{"id":69867,"date":"2023-09-19T00:08:15","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T04:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=69867"},"modified":"2023-09-19T00:08:15","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T04:08:15","slug":"how-to-take-lunch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/how-to-take-lunch\/","title":{"rendered":"How to take lunch"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n
Recently, I challenged the hosts of the productivity podcast,\u00a0On the Reg<\/a>, to take a lunch break four days a week. You can\u00a0hear it here<\/a>\u00a0(from 30:34 to 35:02). My challenge to the hosts Jason Downs and Inger Mewburn was simple:<\/figure>\n
    \n
  1. You have to be away from your desk for an hour.<\/li>\n
  2. You can do no work during that hour.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Their response surprised me. While acknowledging the clear mental and physical advantages of taking a break, Inger said, \u201cI just don\u2019t know if I could do that.\u201d Jason said the same, and that he time-shifted some of his lunch break to the end of the day so that he could leave work early. After some thought, he decided that a lunchtime yoga class might be beneficial. That is, he could take lunch if there was a worthwhile activity to fill the void.<\/p>\n

    I have the zeal of a convert when it comes to taking an hour-long lunch break. I used to work all the hours of the day until I realised that I wasn\u2019t getting work done any faster. I was effectively just giving myself more work. Most of my work is transactional \u2013 someone gives me work, I work on it, then I pass it on (often passing it back to them). They work on it, and pass it on (often sending it back to me). If I do an extra hour of work in the day, I\u2019m not getting more work done. I\u2019m just increasing the rate of work. I\u2019m effectively making work arrive back on my desk faster.<\/p>\n

    What\u2019s worse, I\u2019m giving my employer an hour of my time for free. I love working at a university but I don\u2019t love it that much. I\u2019m not naive. Finally, my inner child said, \u201cThat hour\u2019s mine \u2013 give it back\u201d.<\/p>\n

    So, how could\u00a0you<\/em>\u00a0take up this challenge? It\u2019s one of those things that\u2019s extremely simple yet also extremely complex, mostly because our work habits are often well ingrained and structured around other life demands.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Here\u2019s what you do:<\/p>\n

    Tell people you are taking lunch<\/h3>\n

    First, block an hour out of your calendar and make it a repeating daily event. It\u2019s easy. Go and do that now \u2013 I\u2019ll wait.<\/p>\n

    By doing this, you are giving yourself permission to take a regular break every day. Your first few weeks will be bumpy because there might already be things in your calendar. Don\u2019t try to rearrange them. Just move your lunch to a spare hour, if you have one. You might find yourself taking lunch at 11 am or 3 pm in that first week or two. Stick with it. Over time, it will even out. In my experience, most of your colleagues will respect your choice.<\/p>\n

    If you want to level up, find the setting that allows other people to see what you are doing in that hour, and make it public. Your workmates can then see that you are taking lunch. If someone really needs you, they can make an informed decision about whether they need to meet with you at that time or whether their meeting can wait until later on.<\/p>\n

    Take your lunch<\/h3>\n

    I take my lunch to work. Partly this is an economic choice. Buying lunch on campus would cost me about $50 per week. Taking lunch from home costs about $5 \u2013 $10 per week, as it is a small portion of last night\u2019s dinner. Partly, it is healthy. The portions that I would buy for lunch would be bigger, with more fat and more sugar in them (that\u2019s why it tastes so good, peeps).<\/p>\n

    Mostly, though, I like the ritual. My employer provides a great tea room with a refrigerator, microwave, sandwich toaster, plates, cutlery, chopping boards and a dishwasher. At the start of the day, I put my lunch in the fridge. At lunchtime, I take it out and prepare it. At both those times, I bump into colleagues that I wouldn\u2019t normally talk to. We chat. It\u2019s nice.<\/p>\n

    I\u2019ve seen people prepare some amazing lunches using the limited resources in the lunch room. Amazing salads, decadent toasties, delicious fruit salads. People who start work early make breakfast. It\u2019s a whole new world in there.<\/p>\n

    Be warned that many tea rooms do not offer all those things. Check what resources you have before you make your plans. You might need to bring your own cutlery, or even your own plate. I carry a lovely little\u00a0compact cutlery set<\/a>\u00a0that was the gift from a previous boss.<\/p>\n

    Find nice things to do<\/h3>\n

    Blocking out the time is the easy bit. The hard part is actually taking the break. Here is what I do; it might work for you, too.<\/p>\n

    If there is no convenient lunch room, think about what communal eating areas are nearby. On a university campus, that might be a student area. On an urban campus, it might be a nearby food court. When the weather is nic,e it might be a lovely space outside. Or book a meeting room. It depends a lot on what you want to do \u2013 if you want to read a book, the meeting room will be quiet. If you want to chat with a friend, the food court ambience might work better for you.<\/p>\n

    Like going to the gym, taking lunch is easier if you do it with someone else. I have some regular lunches with friends each month. Most work on campus. One likes to come to campus because he works at home (nearby) and it gets him out of the house.<\/p>\n

    Other times, there are activities that happen at lunchtime, like Jason\u2019s aspirational yoga class. Our campus has a regular board games group that meets at lunchtime. I don\u2019t get to that as often as I would like but it has been fun when I\u2019ve attended.<\/p>\n

    Most of the time, though, I try to get off campus. I eat my lunch (which takes about half an hour), and then I walk for fifteen minutes in one direction and then back again. I might listen to a podcast or just spend time in my own head. It gives me a great break from work, and I get some exercise.<\/p>\n

    Occasionally (like today), I do some work on another project. I\u2019m writing this blogpost during my lunchtime. Other times, I plot out what is going to happen next in my regular roleplaying game. It gives me a break from the work that I\u2019m doing every day.<\/p>\n

    What counts as work<\/h3>\n

    In the discussion that Jason and Inger had on the podcast, Inger said that she is often nerding out about work with her lunch companions. That seems OK to me. It\u2019s also OK to have lunch with your\u00a0bitch buddy on whingeing Wednesdays<\/a>. Some of us do a lot of \u2018para-work\u2019 \u2013 work that we do because we love it, even though we aren\u2019t paid for it. Like this blogpost.<\/p>\n

    To my mind, there is a difference between meeting about a current project over lunch and having a good goss about the university in general over lunch. The former is focused and instrumental. It is something that you might report back to a supervisor about. It doesn\u2019t give you a break from work \u2013 it is work. The latter is wide ranging and therapeutic. It is social. It does give a break from the things that you are dealing with, day to day. It definitely isn\u2019t something that you would produce a set of minutes for. To my mind, it doesn\u2019t count as work. We have colleagues at work who are friends, and we have colleagues at work who are colleagues. I\u2019m encouraging you to have lunch with your friends.<\/p>\n

    Our work should not be so busy that we don\u2019t have time to nourish our bodies and minds. You have the legal right to a lunch hour. Take your lunch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Recently, I challenged the hosts of the productivity podcast,\u00a0On the Reg, to take a lunch break four days a week. You can\u00a0hear it here\u00a0(from 30:34 to 35:02). My challenge to the hosts Jason Downs and Inger Mewburn was simple: You have to be away from your desk for an hour. You can do no work […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[434626],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-69867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-lunch-break"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to take lunch - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/how-to-take-lunch\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to take lunch - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Recently, I challenged the hosts of the productivity podcast,\u00a0On the Reg, to take a lunch break four days a week. 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