Comment by mattowen_uk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mattowen_uk | Hacker News Reader

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I'm struggling with your comment. What's the difference between the dedicated room you have at home, and the dedicated office at work, which you state is mainly empty except for you? Is it a mindset thing? You just can't get into a 'work' mode whilst at home?

I'm totally in the other camp - I love working from home, and have been home-based for over 4 years now (dedicated room and set-up etc.). The only difference that covid has brought, is that my partner is now also work-from-home, which interestingly has impacted my productivity somewhat; We prefer to just sit around and chat, than focus on work - It now takes a bit more effort to get my head down and focus. :)

All that said, I'd still not want to go back into an office. Here in London, this means over an hour commute each way, on typically standing-room only trains, and then 8 hours in noisy open-plan with tiny desks, and your stuff kept in a locker.

Ultimately it's down to choice: Going forwards I'd like to see companies offer the choice of working in the office, or working from home. That way everyone can work in a location that suits them best.

I too have come to realize that I in many ways miss the office. The main thing is the clear separation between home and work both mentally and physically.

At work I had my work desk with my work computer and work files and my work stuff. At home I had my home desk and home computer. When at home I could not (easily) access my work computer or work files. When at work I could not access my home computer and home files. It made it easy to compartmentalize the two and stop one bleeding into the other. There was something definitive about walking out of the office for the day that I kind of miss.

I also liked my 'commute', which was either a 20 minute bus ride or a 50ish minute walk. It gave me a chance to clear my head, refocus and switch 'modes'.

Going forwards I'd like to see companies offer the choice

Obviously agree. As much as I really do miss the office, I hope to never again have a job where I am forced to be there 5 days a week.

Part of it is the separation. Another part is that it becomes a little depressing for me to be in the same place all day every day. There’s just no variety in your day. Going to an office you at least are in a different place for a while, there’s other people around, even if they’re not right in the office with me. Commuting you see different things and get a feel for what’s going on. There’s an outside world.

I mean sure you can go for walks and run errands while you’re working from home, but somehow it wasn’t the same for me.

It's the separation of church and state, right? Obviously annecdata, but a pretty decent amount of people I know struggle with the blurry lines that working from home brings.

Like, it's easy to say "when I put on work clothes [whatever they may be] and leave the house to go to the office I'm 'working'." You're paid to go to a place and sit there for 7 hours. Everything that happens in that time is easy to mentally stick in the "they're paying me for this" box.

If you're working from home and sat on the sofa wearing your PJs from the night before until midday the separation is much harder. Does the working day start when you read that first email on your phone at 7.15am (that normally you don't worry about until you're on the train)? When does it end? What if someone emails when you're making your dinner? Does it feel like replying to a work email at home, or an extension of your working day?

This all seems to be amplified greatly if you're not particularly fussed about your job. FWIW and in my experience - the people who do the best working from home get at least some kind of work satisfaction, and are also best at properly defining their working day and getting in to it as if they were actually leaving the house.

Rings true to me. I'm pretty happy working from home. I try to imitate a well-defined work day: I change to work clothes in the morning and to home clothes after being done. I have a separate laptop for work and work only, not even private emails on that device. In the same vein no work chat or email on my phone, once that laptop closes I'm reachable again next morning.

The trick from working from home is finding that separation between home and work. In particular, you want to make sure you _don't_ work in the sofa wearing your PJs.

I do a fake bike commute before and after work and it's done wonders for my happiness and work-life balance.

> It's the separation of church and state, right? Obviously annecdata, but a pretty decent amount of people I know struggle with the blurry lines that working from home brings.

They should join the antidisestablishmentarialist cause! Mostly because I've never had the opportunity to use that word before.

I moved my desk to a different room, and the first 6-9 months of working from home were OK. Once winter came, the darkness at 17.00 (or sooner) plus the strongest level of lockdown we've had in Denmark[1] was pretty miserable.

[1] Non-essential shops, all restaurants etc closed, though no restrictions on private gatherings, going outside etc. (I realize most of the rest of Europe had stricter restrictions.)

My problem is I don't have a dedicated area at home for "work". And even if I did, I'm the one paying for it. My work desk is also my computer desk. So by the end of the day, maybe I want to play a PC game, but the last thing I want to do is spend more time at the desk.

While I also like the idea of choice for people on either side of the spectrum I feel being remote while part of your team/company is not puts you at a severe disadvantage. Both in the sense of being involved in new projects and ideas and visibility compared to peers.

I'm curious to see how this hybrid approach plays out in the future.

For some people it's just a mental change. I work from home and have done it for over a decade now. I'm reasonably productive and prefer it to being in the office every day.

I'm still going to a local coworking place once a week basically to have a change of environment - it makes a massive difference in a long run. I also really enjoy working from the car service waiting room when I get there every few months. I had one of the most productive days on a 6h flight. I don't expect this applies to everyone of course.

I work in a different room to my partner and we don't see each other apart from at lunch time. We do take a whole hour for lunch together every day and often have sex, but other than that we both have our own work to do. Do you not have separate rooms?

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