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Long story short, this is related to keeping focus when you're working as a freelancer, with the same laptop used for work and personal life. There's a simple solution that has been working well for me for years: have 2 local accounts on the machine, with everything separated, even different visual themes (like, bright for personal time, grey for professional time), and a different base color, e.g. blue and green. On principle the pro account has no login on any of the websites where I have a personal account and vice versa. Same for e-mails. That way, when on the pro account, no personal notification, only professional stuff, and vice versa. Has been helping me being concentrating on pro stuff for the last 4 years. To be precise, the separation is not totally strict, but it does not have to be 100% to be effective. Visual theme and only relevant notifications make a big part of the benefit. |
But for when I still had family and kids this set-up would be not strict enough. Now with WFO everyone is a "freelancer" and work time bleeds into private time. Here is the only thing that worked for me.
1) hardware separation: My private laptop is upstairs, no access to my work world. My work laptop is chained to my work desk.
2) my work desk is in my office
3) my office is downstairs
it has taken me some decades to refine that because initially I was sitting in the living room coding while also attending to my toddler kids. later I started hiding away in the "study" which was in the same flat but another room and I was still reachable to whenever my partner felt like popping in with a questions such as "what do you want for dinner dear?" or "do you think my black shoes go with my grey shirt", etc. After moving I hid away downstairs. In the past years I made sure there is 100% hardware compartmentalization in all my gear, and ideally that also includes modifications to location.
Finally I have managed to train my surrounding so that they no longer ask why I didn't bring a phone. To which I usually respond, so that I can be here in the moment. I don't judge others for doing it but when I sit down for a cup of coffee with anyone or am in a meeting, I would never disrespect them by browsing on my phone while pretending to listen to them.
Even more extreme my partner has stopped sending me updates on messenger because they know I prefer talking about what happened in person, and I do not want to dilute the moment. I've gone from burnt out, unfocused and distracted to in-the-moment, hyperfocused and it had a huge effect on how people treat me and how I remember things (most importantly I am able to form long term memories which multi-tasking has killed).