Thanks for sharing, great read!
I was working remotely pre-pandemic, but back then I went to a co-working space on a daily basis with the exact goal of separating work and personal life. This obviously changed when the pandemic started, so I had to adjust to working from home (which is a small apartment with no dedicated work space).
I tried multiple technics over the past months to create a healthy work-life balance, and a here're a few things that helped me:
- Building routines for meaningful breaks: a short walk, quick workout, calling your family/friends - something to pull you aside from the screen (scrolling twitter is not a meaningful break for me)
- Blocking time for those routines by adding them to the calendar
- Making the most of my work hours: stop all distractions and create triggers for deep work. My trigger is putting on noise cancelling earphones. And my family knows that I shouldn't be distracted during that time.
- When possible, scheduling calls in batches, almost back to back
- Bonus: external accountability. My wife and I agree on a time when we go for a walk, have dinner, etc.
Generally, I feel good about my day when I have 2-3 hours of deep meaningful work and I followed through on my scheduled routines. Currently I'm trying to schedule pretty much my whole day, though it's tough because often times I get unexpected meetings and things to work on. Another thing I struggle with is time estimations for certain tasks, because a lot of the work I do is open ended and doesn't have clear boundaries (I can always do more).
I tried multiple technics over the past months to create a healthy work-life balance, and a here're a few things that helped me: - Building routines for meaningful breaks: a short walk, quick workout, calling your family/friends - something to pull you aside from the screen (scrolling twitter is not a meaningful break for me) - Blocking time for those routines by adding them to the calendar - Making the most of my work hours: stop all distractions and create triggers for deep work. My trigger is putting on noise cancelling earphones. And my family knows that I shouldn't be distracted during that time. - When possible, scheduling calls in batches, almost back to back - Bonus: external accountability. My wife and I agree on a time when we go for a walk, have dinner, etc.
Generally, I feel good about my day when I have 2-3 hours of deep meaningful work and I followed through on my scheduled routines. Currently I'm trying to schedule pretty much my whole day, though it's tough because often times I get unexpected meetings and things to work on. Another thing I struggle with is time estimations for certain tasks, because a lot of the work I do is open ended and doesn't have clear boundaries (I can always do more).