I awoke this morning needing to work on the 78 cookies that stand between me and my quest to complete 169 cookies by June 30th and wondering what I could do to improve my productivity.

Lucky for me, I found the article The Path to Productivity: Shorter Hours, More Breaks, and after reading it I decided that I would at least try the “more breaks” part of the improved productivity equation, and to that end, I got out my Maui Hoop:

I chose the Wave Hoop because it would get me up, force me to move, and would also allow me to keep an eye on my dog who has taken to absconding with my yarn. Another plus, it requires virtually no preparation to use.

So how did my experiment in forced fun/breaks work out?

Here is the cookie bar graph of my progress as of last night:

and here is the cookie bar graph as it appeared shortly before sunset today:

While I did not finish as many cookies as I had hoped (I never do), I did finally work out the details of the Caramel Delites™ inspired cookie, I had made earlier, found two additional sugar cookies with sprinkles, made all of the colorful icings needed for the iced sugar cookies, made several more icings for the remaining iced oatmeal cookies, made all of the cherries needed for the cherry winks, almost all of the centers for the peanut butter blossoms, and finished a cookie with mutli-colored candies as decoration.

So in the data that I have gathered so far (one day’s worth of effort), it would seem that the short breaks did improve productivity, and while I am not quite ready to move to shorter hours, I will be sticking with the short breaks and the Wave Hoop as the short breaks did seem to advance my crafting.

If you want to learn a little bit more about the science behind our need for a break, here is this video: