What would you do if you couldn’t work from home?

One of the biggest benefits of being an academic is that you can work anywhere, any time. And one of the biggest problems with being an academic, is that you end up working everywhere, all the time.

But imagine getting home in the evening and you couldn’t do the work you’ve gotten into the habit of wrapping up at home? What if you didn’t have a laptop, so you couldn’t do any marking? What if you removed your work email app from your phone? What if you snoozed your work WhatsApp or Slack notifications every day at 17:00? What if you literally set things up so that you cannot work in the evenings and on weekends?

You know, like things were before the internet.

Alternatives to working at home

What else might you do with your evenings?

• Read.
• Watch TV.
• Visit friends.
• Go for a walk.
• Work in the garden.
• Finish those renovations.
• Sit outside and watch the sun set.

A major hurdle to overcome is simply that we can get into the habit of distracting ourselves with quick check-ins. Whenever we feel bored for a moment, we look for something to alleviate that slight discomfort. And we tend to do it by checking in, either through email or social media. And because social media tends to include work-related content, it’s hard to keep your mind from drifting in that direction.

Imagine this scenario. You’re waiting for the kettle to boil so you open Twitter, because, why not? You see a link with an interesting title that you think a postgraduate student might find interesting. So you quickly tag her into the Retweet. But that gets you thinking about another aspect of her project that it might relate to, but you’re a bit uncertain, so you quickly open the last draft of the thesis to have a look. But it’s a bit awkward to navigate on your phone, so you open the laptop. And then you notice another section that seems out of place. And an hour later, you’ve reviewed the full chapter, with feedback.

It’s hard to rely on motivation and willpower alone to avoid working, which is why it may be worth setting up your environment so that you can’t work.

Starting from today, try to set up your home environment to make it harder to work in the evenings and on weekends.