Hacker News Reader

Comment by autoexecbat | Hacker News Reader

Why would someone's work location impact what house chores they do. It's still work-time not home-chores time.

Because, freed from the time lost to a commute, they may have an extra 1-3 hours per day at home which is not owed to their employer.

Even if you take commute time out of the equation, working from home frees up a lot of time for tasks that aren't all active time.

It's been a while but I did work remotely for about 6 months back in 2020. I enjoyed not having to wake up earlier, not having to "hide" my short downtime breaks that I normally would at the office, and being able to do some basic quick chores during those breaks so that I'd have more time to spend with my partner after the work day. It was a nice pace but since my partner would also work from home with much longer breaks between her active working periods (multiple part time contracts), I would get heavily distracted because she wanted to take breaks together. I really did miss working at the office where if I wanted to focus, I could.

Certainly having a different dedicated work space works better for a lot of people. I think I've been pretty good--and certainly don't watch video or take more than short walks during the day--but I appreciate that keeping work/life separate can have advantages.

  I really did miss working at the office where if I wanted to focus, I could.

extremely easy to mitigate as long as you're both not sitting on the couch or at the kitchen table in a small apartment or condo. even there, you might be able to carve out some home office space for focus work. depends on how longterm you view it and it actually is.

kids is another story altogether. definitely need a bigger boat in that case.

Breaks are a normal part of work. Smoke breaks, standing up and stretching your legs outside the office or going for a short walk, pomodoro breaks, coffee breaks, water cooler breaks, waiting for a build and reading a news site or just browsing the internet, etc.

The only difference here is sticking something in the oven instead of drinking coffee.

And I'll add, with remote the start of day and end of day work times become less well defined, so I think many people end up working more spread out hours at times that are more effective for the company (e.g. responding to late night pings, if they happen to be near their computer).

My Tuesday/Thursday:

Load washer and dishwasher before signing in.

Put clothes in the dryer and put away dishes while my food cooks for lunch.

Sort away my now-dry clothes after work.

Spending a couple mins mid-day to make machines do chores while everyone else is out at lunch shouldn’t sound unreasonable.

I can flip laundry in the time it takes you to fetch a coffee from the break room, unless you strike up a conversation while you're there.

a lot of work requires being "present" but not really being at a desk.

my 1-on-1s with my team dont require me or them to be at a desk. i take a notepad upstairs and do dishes while on those calls.

during COVID my boss used to get on calls with me and it was clear he was at the grocery store because i could hear the self-checkout sounds in the background.

as long as items are communicated, remembered, and acted on -- who cares what is happening?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com