2-3-4 Friday 

‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’

1 thought

Between January and May 2022, I stopped being able to sleep restfully. I would wake up at 1am, roam around the home in search of food, stuff myself with some calorie laden food, and then go back to sleep.

When I woke up at 8am, I would run, then go back to work at home.

At 10am, I would start getting hungry. I ended up eating lunch at 10am, and then dinner at 3pm.

You can tell.

It was a horrible life.

Work from home was touted as the next big revolution.

Really? It’s not.

For all the attention on how companies are letting employees work from home, forever, the benefits aren’t quite clear.

Here’s why.

If you agree that work and home involve two very different states of being, in that one involves you being in work-mode, and the other involves you being in a more relaxed-mode, then it follows that work and home should be split up.

Physically. In location.

Sure, working from home is convenient.

But at what cost?

My life changed when I stepped out of the house, to work. It would be in random, free-to-go public libraries.

But that structure of dressing up to get out of the home, travelling away from home, was important in putting psychological (and physical) distance between work and home.

In life, the things we do (and choose not to do, like working from home instead of the office) don’t just add tasks to our day.

They add structure.

Clear lines. About where something starts, and where something ends.

Sure, you may argue that working from home saves on transport time, that allows you to be more productive, but think back to the last time you commuted home.

It was a painful commute. Spent squeezing with people on the bus, or metro.

But it also gave you time to unwind. Decompress. Detach.

And look forward to going home again.

1 talk

This new year, look forward to home again - home that isn’t a blend between work and life. Home, that’s just home.

1 tip

Okay, you may not believe me.

If you’ve always been working from home (you might be running your own business), then just take a day a week where you go to a coffeeshop to do a deep work session.

Spend 6 hours there.

Then go home.

You’ll see the difference.

If you want to skip the commute, go to work later (or earlier). Ask yourself, 
 

What’s the most painful part of working from the office?

You will often find that it isn’t the work. Or the people.

It might be the commute. Or the crowd. Or the rush.

Optimise those, and you will find the office a joy again.

After all, who doesn’t like free aircon, coffee, and maybe, just maybe, the people?

John
liveyoungandwell.com