I'm substantially more productive at home. Not for any single reason, but as a result of small things coming together, for example.

More sleep. I can set my alarm 15 minutes before I start work instead of an hour and a half. So I'm more refreshed.

Commuting is mentally draining.

I get sick less. Less often as a sardine in a tin can. More sleep probably helps too.

Less distractions. There's just me in my home office room, at work there are 3 other people right next to me and a dozen within ear shot.

I get home stuff done during work breaks. When I step away from my desk at work I do so because I need a break from what I'm doing, not a break from everything. But there's nothing else to do at work so I sit and do nothing. At home i: - unload the dishwasher - walk to the shops to buy items for dinner - sit in the park

And I find doing those things more refreshing than sitting in the break room staring into space, or walking through the city in the noise of cars everywhere.

So when I step back to my desk, at home I'm more refreshed ready to get back into it.

This also means when I finish work for the day, in office it's another hour or so to get home and then do chores. Vs at home I finish work and I can go for a walk in the park because I've done my chores already.

So I'm happier and less stressed. Which leads to less fatigue and burn out. So I'm ready to go again the next day.

In my experience, most people who struggle with WFH lack specific material things like space, a quiet home, a schedule anchored by the presence of loved ones who live nearby and a functioning community which they're a part of, good mental and physical health, coworkers who will help them without a fuss, and a million other things.

I think people who take the structure of their lives for granted say things like "problem is most people aren't disciplined:)", but this definition of discipline is directly related to how nice one's house and home life are. This pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps mentality of "disincline" and "work ethic" lets you feel smug about the fact that you're doing better working from your nice home office as an L5 than your new intern who's working from the kitchen table in his family home next to three other people.

> WFH takes discipline

That is bizarre to me. I find the office takes far more discipline. Do people really get that distracted at home? What is so distracting?

Hard disagree. Working from home is a skill that does takes time to develop, but it's no more out of reach than developing the skill of being productive in an office. It was a terrible decision for companies to yank away that opportunity from employees.

Every system in place for measuring output and bringing transparency to work done by office workers/software developers finally make sense in the context of working from home.

Either your tickets get done or you have a really good explanation for why they haven't but because you dug into the problem are able to display deep knowledge of the problem.

Discipline has nothing to do with this. Your work will have expectations and deadlines and they will either be met or another human being will grade you with an F. Whatever human trait causes people to do work under those circumstances might be shame, fear, social pressure manifesting itself as work output, I can say for certain it isn't discipline.

It seems too take more discipline to attend a workplace than to do the same work from home. I don't understand your position.

To me, what you're saying is like how banks won't give people mortgages when the monthly payments are half what their current rental is because of person's "inability to pay".

WFH requires discipline, but allows you more freedom to mould your environment to your needs.

It's taken me a decade to find the perfect balance, which is total complete silence, but I would be absolutely powerless in turning an open-space office job into the monk's retreat I need.

I think that he is the norm, actually. Slacking off in the work is easy too, there are many empty discussions that feels like a work, discussions that are not work at all but you still count it as working time. If no one sees your monitor you can watch the same youtube. But, since you are at office you clock at as working.

It also takes discipline to work at the office. and as you said, most people aren't disciplined. They just stay at the office, doing absolutely nothing productive and wait for the clock to tell them they can go home.

I'm not disciplined at all when it comes to my work and I'm still massively more productive at home. What are you talking about?

Having non-work activities that are fulfilling like cooking/cleaning to break up the work to get out of the rut of brain-fry is so nice. Having non-work non-screen things to at work is so necessary.

And yet the IMF report seems to suggest that, even if your data is correct, all aspects of the economy benefit.