Hacker News Reader

It took my husband a while to catch on to this, too, though he really was trying. He works 3 days a week (not that he works less, just that he does it all in 3 days). He's always respected the work I do, but it took him a while to adjust to the fact that I couldn't just rearrange my schedule at the drop of a hat to take the day off to go somewhere or go out to lunch or something.

I'm not so busy that I don't stop to eat lunch, so we would still go out on days where I didn't have quite so much to do and could afford the extra hour or so that eating somewhere other than my dining room requires, but then he would do things like remember he needed to stop somewhere else and could we just do that while we're out so he doesn't have to drive all the way back into town? (We live in a fairly rural area) So a trip out for lunch would turn into lunch, grocery store, his business (he owns a store here in town), bank, etc. and suddenly the hour and a half I'd planned to take off had turned into three or four.

I can't say I blame him. I enjoy spending the time with him and it's nice to get out and do some things together during the day while the kid's in school, but it just isn't practical most days. Now we very clearly plan what we're going to do when we go out on the days I'm working and he's not.

I've gone through that from the opposite perspective. My SO works from home and sometimes when I'd have a sick day, or a public holiday or whatever I'd wander into the study and have a chat, or pop my head in to offer a cup of tea or something. To me she would seem kind of standoffish or dismissive. It took me quite a long time to wrap my head around the fact that she wasn't being rude or ignoring me, she was working.

Funny how the brain works. I obviously knew it, intellectually, but I would still get a bit bummed out or wonder if she was mad at me or whatever when she'd sit in the house "just being on the computer" for 7 hours and not talk to me. Especially when I wouldn't normally be home, I'd be looking forward to spending a bit more time together. Sometimes I'd give her a hug or something and it took a while for her to mention "look, it's not that I don't like you, it's just like how you would feel if I turned up in your office and gave you a cuddle while you were in the middle of doing something - my brain is in full work mode, it can't instantly switch to affection mode". This reversal of opinion - imagining having my SO around my office wanting to hang out and chat and have coffee and how distracting and kind of irritating it would be - is when it finally clicked for me.

Of course now I feel foolish for ever thinking that way, and all's well. But I sympathise with your wife!

I'm currently going through this right now. My SO even went as far as to announce that "we can get a dog now because you are home to take care of it!" I would go grocery shopping during the day, pick up the mail, wash dishes, do laundry, etc, during my coding breaks while self-employed.

Now?

I leave the dishes in the sink, leave the mail in the mailbox, don't pick up the random stuff laying on the floor, etc. The result is that my SO comes home and there are a bunch of unresolved physical tasks that need to be done. It looks as though I had been at an office doing work and also just came home.

Kind of odd psychology going on, but it works for me right now.

Same here. When I was working out of the house, I would frequently say to my SO: "Pretend I'm at work."

I wish it was something I addressed better up front.

For others, keep in mind that it's a two-way street. If you want your SO to give you space to be 'at work', then it is important for you to stay in work mode on a predictable schedule.

I had the same problem with my girlfriend. We used to work together then I quit to work for myself. Whenever she had a day off she thought I was just playing on the computer too and just couldn't wrap her mind around the idea that despite the fact that I worked from home, I had to get x, y, and z done before I could go out to dinner or lunch or whatever. Its almost a year now and she left me which sucks but as a twenty-something trying to make it in this economy I have to say my business comes first, at least until I've made the progress I set out to make.

These tips were very good and I've found them to be very true though it can be a challenge to implement them even if you know you should.

Those who work from home should heed my warning: it's not just wives and girlfriends who won't get you're actually working, pretty much everyone else will take a while to get that you're working, not living some awesome fantasy life where you do whatever you want, whenever you want and your bank account just fills with magic funds.

The perceived "you're just playing around on the computer" attitude from people is annoying though. We have friends where the dad works at home too, in sales, and doesn't really need to work a full day, as long as he makes his calls and meets his quotas. As a developer, our work is never done and so I work a full day, and yet I'm "always working" as if that's a bad thing. Even though without 2 hours of commuting I'm usually there for breakfast, lunch and dinner where I rarely had those with my family when I worked in the office.

Pure projection. Useless people accomplish nothing on the computer and our first approximation of other people is ourselves.

> our first approximation of other people is ourselves

This is an excellent quote. It says things about humanity that I haven't been able to put to such succinct form before. Thank you.

Bingo! You summed up humanity in 1 sentence.

For me it's the opposite. Home life comes first, and work is a secondary thing. If my wife needs some help, or the kids want me to play with them on the wii, I usually do. If there's an 'emergency' at work, say a server has blown up or something, then sure, I lock myself away for a bit until it's fixed.

Work will still be there when they're in bed.

I'm not suggesting that either way is right, but just that those are my priorities and they work for me.

Also it may have some to do with my own ways of working - I intersperse work with playing games, browsing the net, doing DIY, playing games with kids, walking the dog etc. I don't have any "work" or "non work" times really (Or an office - I usually work on the sofa in the living room). When I get stuck on work I might play a game on the Wii, and solve the problem while I'm racing round a mario cart track. It works for me, but quite possibly not others...

Yeah, finding the balance takes skill as well. When I enter my office, I'm in work mode. When I step out, I'm in home mode. Very important to keep that consistent, for everyone involved. My office may mean work, but I take pains to ensure that I don't impose on the household.

I work on different projects for various clients, so my time demands aren't always consistent but I often need to stay heads-down for extended times.

Very cool your time commitments permit you to jump in/out. My output would suffer, and I need the isolation to focus, so that environment wouldn't work well for me. But that's the key -- finding how it works for one's self and family is the correct answer, though results may vary from person to person.

That sounds ideal but then how many hours in a day do you think you're working? sleeping? I'm not saying you need to reach some optimal number but don't you miss having a bit more structure?

That's great as long as the money is coming in. It's when it's not coming in that my priorities shift, and that causes strain on everything.