One of the worst habits I’ve got is my need for diversion. I’m constantly letting my attention wander if whatever I’m doing isn’t engaging enough to constantly hold it. Most of the time, it’s fine. I can turn on some music to occupy the part of my mind that wanders, turn on a podcast if I need more distraction, or just change activities if I’m not getting anything out of what I’m doing. When I can’t, though, I’m usually at work and trying to focus on something. Which means that my mind wanders to places that I have access to at work, which is unfortunately pretty limited. Though I save my webcomics into the day as long as I can, they’re still not enough to take up all of my “mind wandering away” time, much less that and my “I need to take a break” time as well. Which means I tend to wind up doomscrolling or just cycling through websites I’ve already checked without purpose, neither of which are great for my mental health. That’s why I removed imgur from my phone all those years ago. That’s why I’ve got a couple games on my phone. Those aren’t really one-to-five-minute activities, though, or things that work great it a “work a bunch and then take a break” style work day structure. What I’ve found that works well, though, especially after having a couple chances to try it out recently, is Final Fantasy 14. Unfortunately, I can only use that as my distraction when I’m working from home.

Thanks to the few work-from-home days I’ve had lately, I’d had the chance to see it in action. I’ve balanced various bits of collection work (gathering the materials I’ve used to make all my money by selling them to my guild leader or via the contract he’s put together for our guild) with doing the work of my actual job by swapping between windows during periods of waiting or using the staccato distraction of setting my character to auto-run and only needing to check back in a minute or two when they’d get to their destination. It’s been working out great. I’ve gotten so much collecting done in-game and SO much work done for my day job. I can’t remember the last time I had a day as productive as the day I tested this out. I got more done in one day at home that I usually can finish in three normal days in the office, and my mental health was so much better by the end of the day that I was able to keep myself working much longer than I normally might have (I was also trying to wrap something up, but it was much easier to push myself to finish it than it normally is, especially because it took less time). It was truly a momentous day of incredible productivity.

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot I can take from this particular lesson other than how to manage my scant-few days of working at home. I can’t really replicate this mix of entertainment and distraction while I’m in the office. First off, I can’t install a game on my computer at work. Secondly, I’d never hear the end of it if any of my coworkers saw me playing a video game at work. That’s why I’ve never tried to bring my switch or anything like it to the office to use as a distraction. Or a book for that matter. I don’t want to have to explain what I’m doing to my coworkers constantly and they already have a penchant for only ever walking by my office when I’m taking a break from standing at my computer. I already feel self-conscious enough about how many of them only ever see me in my office, seated and away from my computer with my cell phone in my hand. I would probably shrivel up and die if one of them saw me playing video games or reading an actual book. At least my phone looks like a momentary distraction rather an involved one like reading a book or playing a game seems like to most people.

I think that, if I could swing it, I’d really adapt well to a job that had me working from home. I’d need to structure my time very thoroughly and make sure I had a robust social life to make up for spending most of my days alone, but I think I could thrive under the right conditions. I was home schooled for most of my childhood, after all, so I learned how to do well with unstructured time. These days, and frequently during the pandemic, I run into trouble because I was (and still am) burned out and exhausted from not sleeping consistently. If I could actually get a nice long rest, start back to working more naturally than I’ve been able to since the pandemic started, and actually spend the time and effort I would need to get my life in order, it could work out really well for me. Unfortunately, the tech job market being what it is and society ripping itself to pieces as my government tries to undo every civil rights and equity advancement made in the last century and a half, I do not know when I’ll feel secure enough to try a different job. After all, the best part of my job right now is that I’m incredibly confident I won’t be getting let go any time soon. That’s increasingly hard to beat in this day and age…