New WFHers! I’ve been working remotely for five years. Some things I learned along the way:

- Shower and leave the house, even if you plan to come back soon after. Sets the tone for the rest of the day and avoids cabin fever.

- Stop working. It’s easy to overwork. I set limits and stick to them, as if I were working a traditional 9-5 job.

- Get a really boring co-working space. If I need to do work I really don’t want to do, I go there. Fewer distractions and excuses not to do the work.

- Related: Associate different environments with different kinds of work, even within your house. For me, the “people looking over your shoulder” in an office was very effective, and finding different contexts for my different kinds of outputs has been an effective replacement.

- Learn to cook. It’s a great opportunity to pick up a new skill and use up that saved commute time. It’s also vastly healthier and cheaper than eating out, and it gets you away from a screen.

- Tell everyone when you plan to do deep work, and when you plan to surface and respond to questions. These are different things; set expectations.

- Instead of checking Twitter during your downtime, use the time to clean your surroundings. Do this often enough and it’ll make your weekends more free and less stressful.

- Try going fully asynchronous. The office model encourages a very different type of “ideal” behavior and something different may work better in this new world: https://twitter.com/shl/status/1222545212477599751