We mostly use computers these days at work. And the desk jobs keep us busy all day on the computer. It is essential to take a rest between constant hours of viewing bright monitor/laptop screens. Do you often forget to take breaks and rest your eyes in between? This wonderful tool called ‘Strechly’ can help you out in taking breaks. The tool aims to remind you to take breaks from your computer while you are engrossed in your work.
Strechly for PC review
Strechly is completely open-source and free of cost to download. Since it is electron-based, you can run it on any operating system including Windows, MacOS, and Linux. In this review, we are talking primarily about the Windows counterpart.
Strechly is a pretty simple and seamless tool. Once installed you can configure the amount of time you want to spend on your computer before a break.
Take Breaks while working on the computer
Strechly introduces the concept of microbreaks and breaks. Microbreaks usually last for 5-30 seconds, and they are more frequent (say every 10 minutes). Microbreaks are meant to relax and clean your eyes. It can even relax your body if you are not sitting in a proper posture. Every microbreak will bring a nice message on your screen that would suggest you some relaxing activity.
Breaks are somewhat longer periods ranging from 5-15 minutes, and their frequency can be adjusted in relation to microbreaks. For example, you can set a 5-minute break after two micro-breaks which means after three working units, you can have a 5-minute break.
Again, breaks also display a beautiful message and give you a few suggestions on spending this break. Beneath the message is the time remaining in the break and an option to skip the break. You can even skip the remaining break and proceed with your work.
Other Options
Although I don’t recommend skipping breaks as they are an essential part of your work, Strechly has an option to skip the upcoming breaks if the task that you are doing is of very high importance. All you need to do is right-click the system tray icon and click ‘Pause’ and select the duration for which you want to skip all the breaks for.
If you are feeling tired and need a break, you can directly skip to next break or microbreak. The option is available in the system tray and can be used easily to skip to the next break. There is another option to reset the counter which will reset all the breaks as well. This option might help you if you left your PC unattended for some time and are starting again.
Under the Settings, you can control the duration of breaks/micro-breaks and their frequency. I believe the default settings are pretty good and they worked very well for me. There is another setting available if you want to take breaks a little harder to skip. You can enable the ‘Don’t let me skip’ feature so that you strictly follow your break regime.
One more interesting feature that might be included in future versions of Strechly is ‘Your Strechly’ dashboard. As of now, the dashboard is in ‘Coming soon’ state, and we expect a nice dashboard that will have all the details about your breaks and useful stats about it.
Strechly is a pretty interesting and useful tool. It constantly reminds you to take effective breaks in between your work. You can utilize these breaks to stretch your body, relax your eyes, have some water or simply meditate. Now you can easily stay relaxed and focused on this wonderful tool. Strechly is cross-platform, open-source and completely free to download. Make sure you download the correct variant from GitHub.
Click here to download Strechly.
DDV Breaker and Work Rave are other similar tools that may interest you.
