[greenyouse]

Can you introspect on what was helpful about having a peer? Are there parts of that process you could replicate without needing a real coworker? You could talk to your engineering manager or team about how helpful it was to use pair programming.

If you've found that sporadically jumping into new work has a negative effect on your overall productivity, are there steps you can take to ignore distractions? Starting with 10 minute meditation sessions might help.[0] Be aware of when random thoughts are taking over and pulling you off task. If your higher-level goal is to focus better it will most likely require an internal change rather than an external force watching you. Although I guess software to block distracting content could help temporarily.

Building up focus and the ability to work in isolation probably takes time. It might help to write your frustrations down in a personal journal to try to identify issues and trends. Maybe the wikihow articles on how to focus would help for some focus strategies?[1]

Getting a friendly desk animal and doing some rubber ducking might help too. :D

Work shouldn't be so adversarial... The way you frame it makes your job sound like it's at odds with your personal development. Maybe your manager would have some ideas? Remote work is weird so lots of people are most likely running into things like this. Engineering people are probably the exception since having isolation for work is usually seen as a good thing.

[0] "The Mind Illuminated" is a good meditation book

[1] https://www.wikihow.com/Focus