For the past two weeks, I have been working from home in India. I don't like working from home usually but this is an exception because it is nice to hang out with the family and eat breakfast/lunch/dinner all on time.

An interesting thing I have noticed over the past couple weeks is the amount of distraction when I am working. It has reduced drastically. Since most of USA is sleeping when I am working here, there is hardly any traffic through any <channels> (insert twitter, email etc). I get up in the morning and read through all the tweets collected, all the emails collected over 7 - 8 hours. That is basically compressing one day's tiny distractions into a 30 - 45 minutes slot. Of course, there are some drawbacks like missing time critical emails and such. Thankfully I haven't had that situation come up yet.

One could argue that you can just turn off all the things for few hours everyday but seriously, how many people do that? If you have tried in and succeeded, I would love to hear from you :) I have tried so many times and have failed. Now that I have seen how much difference it makes, I think I am going to try something similar when I come back to Chicago.

The other thing I have started doing is experimenting with my work schedule. Instead of just sitting from morning to evening, I have been trying to work in chunks. I get up at around 6:30 and just jump right into work for 2 - 3 hours. It doesn't work every day but when it does, it is amazing. You get into that zone which feels so good. Then, sometimes I take a break for couple hours midday to run some errands or just watch tv or a long lunch break. Sometimes, I go out at 5, have some chat, chill and come back and work a little more. I am pretty sure it has improved my productivity although I don't know how to quantify it. The biggest drawback to this schedule is, my mom complaining that I am working all day. I am just experimenting because it is easy to do it all now when the other side of the world is sleeping and wouldn't be much of an inconvenience.

If you have been practicing unconventional ways of working, please let me know, I would love to try. Also, I know for family people, lot of it is dictated my kids and what not. But I am curious ....