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.
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.