for micro-pauses and every 45 minutes for a full break. You can also place a daily limit on your computer usage – though all of these pauses, breaks, and limits work on the honor system in that it’s ultimately up to you to if you indeed break or not.
While running, Workrave provides a graphical progress bar regarding your work vs rest status. If you step away from the computer or otherwise pause in your mousing and typing, Workrave will automatically pause all the countdown timers. This prevents you from going to get a coffee and coming back only to be told to take a break! You’d quickly get in a habit of just ignoring the software if this occurred.
After the 2 minute timer expires a dialog popup appears that encourages you to take a micro-break. Attempting to mouse-over the dialog causes it to jump around your screen, away from your cursor.
Instead, the popup, if left alone, will transition to a second popup where you are instructed to take a 30 sec pause in your work flow.
After 45 minutes have passed Workrave will instruct you to take a longer break – 10 minutes, at which point you can participate in a few exercises aimed to relieve the stress in your joints and tendons that develops after long sessions. It’s surprisingly effective in keeping everything loose and as we’ve all heard, prevention is the best medicine to any ailment.
Now, if you’re like me, you are probably thinking some of this is a little over-bearing and annoying to be effective. Workrave allows you to define the timers between the various states of breaks – or even turn off timers. I find the micro-breaks a bit over the top so I disable those, as well as the daily limit which just isn’t feasible in my line of work. However, the full on rest breaks every 45 minutes is rather effective for me and I try to respect it’s prompting because I know what my wrists, shoulders, and back feel like when I don’t!
