Where you work.
 
I know, I know--a cubicle is a far cry from a jail cell, but there are some similarities.  People who are outside of both are happier.

Telework Research Network reports that 41% of workers who have the option to workshift are "very satisfied" with their jobs, compared to only 27% of those who are office bound.*  And other research suggests that more virtual employees are "engaged" than their peers who work with their entire team present (34% vs. 28%).**

Clothing choices
When you work from home, you can wear what you want--that includes your most embarrassing (and comfortable) pair of sweatpants, something you'd never be caught dead in at work.

This flexibility, along with the other work-life balance benefits of workshifting, can secure your company the best, most talented employees, since 72% of employees say flexible work arrangements would cause them to choose one job over another.***

Driving to work.
 
Spare yourself the bird, please.  Workshifting saves you a headache and could take 10 million cars off the road, if a workshifting policy was in place in the U.S.  It's estimated this policy could also prevent over 95,000 traffic injuries and deaths, save over $11 billion in accident costs, and lower highway maintenance costs almost $2 billion a year.**

Now, let's put the brakes on for that!  Are you in?



I have to give credit where credit is due.  The concept of these graphics comes from Indexed (http://thisisindexed.com/). The ideas, however, were all me--so I'll take the blame for that.
*Lister, Kate. Workshifting Benefits: The Bottom Line. Telework Research Network, 2010.
**Preston, Camille, PhD. Leading Virtual Effectiveness. AIM Leadership, 2010.
***Montero, Phil. Work Unchained: Workshifting and the Competitive Edge of the Anywhere Office.  The Anywhere Office, 2010.
 

This morning's post is from San Sharma, online community manager at Enterprise Nation, the homeworking website, as well as the voice of @e_nation on Twitter.


I live in London, where - at this time of year - the daily commute usually involves travelling at temperatures officially too high to transport cattle. Luckily for me, I work athome. So, while commuters cram into stuffed carriages, I'm keeping cool in my home office - one of the many benefits of working from home. But the downside, for some, is the feeling of isolation that comes with working alone. Here are some ways to overcome that.

1. Close the door
   Working and living in the same space can lead to cabin fever, which is why it's important to make a distinction between your work space and your personal space. If possible, set aside dedicated space for your work - a study, a spare room, a garden shed, even! - somewhere you can close a door on at the end of the day.


2. Walk to work
   One of the best pieces of advice I've heard about working from home is this: trick your brain into thinking it's "going to work" by leaving your house in the morning, walking around the block and returning to your home office. It helps set up a routine, get into a mindset and kick-start a creative thinking cycle!


3. Always have an excuse to leave the house
   Another benefit of working from home is not having to shop at peak times. Do your grocery shopping when everyone else is at work and beat the checkout lines! But don't do all your shopping at once. I used to do a weekly shop when I worked in an office, but now I pop out when I need something, as it gives me the excuse to get out of the house.


4. A homeworker's best friend
   Keeping a pet is a great way to overcome isolation when you work from home. I talk things through with my cat, which doesn't make me feel as crazy as talking to myself! Dog owners have the perfect excuse to get out the house and get a little exercise and are, statistically,more likely to make friends.


5. Don't miss out on water cooler moments!
   Homeworking website Enterprise Nation uses its Twitter account to bring "an office vibe into your home (without all the annoying bits)". That includes a virtual 'water cooler moment', which it organises every day between 11am and 12pm BST. Homeworking 'tweeps' are invited to discuss non-work topics, like TV, cooking and, recently, "the best Bond" - and use the hashtag #watercoolermoment in their tweets. It's a great excuse for homeworkers to take a break and chat socially to others who work the same way.

If you work from home and don't already use Twitter, you really must! It's great for camaraderie and for sharing ideas - two things you might not associate with working from home.

What do you think?


Photo credit: Giampaolo Macorig

There has long been a great debate among workshifters.  The magnitude of this debate has people from either camp bitterly divided, fiercely loyal, and ready to do battle to defend their side.  I speak, of course, of the great workshifting debate of coffee shop versus home office.

