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How to Leave Work at Work

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Re: How to Leave Work at Work

#51

Post by KiranRao0 »

megameter wrote: post #43
justatdotin wrote: post #38

I'm a long-term remote worker. At first it was challenging. After a year of trying to create boundaries, I gave up. Twice I'd had a 'bad' friday, only to have solutions reveal themselves while I was gardening over the weekend. I realised it did me no harm that my mind strayed to work while gardening, and in fact I was glad of it. So I made a decision to abandon attempts at erecting artificial structure, and quickly r…

For me the most important thing has been recognizing that I respond better to some boundaries than others. Time boundaries are notoriously difficult to use well without a coercive force dragging you forward. For folks with executive function difficulties that often turns into the procrastination/anxiety brew that makes them seek out pharmacutical help. But time is often sought after first because it has a seductive s…

Thank you for posting this. I definitely respond to the same boundaries but have not been able to articulate it until now.

Re: How to Leave Work at Work

#52

Post by bowlich »

justatdotin wrote: post #38

I'm a long-term remote worker. At first it was challenging. After a year of trying to create boundaries, I gave up. Twice I'd had a 'bad' friday, only to have solutions reveal themselves while I was gardening over the weekend. I realised it did me no harm that my mind strayed to work while gardening, and in fact I was glad of it. So I made a decision to abandon attempts at erecting artificial structure, and quickly r…

This was my experience. I'm seven years into remote working and I spent the first half absolutely fighting to force myself into a 9-5. I did all the habits that everyone typically recommends here. Separate office, machines. Get dressed in the morning. Keep regular hours.

I'm not a regular hours kind of guy. I want to put in a couple hours at 2 am. I want to sleep in. I'd like to go for a couple hour walk in the afternoon. Maybe chores or something personal was stressing me out that needed to be taken care.

Once I came to terms with just letting the two blend together, so much stressed came off my shoulders. Now, I'm available 9-5 on my cell if the team needs to chat -- but I get tickets cleared out when the I'm at peak motivation for that kind of work.

I'm far more productive then when I was trying to force myself to slog through unproductive afternoons. I got the hours in, but not the work. Now, I feel much more balanced between work and personal affairs.

Re: How to Leave Work at Work

#54

Post by b0rsuk »

CarbyAu wrote: post #35

Coming close to burnout, I realised the work game is bigger than me. If I have so much work that I am drowning and people are looking for me to do more and more and more..... that means my manager failed their Real Time Strategy Game and they need another worker at my level. Maybe that's because the next manager up failed their game, etc etc. But it doesn't matter why. I do 9-5. And I go home. That is the employment…

I once read an article linked from Hacker News. I don't remember the title or anything that could be used to rediscover it. It might have been something about Scrum, waterfall etc.

It said there are 7 ways to deal with impeding deadlines, and only 4 of them are available to the people in the trenches. The other 3 are available to managers.

They are:

  - extending the deadline

  - assigning more people to the project

  - changing the scope of the project (requirements)
Managers are notorious for avoiding responsibility and pushing it on other people. In degenerate workplaces, they want you to think failing a deadline is ALL YOUR responsibility and solely within your capabilities. Just work faster! Harder! LONGER!

Re: How to Leave Work at Work

#55

Post by sanju2306 »

b0rsuk wrote: post #54
CarbyAu wrote: post #35

Coming close to burnout, I realised the work game is bigger than me. If I have so much work that I am drowning and people are looking for me to do more and more and more..... that means my manager failed their Real Time Strategy Game and they need another worker at my level. Maybe that's because the next manager up failed their game, etc etc. But it doesn't matter why. I do 9-5. And I go home. That is the employment…

I once read an article linked from Hacker News. I don't remember the title or anything that could be used to rediscover it. It might have been something about Scrum, waterfall etc. It said there are 7 ways to deal with impeding deadlines, and only 4 of them are available to the people in the trenches. The other 3 are available to managers. They are: - extending the deadline - assigning more people to the project - ch…

Provide me a link to original if you have.

Looks helpful.

Re: How to Leave Work at Work

#56

Post by AnonHP »

As the article describes, many points apply to the specific team and team culture.

One of the best things that I did (which was triggered for other reasons) was to remove my work email from my smartphone. When you only have a laptop to get work done and cannot get emails or chat on the device you carry or check throughout your waking hours, the matter of leaving work at work becomes a lot easier. Shutdown your work laptop around a specific hour everyday and you're (mostly) free.

If you're not compelled, I would strongly recommend doing the same. This doesn't mean that you will not work after working hours (there may be times when it's required), but you certainly won't be distracted by notifications and slipping into work unnecessarily when it's clearly not urgent. If you do not have a work provided smartphone and are using your personal device, then this is also safer for you since MDM policies are applied even on employee-owned devices and (depending on the OS) give a lot of information about your device/apps/usage and control on the device to your employer. I don't see any reason why I should do that with any employer.

Once you stop sending emails or responding to emails at odd hours (meaning, post normal working hours), others will usually get the hint and stop treating email with the same urgency as phone calls.

Re: How to Leave Work at Work

#57

Post by james_s_tayler »

megameter wrote: post #43
justatdotin wrote: post #38

I'm a long-term remote worker. At first it was challenging. After a year of trying to create boundaries, I gave up. Twice I'd had a 'bad' friday, only to have solutions reveal themselves while I was gardening over the weekend. I realised it did me no harm that my mind strayed to work while gardening, and in fact I was glad of it. So I made a decision to abandon attempts at erecting artificial structure, and quickly r…

For me the most important thing has been recognizing that I respond better to some boundaries than others. Time boundaries are notoriously difficult to use well without a coercive force dragging you forward. For folks with executive function difficulties that often turns into the procrastination/anxiety brew that makes them seek out pharmacutical help. But time is often sought after first because it has a seductive s…

Place boundaries are much easier for me for the same reasons.

Turns out it's really just different strokes for different folks and everyone's inner world operates in a way that they absolutely require certain things and absolutely should avoid certain others. It's just different for everyone.

I worked out I needed to stop listening to other peoples advice before I became aware of any executive dysfunction, because I realized that other people's advice barely matched up with my personal experience and was largely useless, so I should simply stick to trying things and seeing what works for me vs what doesn't.

I get the feeling the range of inner world's is much more vast and varied than people truly realize. Wish there was a good way to calibrate for that.

Re: How to Leave Work at Work

#58

Post by letientai299 »

dijit wrote: post #4

Tangentially 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 learn stuff on my own time. If I need more time and the learning phrase is directly related to the my work then I can ask manager to reduce workload. But usually I don't need to ask. I also believe that self-learning in free time is standard expectation for our industry (software). If I run a company later, I would expect the same for my hires.

Re: How to Leave Work at Work

#60

Post by chrshawkes »

momokoko wrote: post #11
politelemon wrote: post #3

To 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 i…

For people new to working from home, having work clothes is one of the most beneficial things I do personally. I would say over the last 15 years of working remotely this is the most impactful intentional thing I do for my productivity and work life balance. Plus, it’s a super easy thing to try for a few weeks to see if it works for you.

I tried it, I don't need it. I guess I understand the point but honestly, I've hated work clothes since jump street.
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