How to Take Regular Breaks from your Computer
The Breaks tab gives you access to the break feature of FocusMe.
Taking a break in FocusMe means you will not be able to use your computer for the duration of the break. It is different from pausing in a Focus plan where the plan is paused and you can access the blocked items.
It may sound counter-intuitive at first, but once you get used to it, this feature can become very useful.
The following are details about what each settings are about:
Enabled/Disabled – Used to globally turn all breaks features of FocusMe on or off.
Auto-breaks – Lets you set a series of recurring breaks based on your computer usage. When enabled, it lets you set how frequent the breaks will happen and how long they would last.
Edit Breaks Protection – lets you protect the breaks settings by adding a password. can be setup as follows:
- None – No password protection is set
- Random Chars – You will be asked to input a system generated password whenever you attempt to change the settings. The password length can be set.
- Password – Set your own password that will be asked whenever the settings are to be changed.
Note: The password protection above is only applicable to the break settings. It does not apply to the breaks themselves.
Breaks can be scheduled on either a daily or weekly setup.
Daily – Setup a break schedule that is consistent each day.
Weekly – Setup a more detailed schedule that runs on a weekly basis.
Auto Break and Scheduled Protection – Adds a layer of protection to Auto and Scheduled breaks, respectively.
Clicking on any of the above buttons will give you these options:
WARNING: If set to Forced, you won’t be able to stop the break. Take extra care when choosing this option.
Break Now – Found at the top right corner, clicking this button will let you instantly go on break.
NOTE: this button works even if the breaks feature is set to “Disabled”.
Whenever the break feature is running, your whole screen will look something like this:
TIP: You can cancel out of breaks by pressing Esc on your keyboard except when protection is set to Forced.
If your break/s are password protected, you will see something like below. Pressing ESC will bring up a box where you can input the password.