In order to take a stance on the topic, I'm going to make a good ol' fashioned pros & cons list of the two options, and by the end, hopefully, you'll be able to decide for yourself which of these two options makes the most sense for your workshifting lifestyle.

PROS

Home office

1. Quiet.  There is no question that when you work from a home office, you can generally get as much or as little quiet as you want.  Close the door, take a deep breath and start hammering away at your tasks.  If you need absolute peace to get anything done, there are few other settings that will provide this level of tranquility (unless of course you have kids at home... in which case, this point's moot).

2. Uninterrupted privacy.  Sometimes, workshifters work on sensitive projects.  If you're working on design or copy for a big client who wants to make a big splash, you can't afford to have someone catch a glimpse of your sketches.  In a home office, you can be sure that there is no corporate espionnage going on.  Unless your significant other works for the competition.  In which case, you may want to stay with friends until your assignment wraps up.

3. Work in your pajamas.  The holy grail of frustrated cubicle workers is to be able to work from home in their pajamas (or less, if that's how you roll).  While most successful workshifters have long ago learned that the key to good performance is to treat every day as if they were going into the office, having the option of working on a quarterly report in your boxers is certainly a perk.

4. Minimal expenses.  Sure, you have to get an internet connection, and you have to brew your own coffee, but chances are, even if you were working in an office, you'd still have those expenses.  What you can save on is expensive cafeteria lunches, the cost of a dozen grande lattes, and commuting costs.

5. Making phone calls is easy.  If you work with clients or colleagues, you need to make at least a handful of phone calls a day.  Being able to speak on the phone in a closed door office is a lot more comfortable than making that same call with chattery background noise, or loud colleagues having their own calls.

Coffee Shop

1. Action keeps you awake.  No matter how much you love what you do for a living, there are definitely times when you have to slog through tasks that put you to sleep.  Working in a coffee shop can perk you up not only through the caffeine, but also through the action going on around you.  For better or worse, being around people forces you to keep up certain appearances.  Passing out on your laptop in a Starbucks just wouldn't do.

2. Benefit from someone else's wifi connection.  A lot of coffee houses offer free wifi connections, which make them the ideal place if you're out of town, or if your own home internet connection is down, or if you haven't gotten around to setting up your own home internet connection.

3. Serendipitous encounters.  Chances are, if you're working from home, you're not going to be having too many adventures.  There is no chance to be interrupted, but there is also no chance to have serendipitous encounters with possible business contacts (or other).  Part of the beauty of coffee shop workshifting is that you will run into other workshifters, and while most can offer only their camaraderie - not a terrible thing to have in and of itself - others may surprise you by turning out to be important business contacts.

4. Entertainment.  Sometimes, when working from a coffee shop, I like to point and laugh at all the people running away from the office for 10-15 minute coffee breaks, only to scurry back with their treats.  This behavior should be practiced discretely and only when you're having a rough day.

5. Inspiration.  If you do any kind of remotely creative work, chances are you're always looking for inspiration.  In my experience, there's little more inspirational than people watching, and coffee shops, after parks, are probably the best people watching spots in any city.

CONS

Home Office

1. Loneliness.  As much as it sometimes feels like a relief that you no longer have to hide from Bob from accounting when he stops by "for a quick chat," it is easy to forget that we're social creatures and sooner or later, the water cooler chatting will be missed.  When you work from home, there's no one to chat with (except for maybe the cat).

2. Must have your own internet connection.  It stands to reason that if you're going to workshift in the modern age, you need an internet connection.  For most people this isn't an issue, but for a handful of people who have still been getting by without internet at home, working from home will force you to bite the bullet and shell out for a decent connection.

3. Risk of never changing scenery.  When you work from home, you enter a weird time warp where you lose track of the outside world, and it becomes all too easy to become a complete shut-in.  I've heard tales of workshifters who haven't left their homes for three or more days at a time, because they've fallen into the trap of laziness.  This isn't good for your mental well-being, or for your happiness.

