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Why are some people better at working from home than others?

bbc.com

81–90 of 170 posts

Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?

#81
The article has some official-sounding theories about WFH, which may be a little more high-minded than necessary?

Success working from home boils down to two things: 1. Desire to work from home and 2. Space free from distraction.

I am the only long-term WFH guy working with an office of 40 “In office” folks who have found themselves at home. Some of them complain, others don’t. Some of them have toddlers (!!), others don’t.

Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?

#82
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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 Right, but you asked 'what workouts are they that cannot be done without access to a gym' and you're suggesting other workouts to keep the same muscles working. Yeah fine, but that's not the same workout, which is what you asked.

To be honest I didn’t put a much thought into the original comment because it’s now 4am U.K. time and I was just trying to idle my brain into sleep. Unfortunately the insomnia is winning tonight. :(

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?

#83
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What workouts are they that cannot be done without access to a gym? For me it’s the variety of city food I miss the most. I live quite a way out from where I work and while there are still a few open takeaways, they’re pretty average in quality and lacking in variety. However there are larger and mostly well stocked supermarkets so buying fresh food to last the week hasn’t been a problem (most veg will last a week al…

If you lift heavy, power lifting etc it’s hard to do at home unless you go out and buy a rack, barbell and plates. You’ll never lift or replicate anywhere near 100-200kg+ with home body weight workouts. If you do general fitness, circuits etc home workouts can be good for that. I guess it all depends on what you are training for.

Fair point. I’ve never done anything like heavy lifting so admittedly that is one scene that’s alien to me.

Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?

#84
post #71
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there nothing around that you can use as makeshift weights? When I was at high school and couldn’t afford a gym membership I used a bunch of old telephone directories as makeshift weights. It wasn’t ideal but it worked for a few months until I got my first job. Pull ups are one of the easier problems to solve at home. You can get bars for your doorway that extend out like stair gates. Or if you have a fat enough d…

I don't have telephone directories anymore, and I certainly don't have 200 lbs of them in easily graspable form... hand weights are fine but kettlebells are better than those, and neither is at all the same as a barbell.

Yeah, 200 lbs would be pretty dangerous to attempt with DIY solutions I’d imagine.

Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?

#85
post #23

I’ve found the WFH experiment very unsurprising. Diligent and reliable coworkers are just as diligent and reliable. People who were iffy in person are basically non-existent WFH.

So you dispute that "struggles in the office but thrives WFH" is a real category?

I actually wonder about such a person. Do they exist? I haven’t had enough time WFH to tell.

Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?

#86
post #24

One 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…

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.

Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?

#87
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've started taking so much junk snacks (which wasn't available at Office) What I've found helps is to not buy snacks. I eat junk if it's available, but if nothing is nearby, then I can't be bothered to go out and purchase it, so I'll eat a grapefruit instead. Another thing that I have found helps is to order a community supported agriculture (CSA) produce box. A lot of farmers that supply restaurants are losing a…

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?

Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?

#88
post #66
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jiu-jitsu classes need a gym. It's hard to replace those workouts. Idk if it would even be safe for me to run for 2-3 hours I'd need to spend time working up to that and not ruin my legs or knees. That's a whole 2-3 hour work out few times a week. Plus board sports is my other workout. Ski resorts shut down and cities are restricting travel make it hard to drive for surf. I'm doing what I can but working out intentio…

I’m not familiar with Jiu-Jitsu specifically but I have trained in a few martial arts, Japanese and western, and they usually have routines you can practice on your own. Is the same not true for Jiu-jitsu? With the bored sports, while you obviously couldn’t train your board skills, you could still keep working on those muscles and stamina at home through different training exercises. I agree none of this is the same…

Yeah there's probably some, the problem is motivation. I can go to a class and workout hard for hours, and not really notice. After a few minutes of running I'm ready to call it a day.

Same for surfing, keeping busy with a skateboard though. Paddle endurance is taking a hit.

Re: Why are some people better at working from home than others?

#90

One 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 benefit of not having all of the kneecapping and hamstringing taken away that is usually inflicted by business on their workers through open floor plans.
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