How to Leave Work at Work
hbr.org
How to Leave Work at Work
1–10 of 60 posts
Re: How to Leave Work at Work
#2tl;dr
Step 1: Define “After Hours”
Step 2: Have Mental Clarity
Step 3: Communicate with Your Colleagues
Step 4: Get Work Done at Work
And I will add my own personal experience:
Step 5: Realize you (probably) work a B.S. job[1].
I realized I was dedicating my precious life to the pursuit of profit for people at the very top to the detriment of my own well being. If my job disappeared tomorrow, would society be negatively impacted in any meaningful way? No, in fact it might even improve. Realizing this, I just stopped caring about expectations to sacrifice any more time than necessary to my job.
[1] https://www.jacobinmag.com/2018/06/bullshit-jobs-david-graeb...
Re: How to Leave Work at Work
#3To help with the 'defining' bit, I've been making a conscious effort to separate work from home over the past few months in a few ways. Even though I'm at home and nobody sees me most of the time, I get into "work clothes", even if it's just a T-Shirt or polo, and trousers.
At 5-6PM, I'll shutdown the laptop and put it away, out of sight, and get back into "home clothes". The acts, despite its placebo effect, helps immensely in switching to home mode.
Re: How to Leave Work at Work
#4Tangentially related question for the hackernews audience: When you learn, do you do so on company time or personal time?
I often feel like if I'm not "working" (IE; actually producing something) then I'm somehow cheating the company. This doesn't apply for the simple "trial-and-error" stuff that kind of comes as a part of the job, but sitting down to read a book or watch some tutorials etc; I could never imagine doing in the office.
But this _is_ work according to my long-term partner.
Re: How to Leave Work at Work
#5Tangentially related question for the hackernews audience: When you learn, do you do so on company time or personal time? I often feel like if I'm not "working" (IE; actually producing something) then I'm somehow cheating the company. This doesn't apply for the simple "trial-and-error" stuff that kind of comes as a part of the job, but sitting down to read a book or watch some tutorials etc; I could never imagine doi…
It depends on what I am learning - if it is required training or continuing education, that is part of my job and I do it on company time. If it is for my own personal projects, hobbies and interests, it is my own time.
Re: How to Leave Work at Work
#6tl;dr Step 1: Define “After Hours” Step 2: Have Mental Clarity Step 3: Communicate with Your Colleagues Step 4: Get Work Done at Work And I will add my own personal experience: Step 5: Realize you (probably) work a B.S. job[1]. I realized I was dedicating my precious life to the pursuit of profit for people at the very top to the detriment of my own well being. If my job disappeared tomorrow, would society be negativ…
Same here, but I suspect many "career" people here on HN, who grind away in startups imagining they are designing the next big thing that'll save humanity, don't want to hear this.
Re: How to Leave Work at Work
#7Tangentially related question for the hackernews audience: When you learn, do you do so on company time or personal time? I often feel like if I'm not "working" (IE; actually producing something) then I'm somehow cheating the company. This doesn't apply for the simple "trial-and-error" stuff that kind of comes as a part of the job, but sitting down to read a book or watch some tutorials etc; I could never imagine doi…
Have you ever been able to solve a problem at work that nobody else could, or solve it faster, or cleaner, or more robustly, by virtue of having learned previously about some random topic which you had no idea would one day be applicable to your work? I think most programmers have, and I'd hope that a good boss at a good organization would understand that - as long as you're accomplishing everything that's required of the job - independent learning is a great use of (a reasonable fraction of your) time that will benefit both you and the business.
Re: How to Leave Work at Work
#8Tangentially related question for the hackernews audience: When you learn, do you do so on company time or personal time? I often feel like if I'm not "working" (IE; actually producing something) then I'm somehow cheating the company. This doesn't apply for the simple "trial-and-error" stuff that kind of comes as a part of the job, but sitting down to read a book or watch some tutorials etc; I could never imagine doi…
I think a bit of both to be honest. I don't generally surf the internet while in working-hours, but I always make an exception every Thursday to read the current LWN release.
Computers are my hobby, not just my job, so I feel that I research and experiment in my own time. But I'm reasonably happy to experiment at work, in short doses.
Re: How to Leave Work at Work
#9Personally, the biggest win was to learn how to leave tasks unfinished.
This pays off in two ways - firstly I finish work when I planned to instead of "just five more minutes", which inevitably spins off into a series of open ended diversions. Secondly, it means I can start the next day with something I can sink in to, avoiding the feeling of procrastination and guilt that comes along with that, ultimately resulting in working later to pay back that lost time.
Re: How to Leave Work at Work
#10I’ve found partitions helpful. Slack is work, Discord is personal. Email is personal, Twitter is work.