Ask HN: How do you switch off from work, particularly when working from home?

My approach is - continue the regular routine. Get dressed for work and change clothes after work is done. Use dedicated computer for work and just turn it off after the work is done. I do have a separate "office" room, so that does help too.

Can't say I'm always successful, but I find that routines like dressing up for work, setting up a dedicated computer, etc. help.

Turn on a movie or TV show.

I actually stop work every day at 7pm because that is when Jeopardy comes on.

Simply switching devices helps. If it's after 5pm and I don't have any meetings or tasks that I can complete by 6pm, I turn off the work laptop and put it away until the next morning.

Smoke a fat joint

Move from using devices to other hobbies like being with the family, kids, books, or just hanging out with friends

If you are into fitness.. all the better.

I started learning to play a bass guitar, really helps to reset.

I started WFH with Covid.

To separate work from hobby I turned the Dining Table into my "Work Desk" and kept my Desk as "Hobby Desk". I start every day by setting up the work desk and end work by returning my chair to the hobby desk. This keeps the two separated.

Also: Preparing dinner and taking at least half an hour to do something without screens after work.

I don't so much switch off, as switch modes, by forcing some kind of "commute". Sometimes this involves going for a run, or even a walk around the block; other times it's half an hour in a VR headset (I have an Oculus Quest, which helped hugely during shielding and lockdown). But whatever it is, I just make it long enough and different enough from work that when I return to reality/the flat, I've got my not-work head on.

Prepare and eat some delicious dinner, as a routine, when you have finished working.

I start reading my current fiction book.

1. Define environments

I work on the left side of my desk, while spending my private time sitting on the right side.

2. Rituals

I start the workday by setting up my work laptop on the desk and finish the workday by removing the laptop from the desk.

Setting boundaries is paramount. Do this physically. Once I'm no longer working, I don't have a single thought about work. Work ceases to exist when I'm done with the workday.

Either CrossFit in the evening (at home or in the German gym) or cycling outdoors (or at Zwift.com) or cooking with the family. Then coding again on private projects.

I have kids

I met a guy that was in your situation.

He would wake up with an alarm clock, shower, get dressed "properly", eat etc. Then leave the house and walk in a predetermined path around the block to arrive back at his house for "work". When work was over (at a set time) he would get up, leave the house again, walk the path in reverse, and arrive "home".

ymmv.

I've recently solved part of it by having a fixed end hour for work, which works fine. But apparently there is a related problem, which is that I sometimes end up wasting the rest of the day out of pure inertia. A bit of netflix, a bit of home gym, reading forums and so on. Not a terrible waste of time, but it adds up, and I definitely don't want this to be all.

I don't have much to say on a solution, other than possibly treating your free time in a more "work-like" manner, i.e. with things to do and (softer) deadlines.

Taking a walk after finishing my work day. And afterwards spending time with my girlfriend and dog. I'd assume having kids will make this also easier.

In my case, in order to overlap my company's work hours, I work from about 1500-2300. So when I'm done with work, I basically wash up, brush my teeth and go to bed.

I have found that listening to some atmospheric music is usually sufficient to help me fall asleep.

Since I get up around 0700 to take care of "normal" stuff, cooking, cleaning, getting groceries, etc. I'm usually pretty tired by that point.

I think the important thing for me is having the routine, i.e. I'm very clear when I'm in work mode vs. non-work mode.

But yeah, sometimes it is hard to switch off, particularly if I'm working on a complex project or task.

I've two PCs (one work and one personnal).

At 5PM my work day is over and I go for a walk (4-5 km). This help me to clear my mind and also help me to not spend too much time on my personnal PC after.

I have a specific laptop (personal one, apart from the company issued one) for working only, so when I'm done I simply turn off the machine(linux) and turn on the machine(windows) where it's hard to do some work.

I'm not saying that windows makes it hard to work on, just my windows machine is set up in that way (no IDEs, no programming languages installed - just games and browsers)

Been WFH for a couple of years, then rented a small office for the purpose of explicitly distancing work and non-work. With COVID-19, back to WFH but now I'm much more prepared.

Success for me meant mentally separating as much as possible work and non-work (not always possible as I can get customer calls or need to deal with urgent problems at literally any hour - such is life of an entrepreneur!)

Physically - separate your work place from the rest. In order or impact:

- rent a separate office (expensive, doesn't make sense now with COVID-19)

- find a few coffe shops, libraries or similar places you can switch between for "work" area (assuming you can work on a laptop) - also not realistic now due to the coronavirus

- have a separate room in a house - not applicable to you as you're in a 1BR apt

- have a separate work-dedicated corner/table/chair in any room in your apartment - I worked for about half a year from kitchen, as it was still at least no in the living room!

Temporally - make clean cuts "going to" and "returning from" work. This can be:

- switching betewen clothes to get in different modes

- taking your dog for a walk, buying groceries, or just taking out trash right after your work

- if there's something on TV that has regular hours and you like watching it (as someone already commented here) - use it to mentally switch off from work mode

- if nothing else, set an alarm, when it gets off, close your laptop, stand up and do a random house chore for 10 minutes, just to think of something totally unrelated :)

Devices:

- it helps if you can have separate devices for work and the rest of your digital life; I treat my laptop as 90% work-related so I avoid using it outside of work if at all possible (phone / tablets filling up the gaps)

- similarly how you want to remove procrastination while working, you want to remove any work-related notifications when not! see if you can stop mail/slack/etc notifications outside your work hours (in my case, i turn off all notifictaions* except pager duty alarms)

In my WHF experience, both before and now during COVID, the biggest problem was working all day, then being less productive during work hours because I know I'll still work all day, then having to work day because I'm less productive during work hours .... this spiral was why I rented an office back in the day.

Every situation and person is different, these are just some tactics that worked for me.

I have exact times for workday start/end and lunchtime start/end. I just abruptly stop what I'm doing when the hour comes.

Also there are things I want to do after work I'm looking forward to. So I waste no time thinking in-between.

We have the same situation. The thing is I have some personal programming projects to unwind too, not to mention I watch Netflix from my browser, not my Smart TV. Switching devices help; I have a work-issued laptop that is strictly for work, and a personal laptop that is exactly for non work stuff (duh, couldn't get any plainer).

When WFH started, like most we were actually caught a bit flat-footed in some respects. So I only had my personal laptop to use for WFH too. Before they issued me a laptop, simple acts like logging off VPN, having a dedicated work profile in Firefox and closing _that_, works to compartmentalize my day too.

Finally, best 150 EUR I spent is on a second-hand trekking bike. Nothing like having a hobby that is so different from your work to enforce boundaries. I have other hobbies too but they are physically too similar to work; aside from hobby side projects I also draw and read, etc, stuff that are just as sedentary as programming. The bike let me explore parks and trails I wouldn't otherwise, and even gave me a quicker route to the gym than if I took the bus.

- Get dressed to go to work; get my keys, wallet, phone etc

- Have breakfast

- Have separate place for work (although mine is kinda-integrated in the living room nowadays with a nice view on the garden. I used to go up the stairs in our previous home.

- end of work: dinner time, somewhere between 17:00 and 18:00 roughly. No work after dinner, except very occasionally.

If possible, I find that the best way is to have commitment with someone to do something at the end of the day. Having this at least once a week is good as it's mentally harder to scrap than something involving just yourself.

Home worker for a decade here. Biggest and best piece of advice: take work email off your phone. Better: put your smart phone upstairs on silent after end of working day and leave it there. Best: don't have a smartphone.