Mid-Edit: Maximizing Your Strengths
Mid-Edit: Maximizing Your Strengths
Everyone knows that sitting isn't good for your health, but some professions, like editing, require a worker to sit for extended periods. To mitigate the negative health effects of prolonged sitting, it's important to take frequent breaks.
You should realize that taking physical activity breaks improves more than just your physical health; it improves your mental health as well. Getting away from the computer for a little exercise can give your tired mind a break, so you'll have fresh eyes and will be able to catch the things you may have missed if you had just plowed through a document.
Editing requires intense concentration and staring at a computer screen (or text on paper, if you edit hard copy), both of which are hard on the mind and eyes.
Although at first it may seem counterintuitive, the single most important thing you can do to increase your productivity and quality is to take regular breaks away from your computer. If you spend a few minutes doing something physical, you will more than make up for that time with increased energy and mental alertness when you go back to editing. This may take different forms depending on your preferences and deadlines, but whatever you like to do during your breaks, do it away from your computer.
Editors have a wide variety of working situations: some work full-time from a home office, some work in traditional publishing offices, and some work part-time in the evenings. The nature of your situation will determine the types of breaks you'll be able to take. Here's what works for our editors at Scribendi.com:
"I get up and walk around frequently and stretch."
"I go to the gym at lunch, which breaks up the day and keeps me energized."
"First thing in the morning, I do my exercise routine. At mid-day, I do yoga. During some of my breaks, I do light exercises, walk, and stretch."
"I try to break up my day with some sort of outside physical activity; I find this helps keep me sharper in the afternoons."
"I drink a ton of water and eat a lot of little snacks at my desk, so I get up probably once an hour to take my dishes to the kitchen, refill my water, and go to the bathroom, which turns into a mini-break, especially if the ducks are playing outside my window! I always take a minute to look out the window to give my eyes a rest."
"I sometimes walk up and down flights of stairs to get the blood flowing, or I get something to eat."
"I do housework, take walks, and play outdoor games with my daughter. I also find it beneficial to do a twenty-minute Pilates routine."
"I go for a walk, do a menial task, go to the post office . . . anything to get me on my feet and away from the computer."
"Walking re-energizes me. It's a very 'accessible' activity because I can do it in my front yard and it still works for me. There are also some yoga poses that are designed to boost energy or increase stamina throughout the day. On some days, though, the only solution to being tired would be to turn in and get some sleep."
"I break to cook and eat meals, to make phone calls, and sometimes, depending on my deadline, to run errands."
"I stretch, and I also look away from the computer for a few seconds every half-hour or so."
"I take one fifteen-minute break per hour of straight editing (no interruptions, no checking email, browsing, checking my phone, etc.). I use a timer to make sure I complete the whole hour. On my breaks, I drink tea, read a book, do some sketching, or go out for a walk. I try anything as long as it's fun and it compels me to step away from my computer."
Of course, taking breaks away from the computer is essential. But in some situations, taking a mini-break at your computer has its benefits.
Imagine you're working on a tangled, technical 10,000-word ESL document. After a while, your head is spinning and you start to get used to the awkward constructions . . . they just don't seem so awkward anymore, and you start to miss things. Or it could go the other way: the writing is so difficult that nothing is making sense anymore. Here's where taking a few minutes to review some well-written prose could be beneficial. Plus, you can catch up on news or on what's happening in your field(s) of interest.
What you choose to read during a "great writing" break depends on your interests. It doesn't have to be literary or serious, as long as it's well written and gets your mind back into the rhythm of native English. In fact, it may be more of a break to read something funny or light. The editors at Scribendi.com have some favorite places (in no particular order):
The Chronicle of Higher Education – http://chronicle.com/
The Atlantic – http://www.theatlantic.com/
Science-based Medicine – http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/
The Onion – http://www.theonion.com/
Psychology Today – http://www.psychologytoday.com/
The Economist – http://www.economist.com/
The Public Domain Review – http://publicdomainreview.org/
Cracked – http://www.cracked.com/
Lifehacker – http://lifehacker.com/
The New Yorker – http://www.newyorker.com/
Alltop – http://alltop.com/
National Geographic – http://www.nationalgeographic.com/
Harper's – http://harpers.org/
Arts & Letters Daily – http://www.aldaily.com/
The Oatmeal – http://theoatmeal.com/
While resetting and refreshing your mind with some interesting, well-written articles can be a good idea, it's easy for this to get out of hand. Even in the course of fact checking for a document, it's easy to get pulled into reading something else if it's interesting. There goes your productivity!
The best advice here is "know thyself." If you're the type who sets out to check just one little thing on Wikipedia and finds an hour later you're ten topics from where you started, maybe the great writing reset isn't worth the potential risk. However, if you set some limits (and stick to them!), it can be a big help when you're feeling frazzled. Try something like setting a timer for ten minutes or limiting yourself to the two most interesting articles on a site, and then get back to editing.
Last Updated: 10/01/2022