working from home

I am at home today (on vacation hours, I hasten to add) doing homework. I did have to go into the office from 9-10am to cover my desk shift, since it’s a bit hard to get someone to cover the first hour of the week without much notice.

I’ve noticed, as I slog endlessly through my homework, that I find it difficult to sit still for more than 90 minutes – 2 hours at the very outside. More typically, at about 60-80 minutes, it’s like a little bell goes off, “ding!” and I need to do something else for even a minute or two. However, I should say, on the other side, that I only had to break for 20 minutes for lunch.

I am wondering whether this a function of either of the following:

• nature of task at hand (that is to say, working on and on at a single project)
• being used to an office environment with many interruptions.

I have to say, I think it’s heavily weighted to the first circumstance – because I have been working on other projects at other times and two and a half hours will fly away before I know it.

The reason I ask is, I wonder what the transition period is for those folks that work from home? Is this something you get used to, and settle into, just like you must in office work? On the one hand, it is awesome to be able to take a five minute break in your own house and rummage in the fridge, or check your mailbox, or walk around the block, or just switch rooms … and (prepare for TMI) I usually am at least partly pajama clad, which ROCKS.

On the other, I suppose you can never get away from your work, and then there’s the attention span thing I mentioned above.

Just wondered if anyone has any wisdom on this, for curiosity’s sake.

And, not that it’s any of your business, but this break is brought to you by the Time It Takes to Print Out What’s Done So Far. 🙂