This isn't a remote problem. I see this _all_ the time with people at work now and I don't work remotely.
This is more of a personal issue -- some people do it consistently, others don't. I never had that problem working remotely, and I don't pretend to be somewhere else in my regular reports in the office either.
One solution that usually works for me is to get a standing workstation and use it. Not one of those fancy ones that go up and down. Just one that is permanently up, like the Ikea standing desk hack. For a break, you can move and sit somewhere else. Standing takes a lot more energy, so, it is my belief, that you focus better because if you are standing and goofing off, you are wasting precious energy. There are times where you don't have the energy to stand but need to work - so just sit. Standing and sitting is not a either/or thing. You don't have to be faithful to your standup desk, go slouch in a couch for a break.
The biggest difference between standing and sitting is that walking away from your workstation is friction-free. You just move your feet.
Then what's the point of not getting a table that can go up and down?
That doesn't seem a problem unique to remote work. It's more about when tangible outputs are required from you.
This is so, so true for me. I used to work in a place which had an office, but you wouldn't be expected to be there most of the time, just come in at least once a week, maybe for meetings, etc.
I used to procrastinate and report progress to my manager when there was much less. But since the work was deadline-based, I'd just grind through the weekend with little sleep and catch up with what I've reported. I've never missed a deadline, but I'm still feeling bad about doing it that way and misleading them.
Just to be clear, this was a long time ago, when I was just starting my professional career, and didn't yet have stronger ethics.
(Throwaway for obvious reasons, the employer I worked for at the time browse HN)
Working from home for three years now as a software project contributor, this is my biggest problem. I always get my shit done, but it gets majorly stressful since daily family life goes on the same regardless of my self-inflicted work crunches. Pretty sure the tradeoffs are still worth it, though.
Not just that, but there's also the other side: Easy to procrastinate, easy to give false reports which then leads to regular overwork in the days just before a hard deadline.
I know these issues from remote workers I worked with, but also know this personally while working on my Diploma theses.
While we are at it: Working on Diploma/Master thesis is in many ways very similar to remote work: One works mostly from home, maybe in the library but even there mostly alone, i.e. not in an office, meeting one's mentor at most once per week. I met with other students which were in the same situation - just to get into a group feeling. That worked quite well, even though we had no overlaps in our topics and hence not much to talk about.
The situation is a bit different if you write your PhD thesis, as that usually means you have a job at the university during that time, and at least have an office and collegues.