The BreakTimer suggests when to take breaks based on a model of your body's exposure to strain. Unlike a break timer that suggests breaks strictly on time passage, keystroke count, or mouseclick count, this model is based on both how much you use the mouse and keyboard as well as how you use them. The model takes into account typing intensity, quantity and quality of keystrokes/mouse-clicks/mouse-movement, hand-contortions from key combinations, mouse clicking speed and style, natural resting patterns, and other factors. It also takes into account some factors that you define in the setup screen.
Setting up the BreakTimer for use
To enable the BreakTimer, check "Enable BreakTimer" box.
Set the "Typing causes me pain within" slider to your best estimate of how long you think you could do continuous typing-intensive work before you experience fatigue or pain symptoms.
Set the "Mousing causes me pain within" slider to your best estimate of how long you can do continuous mouse-intensive work before you experience fatigue or pain symptoms.
Set the "Desired Average Break Length" as desired. Shorter breaks mean more frequent breaks, whereas longer breaks mean less frequent breaks. BreakTmer's model will reward more frequent breaks will slightly less overall time in breaks.
As you adjust these 3 sliders, notice that the "Average time between breaks" and the "Average length of breaks" display will adjust accordingly. These values reflect your average break, but actual time between breaks and actual length of breaks will be based on the kind of work you have been doing. If you spend a lot of time off the computer on a particular day, breaks will occur less frequently or even not at all. If you work very intensively, they will occur more frequently than the average. Postponing breaks will generally lead to longer breaks.
Setting Minimum and Maximum Time Between Breaks
Minimum time between breaks: This time can be set to insure that breaks do not occur too frequently. This setting should be used with care, because it overrides BreakTimer's strain-based timing model. That means, even if a break is really needed, BreakTimer won't suggest it until at least the minimum time between breaks has passed since the last break.
Maximum time between breaks: Sometimes you may do work that is not keyboard or mouse intensive, but is still repetitive (such as reading documents). Guardian-eos lets you set a maximum work-time that can go by without a break to insure that breaks are taken during this non-keyboard/mouse work. Breaks will still occur more frequently, of course, if you build up strain. Furthermore, this setting only triggers breaks if breaks are not occurring for other reasons (e.g. your strain levels reached 100% or you select "Take A Break Now"). Here's an example: say you set maximum time between breaks to be 60 minutes. After 45 minutes of work, mouse levels reach 100% and BreakTimer starts a break. After the break you work for another 45 minutes and mouse levels again reach 100%, so BreakTimer starts a break. After that break you continue reading a long document, and 60 minutes later, mouse and keyboard trauma levels are still low. At this point BreakTimer triggers a break anyway because 60 minutes went by without a break. After that break you leave to lunch for 1 hour. When you get back and return to reading the document, a break will not trigger until you have been reading for 60 minutes. Notice that the hour at lunch did not count towards the maximum time between breaks. If you want BreakTimer to count even completely inactive periods, you can tell BreakTimer by clicking on "Additional Settings" and adjusting the "How Maximum Time Between Breaks Works" setting.
For many people, the biggest problem with break timers is that they work obsessively and thus ignore when told it's time to take a break. To prevent users from ignoring breaks, when the BreakTimer window is showing, it prevents you from typing or mousing (this behavior can be adjusted in the "Additional Settings" screen). This forces you to at least recognize that a break is needed. You may, however, need to skip or postpone a break due to your circumstances, and BreakTimer allows you to postpone breaks or skip a break altogether within certain limits defined by your "willpower to respect breaktime".
To insure that your breaks are enforced in a way that matches your personality, BreakTimer lets you specify how much willpower you have ahead of time. When a break occurs, a user who has specified they have:
- Very Low willpower can only briefly postpone their break and can't cancel the break.
- Low willpower can end breaks with a two-part verification and can postpone breaks a little longer.
- Medium willpower can end breaks with a simple verification and can postpone breaks even longer.
- High willpower can quickly terminate a break and can postpone it for a long time.
