i like the idea of breaktime accumulating based on the time worked. it makes sense. it also means that after an 8 hour work day i deserve to sit down in the evening and relax for an hour or two without feeling guilty.
however i disagree that an interruption at the door, or going out for errands counts as break time. it depends on what exactly happens, but dealing with an interruption, or driving a car, paying attention to catch a bus or train, are not relaxing. personally i try to combine errands with going for a walk, so that partly counts as a break. but dealing with other people can be stressful (especially for introverts) so that's not a valid break.
for a break you need an activity that you enjoy and that allows you to relax.
when i am dealing with people a lot, then hacking on a side project for fun becomes my break.
when i work alone on the computer, socializing with others can be my break.
but after a day of working and socializing i need some alone time to unwind.
>however i disagree that an interruption at the door, or going out for errands counts as break time.
I think there's two ways to look at this:
1) The breaks are relative to the work. If you're doing a given "job" for all the tasks that entails, anything you're doing that isn't the "job" should be included in the break calculations. Certainly this is how any employer would treat the situation. It doesn't matter that taking your car to the mechanic isn't fun, it's also not part of your job so your employer is going to count it as PTO. Likewise, when allocating your own time to a given job, you should view it the same way.
That certainly makes quite a bit of sense to me. If I'm dreading some contract work, but trying to manage my schedule, allowing myself to procrastinate by choosing an even less worse task (like scrubbing the toilet, or doing yard work) and then also taking additional pleasure breaks is going to drastically reduce the time I'm spending getting paid, and if I'm trying to manage my time that's probably not a good thing.
2) Some people (myself included) can definitely get a "break" from work, even if they're doing a chore. In fact, I did this just last week. I'd spent the entire day beating my head against a task that just wasn't going right. At a certain point, I needed a break but I knew if I hung around I'd keep trying to come back to the task. So I went out and did the grocery shopping for the week instead. That took me away from the task and out of the mindset of being focused on it long enough to come back and tackle things fresh. Was it truly a break in that I got to unwind and relax? Not really. But it was a break in that it served the purposed to give me an escape from the work I was bogged down in that was frustrating me.
Whether something is a break or not in this view is less about "work" vs "leisure" and more your own mental state. If I switch off doing some work task to spend some time on my skunkworks project I'm doing at work, if that re-charges me and gives me the mental capacity to go back to the real work I'm doing, that could be just as much of a "break" as reading a book, even if I was still doing stuff that was for "work".
1) we are not discussing legal or contract breaks, but breaks that help productivity. in germany a legal break is 15 minutes per 3 hours, and a single break must be at least 15 minutes to count as a break. so clearly, what counts as paid work has no bearing on breaks needed for productivity.
breaks for chores and errands can't be avoided, whether they are stressful or not. however, when a family weekend trip is so exhausting that i can't focus on work on monday then this is something i need to take into consideration when planning my free time.
and if i need 15 minutes of break for every 45 minutes of work while in the office then i have to be careful and may need to find a work related task that i can use to get that break effect, and hope that i don't have a micromanaging boss that doesn't allow that skunkworks project you mentioned.
2) of course. i fully agree with you here. it is all about the mental state. which means for each activity i have to consider how it will affect me. an activity that helps get a break for you could be adding more stress for me. it always depends. on some days grocery shopping actually does help me unwind and relax. on others it doesn't. that skunkworks project is also a good example. absolutely.
however i disagree that an interruption at the door, or going out for errands counts as break time. it depends on what exactly happens, but dealing with an interruption, or driving a car, paying attention to catch a bus or train, are not relaxing. personally i try to combine errands with going for a walk, so that partly counts as a break. but dealing with other people can be stressful (especially for introverts) so that's not a valid break.
for a break you need an activity that you enjoy and that allows you to relax.
when i am dealing with people a lot, then hacking on a side project for fun becomes my break.
when i work alone on the computer, socializing with others can be my break.
but after a day of working and socializing i need some alone time to unwind.