I argued with her that it is much better to take a break between tasks because it allows you to mentally switch off and recover more efficiently, but she disagrees. Well, it looks like I won that argument. That’s why I’m writing this post to tell the world how a man won an argument with his wife. If you’re not married, you might want to be watch this short video about the likelihood that you will win an argument with your girlfriend/wife over time, to understand what a momentous achievement this is.
To see why I won the argument, all you have to do is read a research article by Rebecca Chae, Kaitlin Woolley, and Marissa Sharif. They asked a large number of participants to do a number of mental and physical exercises. In several experiments, these people were asked to take a break. The breaks were between two tasks or in the middle of a single task; sometimes they were expected breaks, sometimes they were unexpected.
This is what people said about their feelings during a break.
Rumination about the task and feelings of stress during breaks
Source: Chae et al. (2025)
When people took a break between two separate tasks, they felt less stressed during the break and thought less about the task they had just completed. They switched off more mentally because they had just completed one task and could rest for the next.
Note that it did not matter whether the pause came as a surprise or was expected, and whether it was the same task simply mentally split in two, or whether they were fundamentally different tasks.
And because they were able to switch off more, they recovered better and performed better after the break. After the break, all participants’ performance improved compared to before the break. But the people who took a break between tasks saw significantly greater performance improvements after the break.
Task performance before and after breaks
Source: Chae et al. (2025)
Like I said, it didn’t matter whether the break was actually a break between two separate tasks or within one task, but it was a break between two tasks. And that goes back to the old adage about how to approach a big task. Divide it in your mind into several smaller pieces of work and work on each small piece one at a time (not at the same time).
Once each part of the work is done, you will experience a sense of satisfaction that will keep you going, and you will be able to take a break without worrying about the work that lies ahead before you can finish it.
#break