Working from home: the reality

Be kind to yourself
Being surrounded by the other parts of your life makes it all too easy to be distracted. If you're in the habit of doing bits of housework whenever you're in during the day educate yourself to ignore it. When everyone in a household goes out to work it's easy to split routine jobs such as washing up and cooking on a whoever's-home-first basis. If you stay at home it becomes trickier. Even in the most equal relationships one partner often has a keener eye for what needs to be done. If that's you, you can easily end up with two jobs which have no starting or finishing time. Be aware that the possibilities for procrastination at home are greater than they would be in a conventional workplace. A quick bit of cleaning can become immensely appealing when you have a piece of work to do that's less than inspiring.

• Treat your working time as seriously as you would time on an employer's premises
  
  
• Make sure those you share your home with see it that way too
  
  
• Indulge yourself in the freedom this way of working brings, make time for yourself
  
  
• Discipline yourself to ignore household jobs until you've finished your work
  
  
• Children and partners can always do more for themselves than you imagine. By encouraging self-sufficiency you're doing them a favour and, because you're physically there, you can always help out if things go wrong