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?
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
ADHD
Wait. I should add: Unless it’s REALLY bad. Then I’m completely distracted for the same reason.
By being unemployed.
Just work from home, then you are thinking about both things all the time.
I don’t. I usually just think about home all the time. Who wants to think about work?
Can’t think about work if you don’t have one
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.