4. Possibility of procrastination is huge.  Every office worker's biggest enemy is procrastination.  Whether it's wasting time surfing the web, checking facebook, twitter, or anything else.  This is easiest to do at home.  Not to mention you could also procrastinate with a myriad of other activities, like television, doing laundry, tidying up the den, re-arranging photo albums, building a birdhouse...  the possibilities are endless.

Coffee Shop

1. Intimidation.  While many coffee shops have gotten used to the idea of workshifters buying an overpriced caffeinated beverage and installing themselves at a small table for a few hours, some still aren't particularly fond of the practice.  Getting dirty stares from a frustrated barrista who is waiting for you to order another $6 cappuccino to replace the one you finished 20 minutes ago is not conducive to productivity.

2. Risk of crappy connections.  In a coffee shop, you have no control over the quality of the internet connection.  You will eventually get to know which shops have good internet service, and which are flaky, but at the beginning, you may find yourself getting your cup of joe, setting yourself up for a day of work, only to be frustrated by constantly dropping wifi signals.

3. The unexpected run-in.  Unless you drive to a coffee shop 100 miles outside of your hometown (maybe more), there is always the risk that you will have an unexpected run-in with acquaintances.  These run-ins are made awkward by the fact that most people you run into don't realize that you're actually working.  It's often difficult to back away from these conversations.  Especially when you're in the middle of a real creative flow, these run-ins can be a serious deflater.

Conclusion

In the end, there is no right answer. Some people will prefer the calm of working from home, while others will prefer the hustle and bustle of working from crowded cafes.  For most people, however, switching between the two common modes of workshifting from time to time is a good idea.  It keeps things interesting.  After all, workshifting is about increasing freedom, so might as well take advantage of that freedom and explore all the possibilities.

What do you think?


Photo Credit: Earl G

If you're a WorkShifter, that great coffee shop may be a nice environment for you to work in, but where do you go when you need to meet with someone? Holding a business meeting at a cafe table might work in some instances, especially if the person you are meeting with is not a complete stranger to you. But what if you need to meet a new client? Then things can be a bit more difficult.

Home office workers can face the same problem, too. Not everyone keeps their house in presentation mode at all times. The distractions of a personal space may not be the right environment for some meetings. And family and pets can be added distractions, as well.

Coworking can provide a good option for a workspace with the characteristics of an office, but without the associated overhead. Coworking spaces are, first and foremost, work spaces. So there are fewer extraneous distractions than you are likely to find at home or a coffee shop.

Those of us with young children face the nearly insurmountable task of keeping toys and clutter out of the way. Staying on top of that, as well as running a business is just one more headache to deal with if you are meeting people at your home.

Some pets may not be conducive to a good meeting environment, either. Not everyone's dog is calm and quiet when strangers come to visit. Even locked away in a back room, a barking dog can disrupt a meeting. And a visitor with allergies to your pet may be uncomfortable in an environment where the animal has been living.

Another problem that neither the cafe nor the living room address very well is the kind of furniture that is available. Meetings with more than a couple of people are often difficult with the small tables found in most cafes. And very few homes have tables other than a kitchen or dining room table that are the size and scale of a meeting table.

Coworking spaces not only have work furniture, but private meeting rooms are the norm, so that you don't have to disturb your fellow coworkers, either. My coworking space has two meeting rooms, one that will accommodate 4-5 people, and the other for as many as 12. There's also a small phone room that sometimes gets used as a two-person meeting room.

Even with a home office, it can be useful to have a coworking space available as a place for meetings. For people who don't need full-time access, but who may occasionally find access to a coworking space useful, some coworking spaces offer day-passes or other short-term options that allow use of the facilities on an as-needed basis.

Do you have other options for meeting space?