Be sure that you balance the frustration of break interruption with the benefit of taking breaks when the computer suggests them and set your willpower honestly. If you find you are frequently postponing or skipping breaks when you really don't need to, try lowering the willpower setting to match reality.
Additional Settings (How and when BreakTimer interrupts you)
Guardian-eos gives you additional control over how and when BreakTimer can interrupt you. Each setting allows you to make Guardian-eos less intrusive, at the risk of reducing its ability to give you breaks when they're needed.
The Prevent Breaks from Interrupting You settings let you control
how Guardian-eos can trigger breaks. If the first option "until I have
been inactive..." is chosen, Guardian-eos tries to avoid interrupting
your work by waiting to show a break until you have stopped typing or
mousing for a specified number of seconds (4 in the example shown above).
This means, for example, that BreakTimer is smart enough to avoid interrupting
you in the middle of typing a thought or doing a mouse action. If you
choose the "until I click on..." option, then when BreakTimer
detects that a break is needed, it asks your permission to start a break
by displaying a Break Needed button (
). The break begins when you
click on that button. This mode is ideal for people who perform tasks
that can't be interrupted (e.g. call center employees) but can take breaks
at certain times (e.g. between calls). When the Break Needed button is
clicked, the break screen appears. Finally, because both of these options
can hypothetically prevent a break from occurring indefinitely, you can
specify a "timeout" such that after that length of time passes,
the break will start even without the user being inactive or clicking
the Break Needed button. In the example above, this option is enabled
and set to 60 seconds.
The Define how Maximum Time Between Breaks Works setting determines if the "Maximum Time Between Breaks" setting includes long periods of complete inactivity. If checked, breaks will continue to appear even when you're not at your computer. This setting however, truly assures that breaks will occur at least as often as specified by the "Maximum Time Between Breaks" setting.
The Define BreakTimer Blackout Times setting can be used to prevent BreakTimer from starting breaks during a critical time range in your workday for which breaks would not be appropriate.
Click here for information about the Work Restriction settings of the BreakTimer.
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Guardian-eos Standard Edition Break Window |
Guardian-eos Stretch Edition Break Window |
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The break dialog above appears during a break. You can postpone a break by 2 or 10 minutes (for a total postponement that's right for your willpower level). You can skip a break by pressing "Skip break" (though if you keep working, the next break may occur relatively soon). Or, if a break occurs and you realize you are in pain, you can press the "I'm in Pain -- Increase Break Frequency" to make breaks occur a little more often. (You can also accomplish this by adjusting the sliders in the settings dialog as described above.)
Sometimes the best way to avoid a break being an unwelcome interruption
is to know it's about to occur. The best estimate comes from the "Next
Break" time statistic on the main display. You can also watch the
trauma bars on the Guardian-eos window. When either reaches maximum, a break
occurs. Also, the Guardian-eos icon (
)
in the system tray will flash shortly before a break is soon to occur.
Finally, by checking "Play tone shortly before break begins",
a sound will play shortly before Guardian-eos anticipates starting a break
(again, if you start resting at that point, the break wouldn't occur).
By checking "Play tone after break ends" a tone will play at the end of breaks signalling that you may return to work.
If you have "Guardian-eos Stretch Edition", you additionally will be able to select whether or not you want instructions for stretching spoken aloud (requires a sound card) by checking the Speak checkbox. The Volume slider lets you adjust the volume. "Stop Stretches" will stop the stretches from being shown for the duration of the break. "Skip Stretch" will skip the currently playing stretch, and show you a different one instead.
Click to find out more about Guardian-eos Stretch setup.
In the Miscellaneous tab of the Settings dialog you can specify a hotkey to take a break early. A break can also be started early by selecting, "Take A Break Now!" from the Options menu. Why use this feature? Say you see that in about 5 or 10 minutes, Guardian-eos will ask you to take a break. But you know that you need to use the computer in 10 minutes, but could take a break now. By taking the break early, you insure that the break won't occur when you need access to the computer in 10 minutes. Or, if you feel fatigued and don't want to wait to take a break, it makes sense to take it early.