Motivaton

[Old Greg]

Go for a walk every morning before you start, even if it's jus tto the paper shop. Go for a walk at lunch-time. Otherwise you will go mad. Apart for that, I find the easiest days are days when you have a whole day's work to do, because then you just do it. If you have a couple of hour's work to do, then you have to choose between gettin git out of the way and finishing up at 11, or arsing around until 4 p.m. and then frantically trying to get it done. Whichever suits you, I guess.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Rock! Thanks all - looking forward to being at home but concerned too.

[MarillionFan]

In all seriousness, don't be tempted to knock one out every half-hour. Use a separate computer to your normal porn-filled one.

WHS. 5 tips.

1) Make sure you use your work laptop(you know the one that goes to the client site) as opposed to the one you got off your mate Gary before he went to PC World
2) Get dressed. Don't sit in your underpants all day as you won't feel like you are working properly and may lead to 1
3) Avoid attempting to 'pwn' someone on a contractor website no matter how bored you are and no matter how needy, self obsessed they are and need a slapping.
4) Make sure you have a deadline on the day you have to get work back for, that way you ensure that after 6 hours of posting crap on the internet that the last hour you actually have to do some work to hit the deadline increases your heartbeat and makes you damn glad the day is over.
5) Finally, avoid boredom as best as possible because it may lead to 1, which in turn will lead to blindness.

[ChimpMaster]

Need tips on maintaining a good work ethic when working at home alone please.

In all seriousness, don't be tempted to knock one out every half-hour. Use a separate computer to your normal porn-filled one.

[thunderlizard]

This works for me:
Pomodoro Technique - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[craig1]

- If someone else is in the house when you're working at home, shut the door to where you're working and make it clear that you're not "at home" for domestic stuff, e.g. you won't just pop to the shops for milk and the bins can wait until evening.
- Unless you're used to having it at work, turn off Skype and other social networking stuff.
- Make sure you take breaks. 5 mins in an hour for a brew break or wander round the house.
- Don't get in the habit of emailing people who you'd normally talk to about work stuff. Call them.
- Some people I know get dressed for work when working at home. If that helps, do it. For me though I can happily work in my dressing gown when at home and still be productive.
- Aim for office levels of light. If that means having the room lights on at midday then so be it.
- As a contractor working from home, it's important to send an email early in the day to "prove" you're at work and one late in the day to "prove" you're still there. Also, try to "deliver" at least one thing a day. There are a huge rump (or should that be saddlebag as rump is a working muscle) of managers who genuinely believe that you cannot work at home and you will be downloading porn, playing computer games and generally slacking. Unfortunately, the lower levels of management are the worst as they're either learning to manage or have proven they've reached the Peter Principle limit.
- If you work with people who aren't allowed to work from home, don't boast about being able to get up at 8:58 and still be logged in by 9. That is unless you're deliberately trying to annoy them.
- Unless you're used to silence, consider having a radio or music playing in the background at a moderately low level. I love silence but many people get unnerved by it quite quickly when trying to work as they're used to the constant background chatter or noise.
- Get a comfy office chair. A really comfy one. You'll be in that longer than you would in a normal office environment due to fewer interruptions and office meetings.
- If you're permanently working from home, seriously considering increasing your exercise patterns
- If you're using your own PC, consider using a different user account. This will mean your browser of choice doesn't have all your personal favourites and you might not get tempted to spend a good bit of the day doing "oh go on then, let's just have another read of that forum... one more post won't hurt" then find yourself 3 hours later still messing around.

Probably loads more I can think of but I'm sure others will pick them up...

[TykeMerc]

Need tips on maintaining a good work ethic when working at home alone please.

Simple really, understand what you have to deliver and get on with it.

A bit of self discipline is all that you require unless you need a manager standing over and checking on you every few minutes in which case working from home would be the wrong environment for you.

[Peoplesoft bloke]

Need tips on maintaining a good work ethic when working at home alone please.