I’ve read a fair bit about “how to work at home” all of which discuss “things” and “stuff” like having a dedicated office, or regular hours, or other explicit, quantitative measures. I don’t worry too much about having dedicated space because I don’t have any problem working from home.
But I’ve never read anything about explicitly handling the emotional component.
Basically, nowadays when I’m working at home, I’m emotionally at work. This means I can surf the internet looking for information about parametric representation of buildings, but I won’t be checking into Facebook or Twitter too much.
I can even shut down all my email.
And my iPhone!
The problem has changed from being productive at home… to being able to relax at home! Lately, I’ve been forcing myself to leave my home to take a break! That’s kind of crazy, and I’m not sure I like it.
Maybe having that dedicated space might be smart after all!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
This is the real meat of the problem. I see a lot of people suggest things to do without addressing the underlying emotional reasons these things need to happen.
I’ve been working to implement a habit of having work clothes. It may just be a hat or something like that. I dress in work clothes when I go to my 9 to 5, so why not put on work clothes for the work I do at home?
Otherwise, yes. It is easy for work to bleed into messing around at home, and for relaxing at home to bleed into work.
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Sean, that’s an interesting notion: work clothes for home. I actually used to have a couple of pair of raggedy khakis I wear for beating around the house. Might have to think about that again.
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