Photo credit: Workantile Exchange

When I started my consulting business eight years ago, I heard tons of advice about setting up a home office.  Everything from - "don't do it" to "it will take two years to get used to it."  While on the surface, hearing the words "work from home" might conjure up the somewhat blissful vision of a person working in their sweats all day, having a home office does take some getting used to.  And in order to be successful, you have to plan the environment for your needs.

If you think about it, when companies design work spaces they do it for maximum efficiency and productivity.  When you make the decision to work at home, you want to focus on the same things.  Create a space that allows you to be comfortable, efficient and productive.

7 Considerations for Setting Up a Home Office

1. Location, Location, Location - Think about the best place in your home to designate as work space.  Not only should you think about how much space you will need, but whether or not the space needs to have a door or window.  For instance, having a window doesn't matter to me.  But having a door does.  I need to be able to separate myself from work.  And, the best way to do that...is by closing the door.
   
   I also considered the temperature of my house.  My home has an east-west facing.  Meaning the back of the house is warmer toward the end of the day.  So I intentionally have my office at the front of the house.  It stays cooler and I don't have to deal with too much sunlight.
   
   
2. Ergonomics - In order to do your best work, you have to be comfortable.  And, that comfy sofa in front of the plasma TV starts looking real good after a couple hours in a poorly designed workspace. Your office chair needs to properly support your back.  If you'll be working on a computer from home, make sure you have proper lighting and wrist rests. 
   
   I know this might sound elementary, but you'd be amazed at the people who don't consider taking good care of their posture in designing a home office.  It's one thing to jump in a chair and send off a few bills from a desk.  That takes minutes.  It's another thing to work for hours.  Reading a few articles on how to take good care of your movements will make you healthier and more productive.
   
   
3. Communication Musts - One of the keys to working from home is being accessible.  I've always found my clients didn't care where I was as long as (a) they could reach me and (b) I delivered on time.  This means how you communicate is key, because you are establishing your credibility and creating trust.
   
   Many people use their cell phones as primary communication devices.  Which is great.  I love my iPhone and use it all the time.  But I also know there are a couple of places in my home that the coverage is spotty and I could drop a call.  So I have a landline backup.  Nothing is worse than being on an important conference call and getting dropped off the line.  I'm not endorsing one way over another...just keep in mind how you need to communicate when setting up your office.
   
   Also when it comes to phone coverage, think about whether voicemail, forwarding services and applications like Google Voice make sense to keep you connected to your customers.
   
   My last two-cents about phones - one of the best investments I made was a wireless headset.  If you spend a lot of time on conference calls, this could be a lifesaver for you.  It's also great when you're on a call and someone wants you to sign for a package.  Multitasking at its best.
   
   In planning your communication needs, consider other electronics.  I know faxing can seem old-fashioned, but some places still use it.  A lot.
    
   
4. Technology - Talking about communication leads to discussions about the internet.  If you have multiple computers in your home, a wireless network might be necessary.  I've had plenty of occasions where the Ethernet cable wasn't working but the wireless network kept me up and running until a repair was made.
   
   Ever lost a document you spent hours creating because the electricity blinked?  Well, don't let that happen.  Get a battery back-up (also known as a UPS - Unlimited Power Supply) for your computer.  Trust me.  It's money well spent.
   
   I also can't resist sharing my technology indulgence.  Dual monitors.  Years ago, the graphic designer who worked on my website suggested it.  If you spend a lot of time on computers, it will completely change the way you work and your productivity.
    
   
5. Storage - As you finish projects and/or accumulate resources, you'll have to find someplace to keep all of this "stuff."  First, I'd suggest contacting an attorney who can offer some advice on how many years you need to store projects. 
   
   After you know how long to store files, consider how you'll maintain both electronic files and hard copy.  And how you'll dispose of them as well.  I've found a wonderful service that brings a truck to my door, destroys files on-site and provides a certificate they've been destroyed.  So I can rest assured that any confidential info that has been entrusted to me by my customers is safe. 
   
   It goes without saying that I use a personal shredder for everyday items.
   
