by Will Schreiber

Working from home

Per Square’s new COVID-19 policy, Elizabeth is working from home today. She’ll likely be working from home for about a month.

I did this for over 5 years. I don’t miss it.

It’s nice to eat leftovers out of the fridge and it’s nice avoiding the twice-daily walk-bus-bike time suck. But at home, spurts of productivity come and go. It’s tough maintaining productivity for 5+ hours at a time when the couch is right there.

On Monday, after landing at SFO around 6:30am, we went home and dropped off our skis. I didn’t want to walk 40 minutes into Industrious. Taking the bus felt meh. I wanted to lay down and close my eyes.

Then, the thought of a Noah’s bagel and cup of hot coffee started nagging at me. I thought about smelling the beans, toasting the bagel, and opening my laptop at a table in the common area. Those thoughts dragged me out of the apartment and downtown into the office.

I’m glad I went.

There’s a lot of talk about companies mandating work from home because of this coronavirus. There are so many advantages to working remotely. But working from home isn’t the optimal version of working remotely.

When 6pm rolls around, and I’m at my kitchen table, laptop open, emails in my inbox, I struggle to close the lid to my computer. I’ve heard it’s helpful to end the work day by putting the computer on a shelf, leaving the apartment, taking a lap around the block, and coming back inside after “resetting.”

This never really worked for me. The kitchen table was still where I was supposed to be working. As long as I was near it, I felt the guilt of needing to work.

I hope everyone now “working from home” figures out ways to get out of the house and find productive routines.