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Comment by Shacklz | Hacker News Reader

> I don't understand how someone can work longer hours unwillingly when it's entirely in your control.

I have that situation, but without the 'unwilling' part. In the office, I have often the situation "Gosh, I'd love to finish this, but if I don't catch the next train I have to wait another half hour for the next one", which automatically makes me stop work at fixed times.

Sure, I could also just stop at the same time at home, but ultimately I always end up working longer hours. Same in the morning; having to catch a train is really something that forces me to hit certain timings; when working from home, staying in bed just a little longer doesn't make me miss any trains.

It's a silly problem and could easily be overcome with enough willpower, but it requires the willpower where otherwise there are already external factors in place that soft-force me to start/stop work.

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Unfortunately, will power means nothing.

What you need, as I learned, is discipline, which is really hard to train. you basically have Work hard on small things one at a time until you build the habits you want.

On that topic, this is pretty interesting:

https://www.wisdomination.com/screw-motivation-what-you-need...

Relying on something like train timings to enforce your work life balance isn’t a reliable strategy.

What if the trains started running every 5 minutes? Or what if you moved a little closer and you could walk?

If you don’t want to use willpower to stop working you could add some structured activity (after COVID) like a workout class after work. Or you could generally just make more deliberate plans for you after work time.

Or my personal favorite. Start a hobby you like more than work.

If trains are infrequent enough (every 20-30 minutes or more) that it's worth planning around the schedule, it's generally unlikely that the frequency will be changed significantly in any 10-year period.

Maybe not every train, but an individual train route could easily significantly change in frequency for a few hours a day, or more likely the train schedule could get worse to the point where you can’t leave until later.

Or the office could move, you could move, your office could change the time of the last meeting of the day etc...

Relying on the granularity of the train schedule to enforce work life balance is brittle at best, and it’s a terrible argument against WFH.

It doesn't require willpower. Write a script that warns you 10-5 minutes before 5pm that your computer will be shutting down. Then again a minute before shutdown.

Then it shuts down.

Or write one that sends a message to your partner, friends or flatmates that you'll be done in a few and to put on a kettle. Plan to have tea or what have you with your SO or flatmate at 5pm sharp. Set an alarm to take your dog out. I'm sure you can come up with other things.

Add things to your schedule that force you to leave, just like your train. Even if you're in a meeting drop a "Sorry folks, we'll have to pick this up tomorrow, I have personal obligations waiting on me" and you're out.

I also work longer hours on average when working from home, but I don't really mind it.

The main reason is that I save easily 90 minutes of commute per day, so it's not bothersome to be available some of that time extra. And the second reason is that I take personal breaks randomly during the day, I'm not always 100% focused on my work, so I don't feel like being available a bit later is a stretch. Flexibility goes both ways.

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