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Comment by P_I_Staker | Hacker News Reader

> Since starting to work remote I've discovered the power of shutting down the work laptop (not sleeping) at a set time and not looking back. No Slack or work email on the phone.

What!?!? I don't necessarily agree with OP, but this is the exact opposite of my experience (mostly observing others). One of the main downsides of WFH is the "always on" nature of it.

I usually left my laptop at work, and ignored my phone before (after all I'm not at work). Now you're always set up to work, so there's no reason you can't respond at 8PM. I don't, but many of my colleagues do.

Most of my coworkers, especially the ones that would be leaving early for work life balance reasons, work all hours, and I get randomly pinged at 5:30-8 by people that would just be done for the day. They don't need to commute, so they have less pressure about working at odd times, and want to show managers the advantages of the WFH thing, so it won't go away.

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For me, it may look like I work longer hours than before, but I find my work hours less concentrated. I usually try to log on by 9am and will find myself finishing up between 6pm and 8pm depending on the day. But I often step away a number of times throughout the day for various reasons (no kids, but I assume those with kids have even more reasons for taking a few minutes here and there away from work). It also allows me to do something else during low-energy periods rather than trying to force myself to work (I've even rarely tried naps, although it never works well for me).

The effect is that it leads to a "longer" work day, but less concentrated than it would have been in the office. And similar productivity, IMO. I wonder if some of your co-workers you describe may do the same. In some ways, I feel like it's better work-life balance for some people as it's "ok" (in some work cultures) for WFH employees to take the time as they need it. And others are equally fine ensuring their work time is as concentrated as possible because they have other things they would rather do in evenings, etc.

I totally understand and agree, but that's different from being "easy" to do a hard cutoff. Leaving your laptop at work is a hard cutoff. Asking around, people are feeling less barriers between them and their work, and that leads to more of an "always on behavior". I've seen that in my colleagues and people from other companies have reported the same.

The parent you responded to is suggesting that hard-shutdowns at a certain time are a way to help prevent that. Shut it down at a set time and don't turn it back on until later.

You won't be as tempted to just pop in for a few minutes of work here or there to respond to some chats or emails.

How do you get randomly pinged outside working hours? Is Slack on your personal phone? If so, delete it. Keep your work emails closed (and not on your personal phone). Use a separate browser profile for work/personal if you are working on your personal laptop.

I sympathise with people finding it hard to switch off (I was one until I did all of the above) but it's a simple problem to solve and it's absolutely nothing to do with WFH.

No, I ignore that shit. It's usually group messages and/or people idealistically "hoping" for some help.

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