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

The remote work era exposed a strange paradox: while we saved time on commutes, we often ended up working longer. Maybe it’s because our calendars became too accessible, or perhaps the "out of sight, out of mind" fear kicked in for managers. Either way, the true cost of this shift is still playing out.

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.

> 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.