Type of work done at home

[lemma]

I don't live that close to my university, so I won't be staying back late to work. Are there any particular types of work that people have found amenable to do while relaxing in the evening - the kind of thing you could work on while watching some light TV or listening to a podcast? 

My work is computational (no labs, not much reading aside from academic papers), but I'd be interested in people's experiences across fields.  

[Psychologyandpizza]

I pretty much only work from home this year unless it’s something that I anticipate needing to print a lot for. I’ve adapted to working in short, productive bursts so that I can take a lot of breaks. Home is definitely more amenable to writing than my office is (for me personally).

[Hope.for.the.best]

I live close to my university, but I would still prefer writing at home, as I just can't concentrate when there are people coming into and out of the office. To me, I listen to some relaxing music when I am writing. 

[TakeruK]

It's hard for me to do work at home. During grad school, I lived with my partner and I want to spend that time together since we're both working during the day. Of course, there are exceptions when deadlines are tight and I have no choice. However, in these cases, I usually drive back to my office and do work there. It was a 10 minute drive. Now, as a postdoc with a less accessible workplace, I basically try to do zero work at home (we also have a baby). I find myself much happier leaving work at work and spending time at home doing things I actually enjoy.

That said, the things I do best at home (whether it's during grad school or now, during my postdoc):
- Writing emails. If I know I have a busy day at work and will want to spend some time at home working, I queue up all of my emails to write and write them at home.
- Reading papers 
- Editing writing (both my own writing as well as things for which I am a coauthor)
- Doing peer review (I usually print the paper at work, take it home, read/mark it up and type up comments in my computer)
- Making powerpoint presentations
- Grading work (when I am a TA)

[fuzzylogician]

I can't do any work when there is language in the background (music with lyrics, TV, podcast), but I do enjoy working in an environment where there is low-level noise/music such as in coffeeshops. I do most of my work in these kinds of locations, including writing and editing, emails, creating slides for teaching and presentations, stats and scripting. Things I tend to do in my office (=without any distractions) include grading, reading/commenting on student papers, close-reading of research articles, final prep for teaching or presentations, initial outlining of papers (for me, a crucial step preceding any actual writing), abstract writing. Note as per other posts on this board, I also find that I do different kinds of work better at different times of the day, so that matters too. I try not to do any work at home, to maintain the distinction between the two. I think that's really important for my health.

[Eigen]

I try to do almost nothing at home, but I do sometimes have to bring reading and grading home with me. 

The easiest way for me to keep mental separation between home and work is to have a physical separation as well. I used to work at home more, and found it was really hard to get away from the mental pressures of things that were going on and deadlines coming up. 

Much easier to be "present" at home now, and just go in when I need to work. That said, I have a nice office and it's not far from home, so that plays a large factor. 

I find I can grade papers pretty consistently with other things going on. That's about it. Other things I need more focus for. That said, I can tune pretty much anything out when I'm writing. 

[rising_star]

My favorite "work" to do at home is reading books that are tangentially related to my interests (aka, things I might teach one day but don't need for my research). I also do research involving media so I can do that at home. Coding data sometimes relaxes me so I'll do that sometimes in the evening. IDK. I prefer to separate work and home but will totally bridge that if it means I can spend the weekend not doing work...

[MarineBluePsy]

I love working at home and have set up a home office so there's a dedicated work space that I can ignore when I want to relax.  I do have a campus office, but its a shared space and just isn't set up in a way that works for me.  What do I do best at home?

• Writing papers/clinical reports
• Emails
• Reading articles/textbooks
• Grading assignments
• Data entry/analysis
• Mapping out ideas for research, papers, etc
• Making presentations
• Prepping for clients
• Reviewing/Scoring assessments

Working at home also makes my on campus work more productive because I know exactly what materials I need to get from the library or my advisor if any, I know what questions to bring up in supervision, I know what is remaining on group projects, and I'm ready to delegate tasks if needed.

[TK2]

I'm also a coffeeshop person, and tend to get too comfy at home for solid concentration. That said, piecework stuff works well at home: searching for papers, organizing them, etc; emails; tweaking powerpoints for a presentation; tweaking an abstract; minor copyediting; various bureaucracies, like filling out a time-sheet or filing for reimbursements. So smallish things that take time, but don't necessarily require particularly deep engagement or focus. That all works for me while listening to TV or something and (theoretically) clears out somewhat the blocks of time when I should be reading in depth or writing.