Comment by 121789 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by 121789 | Hacker News Reader

I had hoped I could easily recreate the healthy routines I had when working in office, but it hasn’t panned out. Discipline and routine have been really hard to figure out without the forcing function of a commute. For example:

1. An early commute to avoid traffic forced me to go to bed earlier, get ready for the next day the night before, and wake up on a set schedule

2. Housework seems to expand infinitely when working remote. When I was in office, this didn’t take up much of my mental energy. Now it seems like I always have laundry to do, dishes to clean, etc

I’m going to try and stick remote, but I really need to figure these things out. The forced schedule really seems to help. FWIW I am single. I don’t think it’s the same if you have kids from what I’ve seen.

> Housework seems to expand infinitely when working remote

Yeah we go from spending 4-8 waking hours per day to 14-16 at home - generating so much more trash and spending that much more time being aggravated by the mess.

I can't get my head around that.

I make larger dinner portions so there is extra for lunch the next day, and taking out an extra bag of rubbish every so often is no big deal.

In return you get to load the dishwasher during boring "read only" meetings on mute, run a load of washing, do some grocery shopping during lunch break.

Basically all the housework can be done during what would be office dead time.

>>I don’t think it’s the same if you have kids from what I’ve seen.

The endless list of housework expands when the kids are quite young, but perhaps the biggest difference for most parents is the motivation.

Oh yes, I didn't mean to imply kids = less housework. It is definitely the opposite--they have much more work that could always be done. What I meant was that parents get two things from the in-office life by default:

1. A forced schedule, because you have to bring kids to school, cook dinner, deal with homework etc etc. I think this helps you prioritize at work a bit better, because the time limitation is very clear.

2. A heavy baseline social life, because your family is around frequently

This isn't to say that their lives are easier (again, I think it's the opposite), but I think it helps explain some of differences in preferences right now for remote vs. in office.

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