Workrave
Have you ever worked on your comp for so long relentlessly that you started experiencing pains in your knuckles and fingers or wrists or neck ? Beware, this is a very good symptom of RSI. One of my roommates had this very bad habit of sinking into his seat with legs stretched out and crossed, bending his back. This caused him pain in his lower back and ankles. This is another very good symptom of RSI.
RSI can be called as the bane of computers. The only good thing about RSI is that it can be avoided but it needs very regular and disciplined attention of yourself. Frequent breaks, small walks, lots of water to drink, moving your limbs, all these so called "exercises" should be mandated at regular intervals to prevent RSI.
I searched for a lot of timer/alarm applets that could help me in maintaining these mandatory breaks, but none were useful. In last week's edition of Deccan Herald, I came across this killer app called "WorkRave" which does exactly what I was looking for.
Fortunately its available on Linux too. It is a very simple app that examines your key strokes and mouse movements and tabulates the time you spend using your keyboard and mouse with breaks not more than 5 seconds. It accumulates the time you spend using the input devices of your comp. The only problem is that it doesn't include the time you spend reading on the web :) . which I think is fine to ignore.
Based on these usage time data, it forces you to take micro-breaks of 20 seconds, after every 10 minutes of computer usage. It also forces you to take a "rest-break" of 5 minutes after every 30 minutes of computer usage. The best part of this calculation is that it accumulates the time spent on the computer and not just the bare real-time intervals like the ordinary timers/alarms. The duration of these breaks and the interval between these breaks is also configurable though I would suggest not to change these defaults drastically.
I have been using this for a week now and I am surprised to see how fast time flies while working on the comp. Another good statistic this app gives is the total time spent in a day on the comp. I was shocked to see that I was spending only 55 - 60 % of my time at office on the computer !!! That's something like I spent around 4 hours on the computer in the 8 hours that I spend in office. Just compare this percentage to that of the guy sitting at the bank teller counter ? ;-) Ofcourse, you can include another hour for time spent on reading things on the browser and some code, but that too isn't a very great figure to look at.
You like it or not, if you are using computers at your work, you better start using this app. Try it out and you too will be surprised at the things that you will discover about yourself :-)
RSI can be called as the bane of computers. The only good thing about RSI is that it can be avoided but it needs very regular and disciplined attention of yourself. Frequent breaks, small walks, lots of water to drink, moving your limbs, all these so called "exercises" should be mandated at regular intervals to prevent RSI.
I searched for a lot of timer/alarm applets that could help me in maintaining these mandatory breaks, but none were useful. In last week's edition of Deccan Herald, I came across this killer app called "WorkRave" which does exactly what I was looking for.
Fortunately its available on Linux too. It is a very simple app that examines your key strokes and mouse movements and tabulates the time you spend using your keyboard and mouse with breaks not more than 5 seconds. It accumulates the time you spend using the input devices of your comp. The only problem is that it doesn't include the time you spend reading on the web :) . which I think is fine to ignore.
Based on these usage time data, it forces you to take micro-breaks of 20 seconds, after every 10 minutes of computer usage. It also forces you to take a "rest-break" of 5 minutes after every 30 minutes of computer usage. The best part of this calculation is that it accumulates the time spent on the computer and not just the bare real-time intervals like the ordinary timers/alarms. The duration of these breaks and the interval between these breaks is also configurable though I would suggest not to change these defaults drastically.
I have been using this for a week now and I am surprised to see how fast time flies while working on the comp. Another good statistic this app gives is the total time spent in a day on the comp. I was shocked to see that I was spending only 55 - 60 % of my time at office on the computer !!! That's something like I spent around 4 hours on the computer in the 8 hours that I spend in office. Just compare this percentage to that of the guy sitting at the bank teller counter ? ;-) Ofcourse, you can include another hour for time spent on reading things on the browser and some code, but that too isn't a very great figure to look at.
You like it or not, if you are using computers at your work, you better start using this app. Try it out and you too will be surprised at the things that you will discover about yourself :-)
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