   
6. Find Your Zone - Working from home can be a blessing and a curse.  Need to take 5 minutes to make a personal phone call - no problem.  Want to work in your pajamas, no worries.  But it also means that work is staring you in the face all the time. 
   
   While you might enjoy what you do...you still need time to disconnect.  Figure out a routine that works for you.  When I first started working at home, I was so concerned about falling into the trap of being undisciplined that I made myself miserable.  After settling into a schedule that allowed me to do some things that were important to me - like working out - I was happier and more productive.
   
   
7. Marketing your office - Even though you work at home, you still want to send the message that you're a professional.  So when I refer to where I work - it's called the office.  Not home.  

And since it's not feasible to hold meetings in my home, I also think about where to hold meetings.  Lucky for me, most of my clients want me to meet them at their site.  Or they want to meet over coffee or lunch.  But find good places to have meetings so you're always prepared when a customer wants to see you face-to-face.

With more people considering freelancing and consulting, working from home has plenty of advantages. A well-thought-out plan to establishing a home office can offer you a casual, comfortable, flexible place to work that's also easy to set up and relatively inexpensive to maintain.  Best of all, it's a place where you can really get things done!

Photo Credit: Paladin27

Many cubicle employees dream of being able to work from home, either for their current employer or through stretching out on their own as an entrepreneur - living the dream! In my own quest and through talking with other home bound warriors I have been thinking about some mental and psychological triggers and how that affects their performance and their growth.

Below are just some ideas around 5 Mental Workshifting Triggers that affect the way you work away from a traditional office.

Time Management

The first is a critical aspect to your success working from a non corporate office environment. How you spend your time dictates your success. Spend too much time on noncritical tasks and your paycheck, clients and output suffer. Spend too much time working on growing your business or working on tasks and you miss out of the benefits of location independent based working. There are plenty of sites and resources geared towards productivity.

This group includes:

To Do and Task Management - Remember the Milk, TaDa List, Prioritiz'd
Project Management - Bacecamp, Front Office Box
Life Hacking - Life Hacker, Zen Habits
Lifestyle Design - Four Hour Work Week, The Life Design Project, Rock Star Lifestyle Design Outsourcing - Source Control, eLance, Guru
Automation - TubeMogul, Ping.fm

Time management is something that many teach and few actually follow through. Personally I try one system every week only to play on Twitter and read RSS Feeds for hours and wake up and smell the deadlines. The best system I have found so far is the one that fits your goals and growth plans. Those that are ambitious and strive for excellence manage their time much differently than those with lackluster or passion driven goals (or those with no or undefined goals). Every person will manage their time differently from David Allen and the Getting Things Done system to the freelancer working a 9-5 and fitting in client projects with every waking minute, break and crack of free time in the day.

The end goal here is to find a system that fits within your values:

Step 1 - Define your values and goals.
Step 2 - Figure out what it will take to get there.
Step 3 - Manage your time to succeed.

Motivation

The second touch point is personal and professional motivation to perform the work. Seeing the body language and the amount of effort it takes to give and receive response, many home based workers have a tendency to be, for lack of a better synonym, lazy. Getting out of bed, putting on appropriate clothing and getting serious in your spare bedroom or makeshift office is a difficult task for many remote based workers.

How do we program ourselves to be motivated and excited to get out of bed 6 months, 12 months, 2 years after we begin working at home. The feeling you had the first week out of the office is now very distant and the same problems will begin to arise. Remember your first week on your own? Coffee was on at 6am, you ran a few miles before dawn and hopped out the shower with a crisp pair of jeans and even did your hair like you had a million dollar client meeting? Now it's 6 months down the road and the alarm snoozes till 8am. The run has turned into walking the dog to the "spot" and back and your basketball shorts and company picnic tee make your uniform look, well, you get the picture.

