> You also get that intangible "separation" of your work life from your home life that your commute used to give you--hard to explain. A brief walk outside to and from the office allows me to reset into work-mode or home-mode.

This reduced all temptations to mix work and home life. It also made it clear to the other people in the house that daddy is now serious, and that even just a simple "hi, how are you" would require me to get up, leave, and return to answer. And then leave and return to go back to work. The social friction was important.

The adherence to this technique needs to be total and absolute, but the situation has to call for an ever-escalating frequency of interruptions from family, work, the government, neighbors, etc.

We need some sketch comedians to get on this!

I guess I sort of understand a bit of downvoting but... didn't expect that much.

Whatever... happy holidays everyone all the same! :)

Suppose someone else went out the door, walked back in, and went to your work area. Were they then considered to be in the work area and so could talk with you without you having to leave and come back?

I would completely expect my family to get behind this. I've worked remotely for many years now so my kids were (in theory) well trained to not bother me while I'm working. However, that started to get more lax post-covid. I also used to specifically work late at night and in the morning while they were at school. As they get older and stay up later, it has gotten more difficult to keep that schedule.

I recently moved my office to our third floor space. I'm hoping the extra work required to go up a flight of stairs will limit spontaneous interruptions during the day. I'm hopeful, but don't expect it to work long term.

Maybe I need hats...

  > You need two hats. A work hat and family hat.

The neighbors will just have to get used to seeing me step outside occasionally to swap hats.

Gotta trick those pesky neural Place Cells into operating the way we want them to.

It might sound unnecessarily pompous but really it’s just enforcing some basic courtesy.

It doesn't. That you included this disclaimer, though, sounds like it's from someone who had to deal with an unreasonable amount of friction e.g. in the form of unfulfilled promises and perhaps even attempts by loved ones to change the subject when confronting them about everybody's obligation to follow through when they agree to something.

Mentally it just put me in a different 'mode'

And preserved my home as the home

It must take some cooperation from the others in the house, to avoid being often expected to make exceptions “just this once” and respond immediately.

I like the fact that because I work home, I have to mix work and home life actually. Breakfast, Laundry, cooking, lunch, doing groceries. I treat those as important "pauses" that forces me to move a bit my body, release the mind. The key is putting strong limit in the amount of those and planning them in advance so that you don't have unexpected and constant context switches. Like today I had set a reminder to clean up the nozzle of my printer at 12am. I definitely have to set alarms on my laptop because I tend to forget everything when focused. When you think of it, most people working at an office are also mixing work and personal if not home life, or even argue about things on hn.

As for kids, I send them to school so I tend to only have them home for 2 hours a day if I haven't finished work. The only issue is if they are fighting against each other because otherwise I tell them to do their homework. 2 hours of lower concentration out of 8 is not that big of a deal anyway. It is still better that 8 hours of lower concentration in an office.

Was she filming a remake of Spinal Tap in such a small building? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=071cXxCNj5A

The privacy implied by two locking doors between me and the tiny children is immensely valuable to me. The short walk to and from work helps me clear my head between contexts.

The space doubles as a guest space when we infrequently have them. It's great for guests to be able to just leave for the night without having to drive to a hotel and dealing with all that implies.

Here in Los Angeles, I know a handful of people that have apartments in radically different parts of the city, just for practicality and convenience. Just renting. Nothing anybody brags about given how awkward struggling people will make that, but if you got it like that there is no reason to experience LA, you can totally exempt yourself from the commutes and hellishness and have somewhere to decompress in whichever part of the city you are in. I've sublet for months this way too, while retaining a headquarters that I rent elsewhere.

It’s like when SF kept reminding that I needed to ask for a water refill because we need to conserve water while farms in the Central Valley are using the majority of it.

When it comes to housing, a singular human priced out of housing is someone who becomes homeless

More housing needs to be built in your scenario. It is not on the shoulders of the demand side. More housing needs to be built and it needs to be built now. We should be guilting the communities that have prevented development from happening. Not John Doe who rents two apartments.

At one place I lived where there was no room I could dedicate to being an office, I ended up buying a standalone wooden 8x10' shed, insulated it, ran power and ethernet to it, and it served me very well for a couple of years.

1: https://www.icreatables.com/sheds/6x12-B-backyard-shed-plans

Also, a simple towable RV or a used RV can do this job quite well. It doesn't even need to be road-worthy, it just needs to have its battery/generator/AC/heat functional. Plop a starlink and a 30amp line on your switchbox and you're good to go.

It's not attractive though for neighbors or housing associations, unlike a decently made shed.

Do get some natural light from a window well too.

My wife’s office from the 2nd floor gets the kids/animal noise- but she also gets the view…

He leaves the house, gets in his vehicle, drives to get coffee and then to the office ... that happens to be home ... but goes into the office off the garage.

Same trip back every day.

He says that ritual is a big deal for him.

For me, one great thing about working from home for about six years now is how little mileage we've put on our cars and how little money we've spent on fuel.

I am flabbergasted by this. You are wasting time and money waiting for something you could prepare yourself cheaper and faster.

It was fantastic to have a mental break between work and not-work, and I didn't fall into the trap of working an extra hour because I have an hour fewer of commuting.

Also people: actually, we do need offices for remote work. Moreover, we actually need office buildings.

- in some countries, dedicated home office rooms and supplies can be deducted from taxable income or lead to other forms of tax reduction.

- you do not have to pay for the commute. Not only in terms of money (gasoline and car value loss, public transport ticket...), but also generalized cost (time lost, loss of flexibility...)

- some employers actively provide financial support for home office (e.g. by subsidising supplies).

I am personally happy to pay for my home office _and_ accept a lower salary if this means I can spend tine with my kids and wife every day, rather than waiting for the train in the rain.

Also also also people: damn do I hate my commute. Guess there's no other way since remote work doesn't work. Oh well!

(Many professional writers have done this by tradition. They have a "work space" in a shed or an attic somewhere close to their home.)

Now since school is back in action, it has become the quiet place to hangout if outside gets too warm in the summer, or a peaceful retreat during snowstorms in the winter. It's cozy as heck.

Slowly becoming the "radio shack" as it has a goes receiver setup in it now and a couple long pieces of wire strung through the trees for shortwave listening.

The physical individual separation, even if being across the yard, makes all the difference to our brains.

Setting the distance between the home and the office to be something walkable, but not too close is a great hack to force yourself to move more. Mine is about 2km, so going to the work and back gives me a nice push toward those recommended 7000 steps a day, plus does wonders to my mind - especially in the sunny mornings when it's a pure joy.

I fully agree with this. I lived about six years and half, altogether, in a rural area and I loved every moment of it. Connection to nature is not a one-day trip during the week-end and it's certainly not a walk in a city park.

> I wouldn't want to go back to work-from-spare-bedroom or work-from-closet.

I don't mind the spare bedroom: I love it. Bathroom is nearby, coffee machine too. I mean, sure, I could duplicate this in a second home next to the first one but why bother?

I need a three bedrooms for that: parents, kiddo and office...

With that said, we've come full circle on this. One of the advantages of remote work is being able to live anywhere, yet you are essentially suggesting people live in very specific (albeit geographically large) areas. It is at least a bit funny.