Whenever I'm not ar work and a work thought pops into my head I just think "they aren't paying me to think about this now" and then just start thinking about something else

Have you watched Severance?

I don't stop thinking about home, work is not paying me for complete attention and I don't have a job that requires it (nobody is going to die if I stop and take a break or lose focus.) You only have to do enough.

My home life is demanding enough that I don't think about work much, and when I do it's often helpful insights so I don't mind. But I do not look at work emails or other messages in my home time.

Need to be present homie. Learn to realize what is and is not within your control. Learn to compartmentalize.

Get a call at work that your kid is getting an in school suspension for doing something dumb while your boss is chewing you out because you fucked something up in a project that was past due?

"Thank you Mr principal. I'll talk to my kid this evening." Focus on what's in your reach.

Set a hard stop on what you want to finish with your work for the day, and set it at a time before you clock out. For example, you log out daily at 5PM. Plan out your EOD by setting a goal that you will finish by say, 4:30PM. Then you have the remaining 30 minutes to finish up and decompress. If you keep working and clock out in the middle of doing something, you'll end up thinking about it after work.

It helps if you have a clearly defined workspace that you "leave" at the end of the day and don't use for other things. It also helps if that workspace is separated from where you normally relax and do home stuff. That basically becomes the barrier where your work stays in and home stuff stays out and vice versa.

Beyond that, it's largely mental discipline.

Mindfulness exercises maybe? Like meditation? This would be while you're home. Honestly not sure it's that much of a problem for your mind to be elsewhere at work, unless it's severe enough to affect your performance meaningfully.

Cannabis

So one of my first jobs ended up being work from home and I was on call effectively 24/7. It was a small, international team and when something priority on the other side of the planet came up I needed to be awake for it. Sleep was spotty and I worked very long hours. Work was always on my mind there was no home. Eventually I got seriously burnt out, like for years. Upon entering the workforce again I was worried I wouldn't be able to separate work and home again. I did a lot of soul searching and some research and for me I found the best solution is to just not give a fuck about my job I don't do anything important anyway. I barely even think about work when I'm at work makes it easy to set it down when I leave for the day.

As a software developer, some problem I was working on during the day occasionally pops back into my head at night, usually around bedtime like that meme with brain talking to the girl. I used to fight it, thinking hey they're not paying me for this. This is my personal time.

But over the years, I've realized it's best to follow through on the train of thought until it resolves somehow and I know what to do tomorrow. Then I get a good night's sleep. I think of it as kind of an occupational hazard at this point.

I've worked from home for 8 years, and it was definitely a struggle at first. However, now I have separate systems entirely for work and for home stuff, so when it's not work time, I shut down my other computer, and also have my phone email only set to sync during work hours. If there's an emergency, they can text or call me.

One thing at a time.

I don’t so much stop the thoughts—they’re inevitable—I redirect them back to “one thing at a time.”

i never really think...

By being unemployed.

I don't? They're very contiguous. I gotta have cannabis from work to sleep. My coworkers include friends who I want to be in touch with off the clock, people who know my wife and are always welcome in my home.

I genuinely love my job, and my assistant manager is my best friend. If the GM wasn't so good about empowering people to do their jobs their way, I'd be incredibly vulnerable to exploitation. Instead me and my best friend are empowered to run a dispensary way better than the last management team because it's just the kind of people we are.

ADHD

Wait. I should add: Unless it's REALLY bad. Then I'm completely distracted for the same reason.

Just work from home, then you are thinking about both things all the time.

I don't. I usually just think about home all the time. Who wants to think about work?

Something I've found very helpful is time tracking. I have an app on my phone that is always running a timer where I input a task and a project (basically a category for the task). What this has forced me to do is to consciously decide when I'm doing a thing, and it acts as a kind of lightning rod for my attention. When I start a new task, I need to decide that is what I'm going to do and put it into the app, and if I find myself drifting from the task I must either stay focussed or decide that I'm not able to focus on the current task and instead focus on what is distracting me. It helps me remind myself that "now is the time for X, not for Y."

Can't think about work if you don't have one

Do shamatha meditation to establish better focus

I mean, when you stop work you eventually starting doing other stuff, so you stop thinking about work.

And when you get to work, you start working ... so you focus on that and forget about the other stuff.

It just happens naturally by focusing on what you're doing.