Here are some of the best ways I’ve found to stay on task and still enjoy all the benefits of not having to go into the office:

Keep Your Bed and Your Desk In Separate Rooms

This one’s not always possible in a smaller apartment, but separating your bedroom and your workspace is a good way to acknowledge the immensely powerful distraction of a comfy bed. I’ve had to train myself to avoid “just lying in bed for a few minutes” and waking up 4 or 5 hours later with no work done. Keeping the bed out of sight and out of mind helps a lot.

Close The Door

If at all possible, work in a room with a door you can close. The psychological impact of closing the door to indicate you’re working can’t be overestimated. If you live with kids, pets, roommates or a significant other, it also lets them know you’re working and and eliminates distractions. I’m borrowing this one from Stephen King’s excellent book On Writing, which contains plenty of good general advice that applies outside of being a writer.

Have a Regular Routine

One of the best parts of working from home is that you don’t have to keep a schedule. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t, though, it just means you should keep one that works for you. It doesn’t have to be eight hours, but you should be consistent about what’s work time and what’s not. If you don’t make any rules, you’ll be much more likely to blow off work whenever you don’t feel like doing it.

Eat Something

Make sure meals are part of your routine. If you don’t know when you’re eating, you’ll be likely to knock off work at any time to get takeout or fix yourself a snack. I’m as guilty of this as the next guy, but I find that eating breakfast in the morning helps set the pace for the day. If you can start the day with a few hours of feeling full, you’ll reduce the temptation to quit early and have lunch. You should definitely eat when you’re hungry, but eating breakfast will keep you from being hungry when you’re trying to build up some momentum in the morning.

Because I work from home and struggle with a lot of this stuff myself, I’m sure I’ll write more on this subject in the future. I’d be interested to hear what good advice you have for being productive away from the office, so please leave me a note in the comments.

Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He writes about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to Geek Monthly magazine, among others. You can also find him on Twitter and at his blog.

Photo Credit — bs

Here we go, then: how to declutter a hopelessly messy workspace.

What needs to be there?

Instead of starting with the attitude of keeping everything and moving or throwing away things one by one, start with a blank desk and add back the stuff you can’t work without. My laptop and second display take up a ton of space on my desk, but I can’t very well get rid of them, because I use them for work. Other than that, I just need my phone, and occasionally a pen and pad.

What are you going to do with all that paper?

Paper is probably the biggest source of clutter in my work life. I don’t even use it, it just comes in the mail each day and never gets adequately processed. This is where you do as I say, not as I do, and process your paper as you receive it. Recycle, shred, file it in an inbox … do anything but allow it to grow across your desk and take over your space. Of course, avoiding paper in the first place is the best way to prevent this, but that’s a subject for another post.

Clear off your walls and floor

The workspace is more than just a desk. If you’re going to go truly distraction-free, make sure you’ve got unadorned, solid-colored walls in your field of vision. Also, don’t let too much junk pile up on the floor. I know it sounds crazy to the neat-freaks amongst you, but I can see a pile of dirty laundry on the floor out of the corner of my eye, taunting me as I write this post. That’ll never do.

Clean up your computer’s dock and desktop

You probably spend more time looking at your computer’s dock and desktop than anything else in your office, so keep them clean and free of distractions. I’m on a temporary detox from Twitter and Facebook right now — another subject that deserves its own post — and I’ve found that removing the bookmarks and apps associated with those sites also blocks my habit of clicking on them every 5 minutes while I’m working. The same goes for games and other time-wasters. Hide them anywhere but the desktop.

That’s obviously not everything you can do, but it’s definitely a good start. If you work from the premise that everything in your workspace has to be essential or very useful to earn its place, you should be able to maintain an environment that’s clean and distraction-free. You don’t have to be a monk, you just have to recycle your paper and take out your pizza boxes when you finish with them.

Jay is a freelance writer based in Seattle, WA. He blogs about software for Download Squad and contributes interviews to Geek Monthly magazine, among others. You can also find him on Twitter.

Photo Credit – jeffreydenver