One of the keys to motivation is to always have something to be motivated about. If you are working from home just to get by, well, its going to be no different than mulling around in the office. If you started a company and became complacent with your clients and your income, well, then, get used to the groggy 8am wake up call. One piece of advice I got from John Jantsch (Duct Tape Marketing) is that we all need to be striving for the next thing. We all need to be treating our work like we are starting a business, the business of you. What I took from this is that we all need to be working towards "awesome" and whatever that is for you. For me it's a picture of an Audi R8 and some beach front property, right next to a picture of my wife. For me it's breaking free and living on my own terms and everyday I wake up, see these pictures, glance at my goals and get to work before the sun cracks the window.

Finding that motivation is going to be different for you and you will be inspired in different ways. The one thing I know if that we don't NEED Tony Robbins to whip us into shape, we need to find that fire deep down in ourselves and then seize the day!

Single Child Syndrome

One thing that many are not prepared for is the realization that you are working by yourself, in your home, alone. We attempt to supplement this with Twitter chat, Facebook and IM, but the fact is that human to human interaction is such a strong part of how we grow, learn and develop. Communication with people, like real, breathing people is something that helps me get through the day and can always give me a second to remember that no matter what business you are in its a people business.

Some cures for the single child syndrome can include conferences and events. The number one reason people go to large seminars and events is to meet people and learn things. They want to exchange cards, talk about their business and learn about yours. There are conferences and large scale events for every niche, every industry and every hobby on the planet. Some of the best networking for me has come from events where not everyone was a marketer. I've gone to food and restaurant trade shows and events to meet restaurant owners to talk Social Media and online marketing and as one of the only marketing agencies there I had some great conversations that were interesting and a great time that led to great relationships and ultimately business in the long run.

Possibly the newest form of live bodies in a room is the Tweetup. Get on Twitter, find some locals and find a place to hang out. Cheap, effective and very powerful for local community building. Other great sources of finding live bodies (aka not Twilight'ian vampires) Upcoming - Yahoo crowdsourced directory of goings-on in your neighborhood Eventful - Events based on location Mashable's Guide To Events.

Rotating Office Chairs

The 4th trigger is your ever changing office chair, and I don't mean the seasonal upgrade at Ikea (although that would make for a great Christmas gift if anyone is thinking of sending one my way). What I mean is the ever changing office settings from coffee shops to Panera's to makeshift home workstations to buses, planes and waiting places. When you were working in an office or going to school, you were prepared for the everyday consistency. You knew your seat, the time to be there, the people that would surround you and you basically had a routine. Now that your boss gave you some freedom or you made it on your own, your environment is no longer consistent. Even in your local coffee shop your table or chair may change, the traffic flow can fluctuate, new distractions come into play and your routine is now a routine of adjusting to your surroundings.

While you may be thinking that the freedom of choosing your workspace is awesome (and personally I think it is), there are certain time and space constraints that need to come into consideration. I for one, create a great deal of videos for my membership sites and filming screen casts are not going to happen at Panera. Other limitations can include download and upload speeds (even your home connection may not be as strong as those T1's at the old office).

The key here again to to determine your needs and evaluate locations in your hometown that match your goals and workload. For me it's a combination of working at home and in some local spots that allow me to be comfortable and get in the zone to write, record and manage my day-to-day activities. I also plan my days to fit the times at these local spots when I can best utilize their environment. For me its the post breakfast time. I find that arriving at 9am is a great time to get in some culture, then find quiet and hit the zone before the lunch rush. At home, its early mornings before my wife wakes up. I'd love to learn more about your limitations with your rotating office chair. (Share in the comments below)

Communication

The last major factor that I have been studying is the communication piece. I have found that in my companies and in many others this is still a major barrier to growth and stability. While the tools may be there, the lack of follow through and discipline inside of organizations is extremely disappointing. This can include email overhaul at the top of the list. A booking agent friend of mine sees over 200 emails from artists, other agencies, venues and major players every single day. This doesn't include the social media requests and general email. That is 200 emails that typically need a response and posiibly need it with time sensativity (a band en route needing directions or confirmation on a show time). This makes his business awfully difficult to manage even though he can work from anywhere at anytime.

