I am providing some recommendations as well as the experience of a seasoned veteran over the last decade.
| What Mark Recommends | What Mark Does |
| Create a space that is designated for work. When you are in it, work. When you leave, close the door behind you. Natural light is yuge. | Mark works in a corner of the basement, and rarely turns on the lights. It doesn’t have a door. It doesn’t have a window. It is a corner. |
| Realize your priorities, i.e. family first. Everything is out of whack and being together right now is more important. Being available during office hours, position permitting, does not mean those are the hours we have to fit it all in. There are 16 other hours that work can fill. | Mark has difficulty designating any part of his day as "done working,” but routinely has to make up time for interruptions. |
| If your family is distracting, go all in with them. The stress of juggling work and play is unwarranted. Go 100% one way or the other. Just make sure they understand that you must work when you say. | Mark goes upstairs to make his family lunch, then runs away without eating because he doesn't want to risk additional tasks (laundry, vacuuming, etc.) being assigned during his workday. Somehow his weight stays the same. |
| Shower every day. Have some self-respect. | Just wait…you'll see. |
| Make sure you get up and move around. | Aside from lunch creation, Mark only leaves his chair during the warm months. It generally hurts his eyes if he nears a window to the outside from November-March. |
| Reverse your children's door knobs so they lock from the outside. | ... |
| Utilize your slow cooker, immersion cooker, or what have you. A great way to amplify the misery of being housebound is finishing work to do a lot more work. | Mark usually stops working around 5ish. If dinner is not already in the cooker, he does not finish cleaning up the kitchen until 8. During the cleanup, kids are trashing the house which then must be addressed until 8:45. Work and life become indistinguishable. |
| Get out of the house. Go outside. Go for a drive. Go for a walk. | Mark's record is 13 days without leaving the house. Once an athlete of repute, his muscles atrophy and he has back problems. He is dead inside. |