The thing i struggle with isn't really working extra hours or getting off hour messages. I think those are obvious problems and easy to be aware of.
My biggest problem is just having work thoughts come up, in the shower, eating dinner, on the commute, falling asleep. One time i was on vacation on the other side of the world and out of nowhere i suddenly realized I knew how to handle some problem i was having at work. I wouldn't get back to it for a week, i would need to take notes on my aha moment...
I'd say I have a lot more work thoughts invading my personal life than vice versa. When I'm at work I'm expected to pump things out and the cognative load leaves very little room for thoughts to creep in.
On the other hand when I'm relaxed and enjoying free thought, I sometimes can't help but use some of that freetime to think through work problems to reduce work stress. I suppose if my personal time was spent with high cognative load as well, it would be a fair trade off, but after working at high cognative function 40+ hours a week, my personal time tries to be as mentally relaxing as possible.
> My biggest problem is just having work thoughts come up
I remember an interview with David Allen of GTD, and he was asked what he had planned for the afternoon, and he said, “I don’t know. I’ll find out then”. At the time, I hadn’t used GTD much, and I thought this was tongue in cheek. Years later I realized he was dead serious.
The big win of GTD (or similar) is not a Swiss Army knife of task management. The big win is returning mental bandwidth to you.
All the time! I'll try to email one or two lines to myself to remember it later. I've found this is the quickest way to give myself confidence that I'm not "losing" the idea if I stop thinking about it now.
My biggest problem is just having work thoughts come up, in the shower, eating dinner, on the commute, falling asleep. One time i was on vacation on the other side of the world and out of nowhere i suddenly realized I knew how to handle some problem i was having at work. I wouldn't get back to it for a week, i would need to take notes on my aha moment...