Interestingly enough we live in an information society that can have answers to complex problems in a matter of seconds yet have payments sent to wrong addresses, sent to wrong people in the wrong format or miss the ball with time zones for scheduling. Communication is the number one reason businesses fail and succeed. From hiring new employees, freelancers or outsourcing - the ability to send clear and concise directions can be a major challenge. For work at home employes, being able to communicate virtually and maintain the level of activity can be very challenging out of the gate.

The best resources are only as good as the pilots using them. For my love of tools like RTM or Basecamp, if the orgization or individual fail to use them, the tools ultimately fail (or the user does, depends on whose eyes you are looking from). For many people and entrepreneurs in particular, the idea of communication while workshifting needs to be a top priority as the other elements we have talked about today fall into line if there is routine and efficient communication.

Conclusion

Today I really wanted to share some ideas and concepts that have been brewing in my head over the last few weeks. These are challenges in my own business and in businesses that I have the pleasure of learning about or working for. They all tend to be different for every business but the same in nature and the way you go about setting triggers and responses to combat the situations.

The main theme is surrounding your business and your work with actionable goals that continue to help you grow. Once you have these goals it becomes much easier to develop communication strategies, adapt to work environments, work with teams or by yourself, get motivated and manage your time. Let's talk in the comments below and see how you manage and work with these problems.

Photo by: David R. Carroll

While I spend my fair share of time on the road and in coffee shops, most of the time I'm huddled away in my home office here in Chicago. When people find out that I often work from home, the most common response I get is something along the lines of "I'm so jealous. I wish I could work in my PJs in front of the TV all day." Sound familiar?  As most of you Workshifters know, working from home is anything but cushy. Sure, it has its advantages, but it also comes with its own set of challenges. Here are some of the things that have helped me stay sane as a home office warrior:

• Minimize distractions.If you have an office door, shut it. Turn off the TV, the radio and anything else that will prevent you from actually getting work done. Figure out how you operate most efficiently. To truly focus on what I'm doing, I learned quickly that I need complete silence - no TV and no music. Sometimes, I also disconnect from the Internet to focus 100% on projects.
  
  
• Stay connected. Other than the standard emails and phone calls, find other ways to connect with your clients and co-workers. You're missing out on the water cooler chit-chat, so it's up to you to make those connections in other ways. I use Google Talk, Skype and of course Facebook, Twitter, among others.  (If you use more than one instant messenger application, consider using a service like Pidgin, which lets you log in to account on multiple chat networks simultaneously.)
  
  
• Get out. Working from home can get pretty isolating at times. This was a challenge for me at first. Make sure you get out on a regular basis and have actual face-to-face interactions with people. Work in a coffee shop for one day a week. Run errands over lunch. Connect with other Workshifters in your area through groups like Jelly.
   
• Know when to stop. One of the toughest things about working from home is not being able to leave "the office." If possible, separate your work space from your living space. Also, don't go "back to work" when you've finished for the day. If you're going to check your work email on the weekend or before you go to bed, try to only do so for a set amount of time. That way you won't get sucked in...
  
  
• Insist on IT support. As a Workshifter there is nothing more frustrating than IT troubles. Actually, I take that back. There's nothing more frustrating than having a tech problem and not having anyone to help you fix it. If your employer doesn't have a system for this in place, investigate IT support in your own neighborhood. MindFire works with a company that uses a remote support approach using Citrix GoToAssist.
  
  
• Finally - develop a routine and stick to it. As AJ Leon noted in his recent Workshifting post, "maintaining some construct of routine is far more important for a Workshifter than for a traditional employee." Whatever that routine may be, it will help get you in the "work" mindset and bring some normalcy to the day.
  

See also: an excellent post over at zenhabits 501 on Top 30 Tips for Staying Productive and Sane While Working from Home.

What are some of your best tips for home office warriors?

Photo by: baliboro