Whenever I’m not ar work and a work thought pops into my head I just think “they aren’t paying me to think about this now” and then just start thinking about something else
Have you watched Severance?
Uh excuse me, that Waffle Party is mine
I covet it.
That was my first thought too, be careful what you wish for.
I don’t stop thinking about home, work is not paying me for complete attention and I don’t have a job that requires it (nobody is going to die if I stop and take a break or lose focus.) You only have to do enough.
My home life is demanding enough that I don’t think about work much, and when I do it’s often helpful insights so I don’t mind. But I do not look at work emails or other messages in my home time.
Need to be present homie. Learn to realize what is and is not within your control. Learn to compartmentalize.
Get a call at work that your kid is getting an in school suspension for doing something dumb while your boss is chewing you out because you fucked something up in a project that was past due?
“Thank you Mr principal. I’ll talk to my kid this evening.” Focus on what’s in your reach.
Mindfulness exercises maybe? Like meditation? This would be while you’re home. Honestly not sure it’s that much of a problem for your mind to be elsewhere at work, unless it’s severe enough to affect your performance meaningfully.
Cannabis
It helps if you have a clearly defined workspace that you “leave” at the end of the day and don’t use for other things. It also helps if that workspace is separated from where you normally relax and do home stuff. That basically becomes the barrier where your work stays in and home stuff stays out and vice versa.
Beyond that, it’s largely mental discipline.
Agreed. If you get work emails, if possible disable work email notifications while you’re off the clock. Outlook’s Mobile app has a function for this that was really helpful for me, for a long time I’d see emails about things happening and I’d get upset or wonder what was happening because I couldn’t help but see the notifications.
And also, this isn’t a blanket recommendation because it’s not a strict pro, it has cons, but smoking weed helps me because I tend to focus on the moment and become invested in what’s right in front of me while I’m high, so in combination with an immersive video game I can escape to there and completely forget about work long enough to hard separate myself from my work brain.
It doesn’t even have to be much separation, just enough that you can mentally leave it. I work from home but don’t have space to dedicate an office.p, so set up my laptop in my dining room. However I have a deskchair I only use for work, and only use that end of the table for work. That seems to be enough for me to mentally leave when I physically leave it
Unfortunately I get work email and slack on my phone. Slack is not a problem because it’s work only. However maybe that’s why I rarely check my personal email these days
Set a hard stop on what you want to finish with your work for the day, and set it at a time before you clock out. For example, you log out daily at 5PM. Plan out your EOD by setting a goal that you will finish by say, 4:30PM. Then you have the remaining 30 minutes to finish up and decompress. If you keep working and clock out in the middle of doing something, you’ll end up thinking about it after work.
So one of my first jobs ended up being work from home and I was on call effectively 24/7. It was a small, international team and when something priority on the other side of the planet came up I needed to be awake for it. Sleep was spotty and I worked very long hours. Work was always on my mind there was no home. Eventually I got seriously burnt out, like for years. Upon entering the workforce again I was worried I wouldn’t be able to separate work and home again. I did a lot of soul searching and some research and for me I found the best solution is to just not give a fuck about my job I don’t do anything important anyway. I barely even think about work when I’m at work makes it easy to set it down when I leave for the day.
One thing at a time.
I don’t so much stop the thoughts—they’re inevitable—I redirect them back to “one thing at a time.”
As a software developer, some problem I was working on during the day occasionally pops back into my head at night, usually around bedtime like that meme with brain talking to the girl. I used to fight it, thinking hey they’re not paying me for this. This is my personal time.
But over the years, I’ve realized it’s best to follow through on the train of thought until it resolves somehow and I know what to do tomorrow. Then I get a good night’s sleep. I think of it as kind of an occupational hazard at this point.
I’ve gotten some great solutions to work problems around bedtime. I make notes, set it to ping me in the morning, then can sleep easy.
It does start to become problematic when you dream about your problems, because most of the dreamed-up solutions are nonsensical.
I’ve worked from home for 8 years, and it was definitely a struggle at first. However, now I have separate systems entirely for work and for home stuff, so when it’s not work time, I shut down my other computer, and also have my phone email only set to sync during work hours. If there’s an emergency, they can text or call me.
Just work from home, then you are thinking about both things all the time.
ADHD
Wait. I should add: Unless it’s REALLY bad. Then I’m completely distracted for the same reason.
I don’t? They’re very contiguous. I gotta have cannabis from work to sleep. My coworkers include friends who I want to be in touch with off the clock, people who know my wife and are always welcome in my home.
I genuinely love my job, and my assistant manager is my best friend. If the GM wasn’t so good about empowering people to do their jobs their way, I’d be incredibly vulnerable to exploitation. Instead me and my best friend are empowered to run a dispensary way better than the last management team because it’s just the kind of people we are.
