Ask HN: How to stay focused and motivated working from home?

The unfortunately reality is that most office workers, even tech ones, are so alienated from the results of their labor that it is easy to rationalize their jobs as meaningless.

My way of staying focused:

- Use the Leechblock browser extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock-ng...) to block all distracting sites (facebook, twitter, news sites etc) from 8.30 to 6.

- Leave my phone across the room. Your phone should never be in your sight.

- Use tactile and audible gadgets (not computer or phone apps) to keep track of time, such as:

- I bought one of the cube timers with audible and flashing lights on Amazon to remind myself to close my eyes for 2 mins after every 20 mins of work. This podomoro timer gives me a sense of momentum throughout the day.

- I use timeular (https://timeular.com/), an 8-sided physical Bluetooth time tracker, to accurately track the time I spent on various tasks during the day. Once I've spent 7-8 hours of work-related tasks, I feel completely free to stop working. This encourages me to focus on work during the day.

True. We could tell them a strategy to discover their personal values and strengths which would suggest an ideal purpose, however.

Many folks have been going through this. It sucks, and what works for some may not work with others.

Things that have helped me:

* Clear the goddamn desk. Things on your desk other than what you need is a distraction even if you see them and don't act on them.

* If you're like me, you have certain pavlovian impulses to hit up your favorite social media sites. HN has anti-procrastination features, use them. There's also black-listing browser extensions you can turn-on so you don't go to whatever time suck social media you use.

* Commit yourself to doing at least some meaningful work everyday. It's OK if it's only a short time. 1 or 2 hours of intense focus can easily look like a solid day's work to anyone that's paying attention to productivity.

* Talk to human beings one-on-one. If you can't help yourself, try helping someone else. You will feel better about work. Just call them up and offer to help them out of the blue. If not a co-worker, then a friend.

* When you take a break, really take a break. When you sit at your desk, really work.

These work for me. They may not work for you or anyone else.

I do fun project work early in the morning. It is easier to start and helps me build momentum.