How to use the online timer
Forty-five minutes is a realistic lunch break: enough to eat somewhere other than a desk, walk a little, and return without feeling hurried. It is also the break most likely to be skipped, because the middle of the day is when the morning's work is still unfinished and the afternoon's has already started arriving.
Start the count when you get up rather than when the food appears, and use it to protect the end as much as the beginning. Eating at a desk with one hand on a keyboard is not a break, whatever it does for the inbox. Keep this page open while the count runs, since it lives in the tab and stops when the tab does.
In the hottest months the walk part moves indoors, and forty-five minutes is comfortably enough for a proper meal somewhere with air conditioning. On a Friday, when the working day is shorter and the middle of it belongs to the midday prayer, the shape of the break changes anyway, which is worth planning around rather than discovering at noon.
Common questions
Is eating at my desk a break?
Not really, whatever it does for the inbox. The value is in the change of place and posture, so getting up and going somewhere else is the part worth protecting when the day is busy.
What about Fridays?
The shape of the day is different: the working day is shorter and the middle of it belongs to the midday prayer. Planning around that beforehand works better than discovering it at noon.
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