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Comment by mfer | Hacker News Reader

I did when I started working from home. I was lucky to have a manager who knew about habits and patterns to fix that. A lot of this isn't about going to work but about our habits and patterns.

For example, I have a room I go into and close the door. When I am in there I am working. When I am out of there I'm not. It's like a mental switch. I also use some tricks to keep be from being distracted like a pomodoro timer.

Doesn't work for everyone. But, I learned from training my dog that situational training can be important. If we are training ourselves we might need to train ourselves to be productive at home.

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100% agreed. Important patterns for me are having the same breakfast, lunch and dinner times with dedicated time to eat without work. Shutting down work at a fixed time at night. Waking up at a fixed time.

If it stick to those I tend to automatically start making other patterns to make those times work.

> I have a room I go into and close the door

That would be awesome to have, unfortunately, I live in a small 1 bedroom apartment. So I either work on the living room, were the TV and my wife are, or on the bedroom :(

I'm in a small apartment too, where my partner (and dog) are also here. We've both got corners set up in different rooms (I'm in the bedroom) and if I'm in my corner, I'm working. It's less about having a full room to dedicate to being a home office, and more about making a space (no matter how small or open) dedicated to working.

I would suggest trying headphones. Noise canceling ones if you have them. Makes it easier to ignore the distractions around you.

Yeah I hear you, but I've been unable to make it work so far. Sometimes when this happens in the office, I would go exercise, and more often than not the flip would be switched afterwards. Doesn't work at home.

I've noticed the same tends to happen in the office if others are not around (if, say, I swap a holiday for a work day or something and am alone when I go in).

"habits and patterns to fix that"

Yes. Just as starting a new job/office has its own set of learned behaviors, practices, and norms - so does WFH.

> close the door.

I'm guessing you don't have a cat, then.

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