I worked from my bedroom for nearly a year while awaiting the visa that would allow me to move to Australia in 2002. Though the prospect of the two-second commute certainly has its appeal, being 10 hours out of sync with my coworkers and having little reason to get dressed in the morning does not make for the most productive work environment, no matter how cosy and quiet your home office is.

After nearly four years of open plan office living, I'm now working from home two days a week again, due to the accoustic requirements of producing video tutorials (a.k.a. screencasts). Thankfully, my home office is now in a separate room (ka-ching -- tax deduction!). Nevertheless, staying productive is proving to be a struggle at times.

It turns out that staying on top of a few things makes a big difference for me. Here are my tips for working from home:

• maintain your morning routine

  Especially in the morning, when you're running on autopilot, there are things you need to do before your mind will shift into "work mode". I have to shower, eat breakfast, get dressed, brush my teeth and shave. If I miss any of those steps, I find myself aimlessly surfing the Web at noon, not smelling very good and wondering where the time went.

• unplug the TV

  I often put the TV on as I putter about in the morning, absorbing my daily dose of current events by osmosis. It's far too easy to leave it on all day in the background---a serious distraction that can break your focus without you even realizing it.

• purge your PC

  My office computer is set up very differently from my home computer. My office PC has the bare essentials in software and running processes, so I can focus on work. My home PC constantly checks my personal email, downloads podcasts, fetches low-priority feeds from a plethora of distracting web sites, and is replete with cute little apps that generate eye candy and always seem to need upgrading when I should be doing something else. Switching off all these distractions is especially important when my home PC becomes a tool to get serious work done.

If you have any other tips for working from home, I'd love to hear them!