Huge and well-equipped? Why? I work at my dining table. It’s still better than going to the office. Also your office had a 3D printer and gym... you must realise your office is absurdly better than most people’s offices. Most people just have an open plan space full of irritating other people and maybe a pingpong table.
Also: There are clear health benefits when having a "proper" chair and a table in right height (maybe even changeable, someone can stand for a while) for a place where you're spending large parts of the day.
Also in my personal experience from working from home for 10 years, having a clear separation between "work" and "private" is essential for a good work-life-balance. Otherwise it's too easy to do that one more thing and check that one idea all the time instead of calling it a day and doing something else.
For a while - especially while young - a dining table works. But for a permanent setup it's not the right way.
> having a clear separation between "work" and "private" is essential for a good work-life-balance. Otherwise it's too easy to do that one more thing and check that one idea all the time instead of calling it a day and doing something else.
This has been one of the hardest parts about the switch to WFH for me. I enjoy listening to podcasts/YouTube videos related to what I'm doing at work whilst doing mundane take around the house and I've been increasingly finding myself hearing something that triggers an idea which leads me to jumping back on "real quick" whole it's still fresh in my head.
I only realized over the last few weeks just how burnt out this was making me. I noticed my kids (which I split time with their mother one week on one week off) constantly having to ask later and later into the evening if "I was still working or not".
Since making that realization, I've committed to working specific hours during the week when I have my kids, only getting on outside those hours for actual emergencies. I give myself a little more wiggle room during the weeks I don't have the kids but I'm making a conscious effort to evaluate what I'm doing in those extra hours and whether or not it's something that could be done when I "get in the office" the next day.
Since starting this, I've found myself and my kids being much happier during our weeks together. During the weeks I don't have them, with the extra time I've gained my shutting work down, I've started doing more things I enjoy outside of work again. Going for walks at a local park to play some PoGo, going out at night to do some star gazing with the binoculars I bought and never used because I was always exhausted. I really wish I'd have started this a long time ago.
I've had a coworker in a similar situation once WFH started. He told me that he just has trouble turning it off at night. I have trouble understanding this perspective because no matter how much you work there is always going to be more, and no matter how much you do you're still getting paid the same salary.
My take on this, is if you want to keep working, after you've met your obligation to the company, why not just work on your own stuff? If you work on something that's "yours", there's a possibility of being able to earn more based on how much effort you put in.
> no matter how much you work there is always going to be more, and no matter how much you do you're still getting paid the same salary.
There can be two factors at work:
- intrinsic motivation: you care about a problem and are curious and have some drive to solve it. By not having an environment that pulls you out (i.e. colleagues leaving the office) one can get lost in it
- fear of being rated as unproductive: when not in the office, you might have the fear that your manage might think you are lazy or somebody else might outperform you or whatever and you want to be able to show results. That's the main thing you have to show. In an office scenario you would also have your presence "oh he did something" in WFH focus on result is higher.
One thing I try (sometimes with more , sometimes with less consequence) to do is if I receive a message late or see late commits or such i tell my engineer "you are working too long hours" to remind them that they don't have to work long and it's good to call it a day ...
