You need a home office, a separate room in your home. It's too easy to get distracted otherwise. Simple as that.
Why are some people better at working from home than others?
121–130 of 170 posts
Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think willpower is an important factor, but not the only one. The bigger issue is viewing lack of willpower as a personal moral failing rather than something that can be fixed with practice and attention. I really buy into the fact that willpower is like a muscle that you can exercise and that there are real practical ways to improve it. I've seen huge increases in my own focus and working ability in the last five…
Can you give any tips on where to start? Any particular books or anything you found helpful in giving you practical ways to exercise your willpower?
Not really books, but stuff I've picked up via osmosis, mostly from the internet:
First, the biggest way to make improvements quickly is to make sure you are getting good sleep, exercising regularly, and eating well. This does huge benefits for mood, alertness, and energy. Also if you drink, smoke weed, or take some other non-stimulant drug regularly that you don't need to be taking - stop. Not only do these impede focus while under the influence and for a day or two after, they also prevent you from getting high quality sleep (which is why you get very vivid dreams after ceasing regular use for a few weeks - you are catching up on REM sleep).
Second, set small bite sized goals. Instead of thinking about the long path ahead, it's better to think about what is the first thing you need to do. That really helps me prevent procrastinating. You can also do what I think of as "reverse procrastinating" where you tell yourself you'll take a 30m break from procrastinating right now to get something done - usually I end up getting in the zone and working for longer than 30m.
Taking breaks is also helpful. The frequency/length depends on the person and for me changes from day to day. If you catch yourself slacking or losing focus, or stuck on something, get up and walk around. When I'm at work I basically drink 5+ diet sodas a day, partially for the caffeine, but weirdly enough also because it makes me pee a lot so it forces me to get up and walk around every 1-2 hours.
The goal setting, and seeing them to completion or at least making good, sustained effort, is the part that improves over time with practice. Eventually you start setting larger goals and can start planning more (if you are like me, paralysis by analysis is really easy to fall into, so you have to take it easy here). I'm by no means some kind of self-actualized ubermensch, but these have really worked for me, to the point where I've transitioned from a serial procastinator in college - doing almost everything day before, day of, or late if the penalty was low - to someone who actually does stuff in advance and spends almost the entire workday working.
Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?
#123Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Opposite. I got lonely, so I went to Houston to visit family. I typically eat super healthy, exercise daily and do strenuous 16+ hour outdoors adventures on weekend days. Now, I just eat a lot, drink beer and watch TV. I lost all my fun outdoor activities, inspiration and what I do for stress relief. More to do with being on lockdown than WFH.
This so much. If you were active outdoorsy person with pretty cool active life, WFH and all related can be a bit of a disaster. We can still go out, but doing anything with real risks is supremely selfish now. As in Europe, we can't travel in other countries. Being in place surrounded with beautiful France and having Italy within 1 hour drive, this severely restricts where we can go. Also, I've been previously hittin…
You could switch to bodyweight exercises and work towards onearm pushups/pullups and pistols if you want a challenge
Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?
#125One really positive thing I have found for myself in the WFH life is that I am taking MUCH better care of myself. So far I have lost weight, started a bodyweight workout routine, which I do in between meetings/calls/other work, and have gained back 2 hours of my day by not taking transit into the city. That's 2 more hours every day that I get to relax, work on a personal project, hang out with my SO, or even crush ou…
You would be atypical if you were less productive by normal standards. Most studies I have seen on the topic usually show a marked increase in worker productivity in working from home. There is a bit of a confounding variable, however... Homes are not open floor plan for the most part. And we know from over 1,000 studies that open floor plan offices massacre productivity to a huge degree. So it might just be the bene…
They would not be atypical, because they are working during a pandemic, which is in itself a massive confounding variable. Even people who normally work from home are writing about being less productive than usual right now. This is not a good way to assess "working from home" vs "working in the office", any more than it would be to measure productivity of someone who was suddenly housebound with a broken leg.
Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?
#126Let me caveat the following by saying that I'm one who believes the future of tech work is fully remote and personally hope to stay fully remote post-COVID. I do not believe now is the time to be drawing comparisons or conclusions between the office norm and the fully remote situation most of us have been thrust into. Sure, some people procrastinate more than others. Some people need more management than others to ke…
Honestly, it's just not for some people. And that's ok.
Thats true. The point of the comment is that the set of people who just aren't cut our to work from home happily and productively is a lot smaller than the set of people who can't work happily and productively right now, no matter where they work.
Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
This so much. If you were active outdoorsy person with pretty cool active life, WFH and all related can be a bit of a disaster. We can still go out, but doing anything with real risks is supremely selfish now. As in Europe, we can't travel in other countries. Being in place surrounded with beautiful France and having Italy within 1 hour drive, this severely restricts where we can go. Also, I've been previously hittin…
You could switch to bodyweight exercises and work towards onearm pushups/pullups and pistols if you want a challenge
I got into climbing because it was the only way I could get myself excited to go to the gym and keep a routine. It is just prep so I can climb cool stuff outside. Working out at home just isn't the same. It is also less social. I'm not a big social person, but I need something besides my roommates and getting outside. I know some people can just go to the gym every day and lift weights, but I've tried so many times.
Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of my mottos: Good eating starts in the supermarket, not in the kitchen. I can easily not buy potato chips. I don't even pretend like I'll control myself and not eat a whole bag in one night if it's in the house.
Do you have a second motto that helps me not stress eat all the good food I just bought?
My motto is: if you're house is dirty, you're probably getting depressed. Clean your house.
It'll probably help with the stress eating. Anxiety is a big culprit and it is common these days.
Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually it's the opposite for me, I've started taking so much junk snacks (which wasn't available at Office), Less Walks and No proper schedule. Sleeps off the time. Many a days just getting up and jumping into calls. On the positive side, it's more quality time with family but I'm still wondering how to fix the health part.
WFH has been a proper disaster for me. Went from working out 3 days a week to none. Went from 2 meals only a day to stopped counting. Productivity has gone out the window. Man, I used to love my job. I can't wait to run back to my office and have both externally imposed structures and a physical separation of work and fun.
Is that WFH or lockdown related?
Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What workouts are they that cannot be done without access to a gym? Anything needing special equipment or terrain, for example. If you want to do a climbing workout you're going out of luck without a rockface in your back garden or your own climbing wall, aren't you. > I guess the biggest change is where we used to order it online and have it delivered, now we are driving to the store and picking the items ourselve…
> Anything needing special equipment or terrain, for example. If you want to do a climbing workout you're going out of luck without a rockface in your back garden or your own climbing wall, aren't you. In theory you’d be right but I the reason I asked is because there’s usually workouts you can still do at home to keep at least some of those muscles in shape even if you can’t do your usual training routines without u…
> Take the rock climbing example
As a climber who currently does finger pull ups on my door frame, there is so much I can't do. A lot of climbing is body position and control of your center of mass. You can't practice proper technique for climbing without a wall. There's just also things you can't do without the height. As an avid sport climber, I would usually end my days climbing doing lead laps. This helps make clipping second nature because you're doing it till you can't do it anymore. I can't even think of a way to remotely simulate that at home and it has been such a critical component of my workout. It is the thing that allows me to do multi-pitch no problem and it is the thing that helps me sleep at night.