Take a Break – Force Yourself To Take Breaks Away From Your Computer

Take a Break is a petite application you can use to sort of force yourself to take breaks away from your computer after a configurable work time.

It works by dividing time into 2 sections: up-time and break-time. Up-time is when your system isn’t active and when that time is up the computer switches to break time during which the screen takes on a handful of display options including screen upside-down, dimmed, and screen saver.

I have written on Gnome Pomodoro and Go For It which are both nice productivity timer apps, but neither of them forces you to actually go away by locking you out of your workspace. Maybe, Take a Break is what you have been looking for.

Features in ‘Take a Break’

• FOSS – Free and open source with its source code available on LaunchPad.
• Desktop notifications – receive notifications for start, stop, restart, and upcoming break times.
• Options – start on login.
• Toggle ‘Take a Break’ on/off.

‘Take a Break‘ isn’t available as a Snap, Flatpak, e.t.c. yet (or even with Launchpad’s download page) so the best way to install it is by adding its PPA to your repo:

$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:vlijm/takeabreak
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install takeabreak

That is, of course, assuming you would like to receive updates. If you will just want to take the app for a test drive without making any changes to your repo you can grab and install its .deb package below.

[mks_button size=”medium” title=”Download Take a Break .Deb Package” style=”squared” url=”http://ppa.launchpad.net/vlijm/takeabreak/ubuntu/pool/main/t/takeabreak/” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow” bg_color=”#46698E” txt_color=”#fff” icon=”fa-download” icon_type=”fa” nofollow=”1″]

‘Take a Break‘ is a neat app especially for those who pop-up reminders alone will not do the job. I should inform you though, that it hasn’t received any updates (that I am aware of) in close to 2 years! I imagine a bug or two will show its head after it’s in use for a while.

Anyway, have you used ‘Take a Break‘ before? What do you think about it and do you know of any alternatives we can introduce to our readers? Your remarks and suggestions are welcome in the comments section.