Comment by lijogdfljk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lijogdfljk | Hacker News Reader

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As a big supporter of a WFH choice (and have myself for ~10 years):

> Mass WFH started in 2020 - I don't think you can link a Q2 2022 productivity decrease to WFH, considering the previous quarter will have had even more WFH. In fact, it's easier to link it to the return to the office.

I would honestly be impressed if a initial WFH productivity decline wasn't found. A lot of people were not prepared for WFH. They didn't have the home to accommodate it. I expect some decline for anyone who was not prepared.

I purposefully bought a home with 2 extra bedrooms just for offices because i've always enjoyed a dedicated office setup. So it's quite natural for me to WFH. However this is clearly a luxury and not what many people have. Closing the door to distractions is huge, to me at least.

You'd think that productivity declined in 2020, but based upon those charts it only did a little bit in Q1 and then bounced back hard in Q2 and Q3. I think people overcompensated, but the fact that it has stayed high for the rest of the lockdown tells me that it's not in fact the productivity killer that it's claimed to be.

It's funny, for me my biggest thing is that in WFO if i was overwhelmed on a problem or off feeling (tired/sick/etc) i would often just try and get through the day, horribly unproductive.

At home i can usually address the issue more quickly (quick nap, a walk, an extended break, etc - often fully detatching from work) and end up back to actually working far more quickly. For me these blockers would often just stall the whole day in office.

Tbh i wish office work was more similar in that regard. They expect everyone to work like robots, but in doing so they ignore the human element of overcoming all our quirks. We have no roads to get back to productivity in most offices, and in doing so my belief is that it ends up a net negative. People learn how to appear to work, while not working.

Though i mostly say this in the context of creative work (development).

> People learn how to appear to work, while not working.

This right here - when I didn't want to work I still didn't work, but I hid it in ways that ended up meaning it too me longer to get to a place I COULD be productive. I couldn't just disappear and recharge for a half hour.

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