The 20/20/20 Rule
It’s been almost a year since I’m practicing this rule, at first I have to maintain and finding the greatest method that fits into my daily life, and now here I am, it’s becoming a habit, even if I don’t do it I feel something is missing.
But, what is this?
The 20/20/20 rule basically guidance that tells you to
Look at 20 feet (6 meters) away object every 20 minutes for 20 seconds.
Don’t get it? Let’s say I’m on my beautiful desktop staring at Twitter, after 20 minutes I should get away from it, search for an object that’s 20 feet away, staring at it for 20 seconds.
The Why
Staring at gadgets for 8+ hours is quite tiring, I don’t want to broke my eyes, the funny thing is that I’ve applied this rule just because I’m trying to not using glasses in the future as long as I could.
What do we see?
The object could be anything as long as it’s far 20 feet away, more is good, less is “I don’t know, maybe”. My object is just a tree behind my neighbor’s house during the day, and a sticky note on the wall during the night.
Journey
Lots of happening to maintain and improve this rule and make it into a habit, these are my methods throughout the journey.
- In the beginning, I used a manual counter to count every 20 minutes using just my brain
- I start using a mini phone and set a 20 minutes timer
- Then, I’m using the built-in Alarm app on Windows and set an alarm for every 20 minutes increment throughout the day, 7:20, 7:40, so on.
- Now, I’m using the custom Alarm app and setup same as the previous, I love it because it’s basic, easy to set, it just appears.
It gives me these
Actually, it is not a big improvement in the short term but it’s good for the long term.
- Makes me more doing any movement instead of just sitting on the desktop
- Avoid my eyes to feels tired at night
- Create a small space for me to just take a breath, release the pressure of work, and even find new ideas
- It’s always not in the case, but it sometimes keeps me respecting my time
That’s it
That’s just my experience, you can follow the same method I used or create a new one that fits into your life, it’s all your control. Even if you don’t want to do it, it’s all your control.