Depending on your ability to influence, I've done all of the following in my last roles (now working solo so don't have these problems)
- Pick a day to be 100% meeting free, agree with team / other teams to do same, block out your calendar
- Lighter version of above, put focus blocks in your calendar. Try and setup some routine where you do creative stuff in the morning, comms in the afternoon or similar
- Work strict fixed hours, 8-5, no fiddling (eg. doing some 2 hour thing in the middle of the day). Having boundaries makes it easier to switch on / off and to say no to working longer.
- Turn off all notifications, setup personal / team SLAs to get back to dependent parties. Slack etc are supposed to be async, not, I will always stop everything to answer your question
- Have proper support / incident processes. eg. a support rota so that each week its one persons responsibility to monitor the team channel. This means for that week the rest of the team can focus
- The above also bleeds into having good wikis / team docs so people can self serve, instead of asking for help
I wrote an article touching on this a while ago, will dig it out and post. The idea is the solution to remote work fatigue is better communication.
I'm trying to figure out how to do that in the office. It's much easier for me at home.
In the office, I still have all the async notifications and such as when I'm at home, but in the office I also have a stream of people physically coming by and interrupting me, usually for something that isn't urgent. I find myself saving the more intense work for home, where that doesn't happen.
In my opinion, the suggestions mentioned are great. In particular: 1) starting early or working late, and 2) pick 2 or 3 time slots a week to mark in your calendar just for you (to go out for a run, pick up kids, etc). The important part is that you do not skip these scheduled breaks for the sake of work! While it is hard, most of it is being mentally able to split work and personal life.
Depending on your ability to influence, I've done all of the following in my last roles (now working solo so don't have these problems)
- Pick a day to be 100% meeting free, agree with team / other teams to do same, block out your calendar - Lighter version of above, put focus blocks in your calendar. Try and setup some routine where you do creative stuff in the morning, comms in the afternoon or similar
- Work strict fixed hours, 8-5, no fiddling (eg. doing some 2 hour thing in the middle of the day). Having boundaries makes it easier to switch on / off and to say no to working longer.
- Turn off all notifications, setup personal / team SLAs to get back to dependent parties. Slack etc are supposed to be async, not, I will always stop everything to answer your question
- Have proper support / incident processes. eg. a support rota so that each week its one persons responsibility to monitor the team channel. This means for that week the rest of the team can focus
- The above also bleeds into having good wikis / team docs so people can self serve, instead of asking for help
I wrote an article touching on this a while ago, will dig it out and post. The idea is the solution to remote work fatigue is better communication.
Just posted the article I wrote here https://blog.8by3.com/p/stop-interrupting-me
I'm trying to figure out how to do that in the office. It's much easier for me at home.
In the office, I still have all the async notifications and such as when I'm at home, but in the office I also have a stream of people physically coming by and interrupting me, usually for something that isn't urgent. I find myself saving the more intense work for home, where that doesn't happen.
In my opinion, the suggestions mentioned are great. In particular: 1) starting early or working late, and 2) pick 2 or 3 time slots a week to mark in your calendar just for you (to go out for a run, pick up kids, etc). The important part is that you do not skip these scheduled breaks for the sake of work! While it is hard, most of it is being mentally able to split work and personal life.
Start early, before everyone is working. Or late, when everyone stopped. Block "focus" periods in your calendar, disabling notifications.