The work from home tips that make the biggest difference are simple: keep a set workspace, start and stop at fixed times, plan each day in advance and make a clear effort to stay in touch with your team. Most people who struggle at home are not lacking discipline. They are missing the structure an office provides without anyone noticing, such as a commute, a desk that is only for work and colleagues nearby.
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Home working can go well when that structure is in place. A Stanford-led study of staff at the travel firm Trip.com, published in the journal Nature in 2024, found that working from home two days a week cut resignations by a third with no drop in performance. The twelve tips below rebuild that structure at home. They are grouped into your space, your day, your team and your evening, so you can start with whichever part feels hardest.
Set Up Your Space
Pick one spot used only for work, get the screen and chair right and sort out light and noise, because a workspace that is used only for work tells your brain when it is time to focus. It does not need to be a separate room.
1. Pick One Spot and Keep It for Work
Choose one place to work and use it every day. A small desk in a bedroom corner works better than moving between the sofa, the bed and the kitchen table, because each of those places already means something else. If you have no space for a desk, use the same end of the dining table and clear your work away at the end of the day.
2. Get the Screen and Chair Right
Set up your screen and chair so you can sit for a few hours without hunching. The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) advises having the top of the screen level with your eyes and about an arm’s length away. Laptop users can raise the screen on a stand or a stack of books and use a separate keyboard and mouse. Your feet should rest flat on the floor or on a footrest, with your lower back supported.
3. Sort Out Light and Noise
Good light and a quiet background make long tasks easier. Place your desk so a window is beside you rather than directly behind your screen, which causes glare, or behind you, which makes you a silhouette on video calls. For noise, a pair of headphones and a playlist of instrumental music or background sound can block out a busy house.
Shape Your Working Day
Keep fixed hours, start with a short ritual, plan the evening before, work in focused blocks and take real breaks, so that a clear routine replaces the commute and the office clock. Without one, work tends to spill into every hour of the day.
4. Keep Fixed Start and Finish Times
Decide your working hours and keep them most days. Tell the people you live with when you are working, and tell your team when you are online. A start time also stops the slow drift where you check email in bed at seven and are still answering messages at nine at night.
5. Create a Short Start-of-Day Ritual
A small ritual at the start of the day does the job the commute used to do. It can be a walk round the block, making coffee before you open the laptop, or getting dressed in clothes you would wear to meet a client. The point is to mark a clear line between home time and work time.
6. Plan Your Day the Evening Before
Write down your top two or three tasks before you finish each day. When you sit down the next morning, you know exactly where to start, instead of opening your inbox and reacting to whatever is there. Put the hardest task in the hours when you usually have the most energy, which for many people is the morning.
7. Work in Focused Blocks
Work in blocks of focused time with short breaks in between. A common pattern is 25 to 50 minutes of work followed by a five to ten minute break. During a block, close email and chat, and put your phone in another room or face down. Home has its own distractions, from the washing machine to the fridge, and blocks help you hold them off until the break.
8. Take Real Breaks and a Proper Lunch
Step away from the desk for breaks, and take lunch somewhere other than your workspace. In an office, a walk to a meeting room or a chat at the kettle breaks up the day without effort. At home you have to plan it. A short walk outside at lunchtime is one of the easiest ways to come back to the afternoon with a clearer head.
Stay Connected With Your Team
Share your status often, turn the camera on for some calls and make time for non-work chat, because staying connected takes deliberate effort when you work from home and the casual chats that happen in an office no longer happen by chance.
9. Over-Communicate Your Status
Let people know what you are working on and when you are available. Keep your status in your team chat app up to date, share a short note on your progress at the end of the day if your team finds it useful, and block focus time in your shared calendar so colleagues can see it. When others can see what you are doing, they worry less about whether you are doing it.
10. Turn the Camera On for Some Calls
Use video for one-to-ones and smaller team calls where you can. Seeing faces makes it easier to read tone, which matters when most of your messages are short written notes. It is fine to keep the camera off for large meetings or when you are listening only, as long as your team agrees on that.
11. Make Time for Non-Work Chat
Book some time to talk to colleagues about things other than work. A virtual coffee with one colleague each week, or the first few minutes of a team call set aside for catching up, helps replace the small talk of an office. Loneliness is a common complaint: in Buffer’s 2023 State of Remote Work survey, 23% of remote workers listed it among their struggles.
Switch Off at the End of the Day
A shut-down routine at the end of each day helps you switch off, which is often the hardest part of working from home because your office is always a few steps away.
12. Close the Day With a Shut-Down Routine
End each day with the same few steps. Check tomorrow’s calendar, write your task list for the next day, close every work tab and switch off the laptop. If you can, put the laptop in a bag or a drawer. Some people repeat their start-of-day walk at the end, as a fake commute home.
Turn off work notifications on your phone outside working hours, or move work apps to a separate screen or profile. Most phones have a focus or do not disturb mode that can switch on automatically at a set time each evening.
Common Work From Home Mistakes to Avoid
The most common mistakes, such as working from bed, eating lunch at the keyboard and leaving work apps open all evening, blur work and home until neither feels restful. Watch for these:
| Mistake | Better habit |
|---|---|
| Working from bed or the sofa | Use one set spot, even a small one |
| Starting work by checking messages in bed | Begin with your start-of-day ritual first |
| Eating lunch at the keyboard | Take lunch away from your workspace |
| Leaving work apps open all evening | Shut down the laptop and silence notifications |
| Going days without talking to anyone | Book a weekly chat or call with a colleague |
| Saying yes to every household job during work hours | Agree working hours with the people you live with |
If you live with others, a short conversation about your working hours saves a lot of interruptions. A closed door or headphones can be an agreed signal that you are in a call or a focus block.
FAQ
How can you stay productive working from home?
Keep a set workspace and fixed hours, plan your top tasks the evening before, and work in focused blocks with your phone out of reach. Most productivity problems at home come from missing structure rather than missing willpower.
How can you avoid feeling lonely working from home?
Book regular non-work chats with colleagues, use video for smaller calls, and plan time with friends or family outside work hours. A daily walk or working from a café or library now and then can also help.
How do you separate work and home life?
Use a start-of-day and an end-of-day routine, keep your work kit in one place and put it away when you finish. Turning off work notifications in the evening makes the line much clearer.