What makes for a good vs bad WFH day

Working from home was not fun for me during peak pandemic, but I love it now, most of the time.

1. Good: Working from home because you choose to, not because you’re forced to

2. Bad: Not having a good setup, especially for video calls, or having to fight over the only good spot with your partner/housemate

3. Good: Being able to go outside and be in nature easily throughout the day

4. Bad: Being stuck in an apartment you chose for based on proximity to your office, rather than actually liking the place or the neighborhood

5. Good: Having plans to look forward to at the end of the work day

6. Bad: Working long hours and not having any official end to your day

7. Good: Having a clear system with your partner/housemates to show when interruptions are welcome vs when you really need to focus

8. Bad: Back to back meetings all day and not scheduling time to eat

9. Good: Deep focus work time without meetings, with plenty of breaks for food / movement / other stuff

10. Bad: Construction going on nearby at unpredictable times, extremely loudly

11. Good: Being able to control the temperature of your workspace (as opposed to being subjected to freezing office AC from April to September)

12. Bad: Lawn mowers from every nearby neighbor being extremely audible and distracting.

13. Good: Noise canceling headphones

14. For me, basically all the bad elements were present for the first stages of the pandemic. Now, I have mostly the good factors! Except for occasional construction and lawnmowers😠. But overall I’m much more set up for successful WFH now.