The average workday increased during the pandemic’s early weeks (2020)

This may be true for a lot of people, but it's not universal and is readily avoidable. A few tips that have worked for me:

* Don't install any company apps or log in to any company accounts on your phone.

* Set your working hours in your calendar and stick to them.

* Set your Slack status to automatically show you as away and snoozed outside your working hours.

* When you're done with work, shut down your laptop and walk away.

I've never received any complaints from sticking to this pattern. When I'm in my working hours I'm consistently reachable and I do my job, when I'm not you can't get hold of me if you try. This is how it was in the office, I don't see why the expectation should be different in WFH.

I do think that a key thing that makes this work well for me is that I'm consistently online during (and only during) my specified hours, rather than mixing and matching my schedule on a day to day basis. I'm not always reachable, but I'm predictably unreachable.

I can't remember where I was reading someone the other day remarking how since they had stopped working extra hours, they had suddenly been promoted, after years of trying.

They now stuck to their hours, got used to saying no, but worked hard while they were 'at work'. Part of the thinking was this moved them out of the group who were always staying on to finish something off, which can make you look ill-prepared or behind - despite the fact that you only there are you are taking on additional work.

> When you're done with work, shut down your laptop and walk away.

I think this became the driving force of "always at work". When you sit at home all day, you're online. And the inevitable "let me just check..." habit I know I formed starts to occur. At some point its 6 or 7pm as you're playing catch up on work and since its still "early" its fine to respond to that small email or Slack message. Next thing you know its 11 or 12 at night and you're still sitting on the computer browsing or working or doing something in between. The 24/7 chatroom is always open and there's always someone willing to socialize.

The key is to have different computers, or at a minimum different user accounts. On the work computer no private stuff, on the private computer no work stuff.

Once I've logged out of my work account it has never happened that I'd log back in the same evening, open the VPN, restart the browser etc just for a quick check of emails or chat messages.

One key for me is to have a separate desk. My work machine is in its own corner where only work things can happen. The physical separation makes the habit that, “here is where I work” vs “here is where I live”.

I don't really have space for two separate computer desks. But I enforce the divide with pants: work hours means work pants, the same I'd wear to the office, and after work I "commute home" by changing the pants.

It's a stupid thing but I started doing that at the beginning of the pandemic lockdowns and have kept it up ever since.

It's a bit challenging in academia, where many of the students send their messages later in the evening. I've made it a habit to not respond after 6pm for that exact reason - if they see I'm "on" then its okay to communicate. However the past year has reminded me about the reasons I started making YouTube videos and whatnot, because I DON'T want to be bothered outside of class and so my students have all the resources available when they choose to work on my course.

Some of this is a 'me' problem, needing to remember to disconnect from the world and all of the literal fires going on. I've been using the hyperbole that essentially my brain "exploded", so I deleted Reddit, been on an unsubscribe phase with my YouTube channels, and joined some smaller communities. That last one still keeps me online, but I look at as smaller community means silly memes and a group of people that eventually clock out for the night.

It's so much more quiet! I missed this.