Main “trick” I can share is kind of dependent on the fact that I work in IT / software dev / cyber security and use Linux as my daily driver. I’ve either always been able to talk my boss into letting me use Linux OR I’ve been the one in charge of giving people computers and creating / enforcing whatever policies OR I had one boss who was like “You use Linux! Awesome! Smart people use Linux! I should Linux! Teach me oh master!” Even the one place I worked where they were like “We need you to use Windows” they were also like “Sure! Use linux for internal software dev / dev ops stuff, but if you’re doing project management work for customers or handling customer data, you need to do that on your Windows computer.” So I got a second computer and put Linux on it.
Any slacking off (Reddit / Lemmy / Minecraft / Netflix / etc) is on the Linux computer, on the second to last virtual desktop. A bunch of legitimate work is on the other desktops and (and if there’s a second computer, on that computer) at all times. If my boss came in to look at what I was doing, one mouse click or hot key and my whole screen is whatever I’m supposed to be working on.
The other trick is "Schedule stuff in your calendar, even if it’s just placeholders. I used to put “Engineer Time” in all the time, big blocks of it. Just make sure you’re closing enough tickets / pushing enough code / documenting enough progress. I also used to put placeholders for meetings with clients / vendors / whatever that were unconfirmed. Then instead of cancelling the meetings when I actually scheduled something, I would put a note like “Client rescheduled” in the meeting notes.
Main “trick” I can share is kind of dependent on the fact that I work in IT / software dev / cyber security and use Linux as my daily driver. I’ve either always been able to talk my boss into letting me use Linux OR I’ve been the one in charge of giving people computers and creating / enforcing whatever policies OR I had one boss who was like “You use Linux! Awesome! Smart people use Linux! I should Linux! Teach me oh master!” Even the one place I worked where they were like “We need you to use Windows” they were also like “Sure! Use linux for internal software dev / dev ops stuff, but if you’re doing project management work for customers or handling customer data, you need to do that on your Windows computer.” So I got a second computer and put Linux on it.
Any slacking off (Reddit / Lemmy / Minecraft / Netflix / etc) is on the Linux computer, on the second to last virtual desktop. A bunch of legitimate work is on the other desktops and (and if there’s a second computer, on that computer) at all times. If my boss came in to look at what I was doing, one mouse click or hot key and my whole screen is whatever I’m supposed to be working on.
The other trick is "Schedule stuff in your calendar, even if it’s just placeholders. I used to put “Engineer Time” in all the time, big blocks of it. Just make sure you’re closing enough tickets / pushing enough code / documenting enough progress. I also used to put placeholders for meetings with clients / vendors / whatever that were unconfirmed. Then instead of cancelling the meetings when I actually scheduled something, I would put a note like “Client rescheduled” in the meeting notes.