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>The distinction between the beginning and end of my work day. Just log off at 5pm or 4pm or whenever you have done your contracted working hours. I rarely en

>The distinction between the beginning and end of my work day. Just log off at 5pm or 4pm or whenever you have done your contracted working hours. I rarely end up in a meeting which goes over my usual working hours. But otherwise I just log off. I don't understand how someone can work longer hours unwillingly when it's entirely in your control. I guess it depends on how your remote working is implemented. For me I remote in. For others it's a VPN. But either way, cut off all communication avenues until the next morning. >When someone of greater rank than me in an inconvenient time zone wants to have a meeting with me involved, I have to attend. I’ve practically lost all my mornings from 6am - 9am, 3-4 days a week. The mistake was attending this even once. Now you've shown a weakness in that you'll attend a terribly scheduled meeting. You need to bring this up, it's not fair to be in work at 6am if that was not the norm before COVID. If your days started at 9am in the office, your days start at 9am at home.

bamboozled 6y ago
This isn't really what i meant, it's not necessarily that I'm working longer hours now (although I am). I meant I miss the routine I used to have, go to the gym, come back home, make breakfast, shower, put on my "work clothes" then psychically go to my office, have coffee with colleagues and then sit at my desk, open my day planner and get started. That was the queue to begin focusing. Of course I can try do this in my living room, but it just doesn't have the same effect for me personally. I have meetings at awkward hours which kind of makes me feel like I'm kind of permanently attached to my work. Before hand, there was work time, and home time, work stayed at work, often including my work laptop. Also this statement kind of bugged me: "I don't understand how someone can work longer hours unwillingly when it's entirely in your control.", if you have a job that allows you to 100% dictate your hours, never having to deal with unexpected problems, outages, personnel issues, then congratulations. It's not a reality for everyone.
Shacklz 6y ago
> I don't understand how someone can work longer hours unwillingly when it's entirely in your control. I have that situation, but without the 'unwilling' part. In the office, I have often the situation "Gosh, I'd love to finish this, but if I don't catch the next train I have to wait another half hour for the next one", which automatically makes me stop work at fixed times. Sure, I could also just stop at the same time at home, but ultimately I always end up working longer hours. Same in the morning; having to catch a train is really something that forces me to hit certain timings; when working from home, staying in bed just a little longer doesn't make me miss any trains. It's a silly problem and could easily be overcome with enough willpower, but it requires the willpower where otherwise there are already external factors in place that soft-force me to start/stop work.
- learc83 6y ago
  Relying on something like train timings to enforce your work life balance isn’t a reliable strategy. What if the trains started running every 5 minutes? Or what if you moved a little closer and you could walk? If you don’t want to use willpower to stop working you could add some structured activity (after COVID) like a workout class after work. Or you could generally just make more deliberate plans for you after work time. Or my personal favorite. Start a hobby you like more than work.
  - Symbiote 6y ago
    If trains are infrequent enough (every 20-30 minutes or more) that it's worth planning around the schedule, it's generally unlikely that the frequency will be changed significantly in any 10-year period.
    - learc83 6y ago
      Maybe not every train, but an individual train route could easily significantly change in frequency for a few hours a day, or more likely the train schedule could get worse to the point where you can’t leave until later. Or the office could move, you could move, your office could change the time of the last meeting of the day etc... Relying on the granularity of the train schedule to enforce work life balance is brittle at best, and it’s a terrible argument against WFH.
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  I also work longer hours on average when working from home, but I don't really mind it. The main reason is that I save easily 90 minutes of commute per day, so it's not bothersome to be available some of that time extra. And the second reason is that I take personal breaks randomly during the day, I'm not always 100% focused on my work, so I don't feel like being available a bit later is a stretch. Flexibility goes both ways.
- GreenWatermelon 6y ago
  Unfortunately, will power means nothing. What you need, as I learned, is discipline, which is really hard to train. you basically have Work hard on small things one at a time until you build the habits you want. On that topic, this is pretty interesting: https://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need-is-discipline/ https://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need...

bamboozled 6y ago

This isn't really what i meant, it's not necessarily that I'm working longer hours now (although I am). I meant I miss the routine I used to have, go to the gym, come back home, make breakfast, shower, put on my "work clothes" then psychically go to my office, have coffee with colleagues and then sit at my desk, open my day planner and get started. That was the queue to begin focusing. Of course I can try do this in my living room, but it just doesn't have the same effect for me personally. I have meetings at awkward hours which kind of makes me feel like I'm kind of permanently attached to my work. Before hand, there was work time, and home time, work stayed at work, often including my work laptop. Also this statement kind of bugged me: "I don't understand how someone can work longer hours unwillingly when it's entirely in your control.", if you have a job that allows you to 100% dictate your hours, never having to deal with unexpected problems, outages, personnel issues, then congratulations. It's not a reality for everyone.

Shacklz 6y ago

> I don't understand how someone can work longer hours unwillingly when it's entirely in your control. I have that situation, but without the 'unwilling' part. In the office, I have often the situation "Gosh, I'd love to finish this, but if I don't catch the next train I have to wait another half hour for the next one", which automatically makes me stop work at fixed times. Sure, I could also just stop at the same time at home, but ultimately I always end up working longer hours. Same in the morning; having to catch a train is really something that forces me to hit certain timings; when working from home, staying in bed just a little longer doesn't make me miss any trains. It's a silly problem and could easily be overcome with enough willpower, but it requires the willpower where otherwise there are already external factors in place that soft-force me to start/stop work.

learc83 6y ago
Relying on something like train timings to enforce your work life balance isn’t a reliable strategy. What if the trains started running every 5 minutes? Or what if you moved a little closer and you could walk? If you don’t want to use willpower to stop working you could add some structured activity (after COVID) like a workout class after work. Or you could generally just make more deliberate plans for you after work time. Or my personal favorite. Start a hobby you like more than work.
- Symbiote 6y ago
  If trains are infrequent enough (every 20-30 minutes or more) that it's worth planning around the schedule, it's generally unlikely that the frequency will be changed significantly in any 10-year period.
  - learc83 6y ago
    Maybe not every train, but an individual train route could easily significantly change in frequency for a few hours a day, or more likely the train schedule could get worse to the point where you can’t leave until later. Or the office could move, you could move, your office could change the time of the last meeting of the day etc... Relying on the granularity of the train schedule to enforce work life balance is brittle at best, and it’s a terrible argument against WFH.
benhurmarcel 6y ago
I also work longer hours on average when working from home, but I don't really mind it. The main reason is that I save easily 90 minutes of commute per day, so it's not bothersome to be available some of that time extra. And the second reason is that I take personal breaks randomly during the day, I'm not always 100% focused on my work, so I don't feel like being available a bit later is a stretch. Flexibility goes both ways.
GreenWatermelon 6y ago
Unfortunately, will power means nothing. What you need, as I learned, is discipline, which is really hard to train. you basically have Work hard on small things one at a time until you build the habits you want. On that topic, this is pretty interesting: https://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need-is-discipline/ https://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need...