The Perils of Working from Home Alone

So I’m this freelancer who works from home most days, and while the flexibility is great, there are some downsides. Lately, I’ve been getting really bad about answering personal calls during work hours, despite my strict policy to only call or text me on Slack for work-related stuff outside of business hours. It’s starting to mess with my concentration and my schedule, but every time my phone buzzes, something in my brain just won’t let it go until I check who it is. Yesterday was the worst so far. My sister called, and because she knows it’s a work day for me, she left a message saying that if it wasn’t urgent, to call her back later after 5 PM. But that’s my brain: once there’s a thought, I just can’t focus until it’s sorted out. So about an hour into my morning routine, with a long list of tasks staring at me from my computer screen, I picked up the phone and called her back. We chatted for nearly 20 minutes, talking about family nonsense that really had nothing to do with work. I felt terrible afterwards. Here I am trying so hard to keep my professional life separate from everything else, but now it feels like a total failure because of one little slip-up. Why can’t I seem to control this urge? Is it just me being too sensitive about personal boundaries, or am I actually hindering my productivity and ability to work efficiently? The funny part is, she’s the only person who bothers to leave messages in the first place! My friends know if they call during work hours that I’ll text back later. But there's something comforting about talking with family over a personal phone call that makes me feel like I’m ignoring them entirely if it waits until after 5 PM. Maybe my problem isn’t just that one instance of breaking the rules, but more about how I set those boundaries in the first place. It seems silly now, but when did answering calls during work hours become such a big deal for me? Maybe this is less of an issue about personal boundaries and more about whether or not I actually trust my own self-control to separate things as cleanly as I try.