Why an afternoon break beats a longer morning
Two hours of steady work quietly raise your error rate. The fix is not more discipline but a better-timed pause.
Most of us treat a break as lost time. The research says the opposite: after roughly ninety minutes of focused work, attention degrades faster than we notice, and a short pause restores more than it costs. The catch is that the moment you most need the break is exactly the moment you are least likely to notice it.
When to take the break
A useful rule: stop before the dip, not after it. Plan the pause at the point where the work still feels easy, and keep it short enough that returning does not feel like starting over.
