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by calenti 2135 days ago
I have a room I work in - you don't have this luxury, if I didn't I'd dedicate a space to the same purpose, even one end of a table or a corner of the living room. When my working period starts I dress for the office (not completely, I wear shorts and a T-shirt but due to Zoom meetings etc I clean up because I will be on camera) and when I go into that space, that's where I work, procrastination and fecklessness aside.

Conversely, when I leave that space I am no longer working, pages aside. I do check in on email via phone if there are things that need to be checked on, but otherwise I try very hard to leave my work in that place.

I think the ritual is almost as important as the place, both for "clocking in" and "clocking out". Even if it's just open/closing a laptop or turning a monitor on/off, it's training yourself to see that as the gate for being "on" and being "off".

If your work laptop is your personal laptop, you might also need to have two accounts and sign out of your work account/into your personal account at the end of the day for Ycombinator time, personal use, etc.
2 comments
BoiledCabbage 2135 days ago
All of the above as accurate. I'd like to add, also go for a walk as soon as you stand up from work to "commute home".

It puts a firm temporal break between work and home, and also gives you a chance to clear your head of work to help get into home mode.

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mikehollinger 2135 days ago
Yup. I do all of these things, and also put my phone on DND at the end of my day.

I still wear my normal "work shirts" (button down jos a bank clearance shirts, ftw!) and get tidied up since I spend a decent chunk of my day on WebEx.

I also sit at the "wrong" position of my dining table, OR sit in our spare bedroom / office, which I only use for work, and only do work on my work laptop.

The only thing that causes problems for me is my phone buzzing or alerting because of email / calendar / slack / texts from colleagues.

Between the "fuzzy" work day from COVID and a worldwide team, there's always stuff going on. I have to occasionally go on DND to really "unplug."

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