Working from home can be significantly more productive than working in a busy office with all its distractions. But it’s important that you still manage to separate your work and home lives effectively.

If you are working from home for an employer, you have a right to privacy out-of-hours and should agree times when you can or cannot be contacted during working hours. Make advance arrangements for home visits.

It may be worth considering a separate telephone line for business use and a separate mobile telephone. Then at the end of the working day, you can switch the answering machine on and get on with your evening as normal.

Equally, working on your own all day can lead to problems with isolation. It’s important that if you work for a company, you are still included on distribution lists and have regular face-to-face updates too. If you work for yourself, there is a large community of homeworkers you can talk to online – see page ADD for some links.

For a break away from the screen, why not pop out to the local shops? Research shows that money spent locally tends to stay in the local area – so helping to create a stronger neighbourhood. 

And if you ever want to remind yourself of life before your home office, listen to the daily traffic report with its congestion and tailback updates and thank your lucky stars!