| I couldn't agree with you more. In contrast to a lot of folks, I have a dedicated office with a door on the second floor of my (small) home whose purpose is to be a work space. The noise levels are decent. The ergonomics are better than what I have at the office. I have a window that lets in lots of natural light. In every way it's superior to my office work space. And while I use it on the weekends for personal stuff, during the week it's work only. When I'm working, the door is typically shut and folks in the house know not to interrupt, which eliminates distractions. As a result, the separation between work and home life is easy: I shut everything down and leave the room. When it comes to avoiding mental fatigue and overwork, for me that's just a matter of discipline: I have hard cutoffs for number of hours works, and there are no exceptions. Ironically, for some of the complaints in this article, things are actually better for me. I'm far less sedentary as, without the commute, I have far more time to go for walks, go touring on my bike, etc. In fact, I've never felt more connected to nature and my local community since I'm experiencing so much more of the outdoors and the amenities nearby. My wife and I have even started getting into casual birding together. I'm also less likely to suffer from distractions since I don't have random people coming by to talk to me. Really, the only thing I can empathize with is the lack of face time and socializing, but if I went back to the office part time (say, 1-2 days a week), I think that'd fill that need. So, as always, it really depends. The problem with the pandemic, as so many have pointed out, is that it forced people to start working from home, often in far from ideal circumstances. So it's no great surprise that many people found the experience inferior to their corporate workplace. |