TakeABreak

In an ideal world, each computer user would raise from the chair and exercise for a couple of minutes. In reality, a person can be caught up ten or more hours a day in the same chair and position. TakeABreak is an application that locks your PC down to make you pause your work and get some cardio. If your will is not strong enough to make you exercise, then this application can force you into doing it.

TakeABreak is a bit different from a regular app, it has no interface. On top of that, the program is portable, having no installation kit, but a quick launcher and an INI file to edit. File which gets created with the first launch. Access the INI document in order to set up the work and pause intervals and the messages you want to be displayed.

Check out the first message bubble from within the system tray icon. If there is no icon in the tray, check the Task Manager to see if the process is still running.

Due to the nature of the app, the pause time cannot be skipped or overwritten. In case you wish to regain control over your computer during a lockdown phase, the only way to go is a hard reset.

The best way to avoid such a situation is to set up reasonable downtime. Also, employing the use of such an app may cause data loss in situations where the users get locked out before saving their work and restart the computer to skip the pause time. Be careful about this aspect before deciding on the intervals.

TakeABreak can be counted on if you intend to get some forced computer breaks. However, there is a potential data loss risk involved with using this app, but if managed properly the negative part can be overlooked.