I've been working full-time from home for over 4 years now and as much as I love crypto, living like this can be often extremely challenging and mentally exhausting.

Here is a thread on how not to lose your mind and stay productive when the quarantine is your lifestyle

Take it from a guy that used to go to sleep at 5AM, wake up at 12PM, watch charts from my bed until 2PM when I ate my first meal of the day.

Once you are in, it's really hard to get out of that hole. Especially in a market that works 24/7.

I've felt burned out, often depressed, had little to no energy or motivation. How you organize your work has an enormous impact on all aspects of your life.

The following tips might sometimes sound cliche, but trust me - they work. Let's begin!

I will split this thread into 3 segments: organizing your time and workspace, setting goals and general tips.

The key to everything is basically setting yourself some boundaries i.e. make your brain understand there is a division between work (even if you like it) and free time.

1. Even if you work from home, prepare yourself as if you would go outside. Wake up, get a shower, dress up, eat breakfast. You need to let your mind know that it has to be productive in a moment. You can't skip to that by opening a laptop in your bed upon waking up.

2. Have a clear start and end to your working day (by action, not specific hour). Do something that will allow your mind to switch back from relax to work stance and vice-versa. It's important that it's always the same action as that makes the signal even stronger.

3. For example - start your day with a 15-minute coffee and going through emails and finish it by a short 15-minute workout. It can be literally anything as long as you are consistent with it and it's not some unrelated bs (like playing video games to start).

4. If you can - try to have consistent working hours. I know it's basically impossible when we are traders in a 24/7 market, but not all responsibilities are related to trading. Have a working window during your day to "get your shit done". Charts don't require constant attention

5. More importantly - have regular sleeping hours. A lot of people say that they prefer to work at night but that's because they are unable to organize themselves during the day, where the productivity would be a lot higher, with room left for relaxing.

The brain needs to rest.

6. Your workspace. Best case scenario would be to create one in a separate room. If you can't, at least find a corner that would detach this small space from the rest of the room. Staying away with work from the bedroom is absolutely crucial to have a healthy work-life balance.

7. Try to keep it simple with no distractions available. A plain background so that it's not eye-catching and only necessary equipment.

If you want - do a small test. Sit in front of your desk for 2 minutes without a PC and see what manages to distract you. Throw that away.

8. If you live with others - make them understand when are you working and when you're not. Bored family members or flatmates can be a distraction killing some of the working momentum, so make sure you signal it to them. It can be sth as simple as hanging a tie on the door handle

Here we reach the 2nd segment - setting your goals.

Imo it's close to impossible to simply just wake up and go on about your day - you need a plan and goals towards which you will be working daily. There are 2 main rules that really helped me in making such plans effective.

1. When making a to-do list, start with listing some of the stuff you already accomplished. It gets you in a rhythm and makes that first "work push" easier. Our brain works better when we track the progress and see that it's moving forward instead of seeing only remaining tasks.

2. Set yourself a realistic (smaller) number of goals. Overcommitting often leads to underachieving as you feel overwhelmed by the amount of work, which will lead to postponing it and procrastinating instead.

You can always add more work if you finish the planned stuff earlier.

Last but not least - a few general tips on how to "behave" while working from home, including 2 crypto changes. It's really refreshing to find out how "foggy" my mind was before implementing some of it lately.

Obviously, drinking is not recommended as well lol.

1. Think of the stuff that you do the most when you procrastinate or run away from a heavy task. Cut it out while working.

E.g. I found myself scrolling through too much YT while working recently. I downloaded a software that blocks it for me when I work. Simple, worked wonders.

2. Collateral being in USD

Many will disagree, saying it's basically being short - idgaf. Nothing eased my mind as much as not having to worry about BTC movement 24/7. Cash is king. Always.

And you can always have spot exposure outside of the trading account.

3. Focus on high TF charts

If I ever wanted to have any sort of normal daily routine, I had to eliminate the need to check the charts every 15 minutes. As addicting as scalping smaller TFs can be, this not only saved me more time but also brought better results.

4. Always have a glass full of water on your desk. Staying hydrated is essential and we tend to forget about it while sitting for hours
- Do breaks during the day, we tend to lose focus rather quickly
- Exercise regularly, even something quick like a series of pushups or pullup

All this stuff might seem a bit rigoristic and unnecessary and for many, it will be. Not everyone will struggle as much as I did to have a good daily routine. One thing is certain tho – if you have absolutely no rules, you will fall into that unproductivity hole.

It’s also not about suddenly living from task to task on a strict schedule. We work in crypto which means that it’s impossible to close our work in an 8-hour window. It’s more about balance – just don’t forget to have some time for yourself, completely away from work.

/thread