If you think working from home means doing business in your pyjamas, it's time to wake up.
The keys to a successful work/home environment are discipline, routine, a dedicated work space and, yes, getting dressed in the morning.
Modern workplaces more frequently are allowing employees to do
Work From Home on an as-needed basis to full-time home work.
This new paradigm is spurred on by employees' demands for more of a balance between their working time and their after-hours life.
A recent survey by recruitment firm Robert Half has found that more than a third of workers see maintaining that balance as their biggest management challenge. Almost half of polled workers thought of businesses offering flexible working hours and conditions as the most desirable employers.
Futurist Marcus Barber told the RCSA's (Recruitment and Consulting Services Association) annual symposium last month that improving working flexibility will boost productivity and help prop up Australia's declining workforce participation rate, which threatens to stifle the economy.
"Over 1.5 million workforce hours are lost every week in Melbourne and Sydney, just because people are driving to work. But why do they have to be in the office at all?
Why do managers need to see their team members to know they are working? We need to go from `eyeballing a person at a desk' to productivity of 'output'," he says.
However, there is no point trying to achieve this balance by working from home if employees simply transfer their outdated, workaholic office-hours habits to their home environment.
A valuable lesson can be learnt from some of the nation's pioneers of home work, small business operators.
James Lees, 36, has run his business Posterbill - Brisbane's largest distributor of arts posters, brochures and programs - from beneath his house in Coorparoo, in Brisbane's southeast, for just over five years. He knows how it can work, by combining discipline and a sense of fun.
"I work pretty much 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, and I knock off at 5pm on the dot,'' says Lees, whose main tools of trade are email and phone.
"If I am busy, I'll even make myself lunch in the morning and take it downstairs.''
But most days, Lees is able to get out at lunchtime and meet a friend for an hour swim.
He may work an all-nighter or on weekends if the workload dictates, but that is rare. He takes four weeks' holiday a year - closing the business for a week and getting his assistant manager to cover the work for the other three weeks.
"I get up in the morning at 8.30, shower, get dressed (in T-shirt, shorts and thongs or shoes if he's meeting a client), make a cup of coffee, go downstairs, unlock the door, turn on the lights, turn on the monitors and start work. I don't think of it as an extension of my living room.
"After 5pm when I walk upstairs, that's when I'm home.
"I can break up my day. If I'm not busy, I can go upstairs and read - with my mobile next to me - I can take a swim, go out to lunch.
"I don't have to drive for an hour a day or sit in front of traffic lights.
"I do not take any of that for granted."
His rottweiler dogs, Ollie and Luca, also enjoy the company.
The only disadvantages Lees has found are occasionally feeling "cocooned" at home, and missing the cafe culture near his former office in Fortitude Valley, where he started the business in 1994.
His tips include: discipline yourself to work; stick to a routine; get professional advice on what you can claim on your tax (such as insurance, rates, electricity, phone and car); set up your work space separately from your living space; don't be afraid to tell friends and family when you're too busy for a chat; when you've finished work, switch off. And don't work in your pyjamas.
Lorna Bukkland-Vitetta agrees. She runs neuro-linguistic programming training business NLPworking4U from her Wakerley home office, on Brisbane's eastside, after a 30-year history in small businesses.
She says that while working solo is personally satisfying, she regularly maintains contact with other trainers in her field and engages in a small business mentoring program to help her stay sharply focused on her goals. "Working from home gives me flexibility in my working hours, so I can see people at night or in the daytime, whenever is suitable," she says.
"Working on your own, you do have to be committed and disciplined. My office is separate from my house so I make sure I come out here and work, and don't just sit and watch the telly.
"And when it is my family time, I have to be committed not to come in here and work."
Working from home can be a lifesaver for mums trying to juggle family commitments while trying to get ahead in a career.
However, the level of self-discipline required to work from home multiplies when your job revolves around three-year-old triplets.
Former school teacher April Hickey, 38, from Yeronga in Brisbane's southwest, started her home-based photography business APH Photographics two years ago when her oldest son was four and the triplets were aged one.
She works between 10 hours a week and 10 hours a day, depending on bookings and orders.
"I am motivated and ambitious. I knew I needed to work," Hickey says. "It's a long day at home with toddlers.
"But this job means I am able to still be a stay-at-home mum, still go to school morning teas and other school functions, go to play groups and multiple birth association events and also have a rewarding and stimulating job.
"Juggling it is tricky to say the least. But I don't have to put the kids in full-time child care and it enables me to spend more time with them."
The triplets, Callum, Megan and Beth, are in child care two days a week and oldest child, Connor, 6, is in Year 1. To add to the fun, they also have a newfoundland dog, Bella, 7.
Hickey - with support and involvement from her husband, Paul, 40, a senior social worker at the Princess Alexandra Hospital and mental health lecturer at The University of Queensland - shoots family portraits, wedding photographs and commercial work mostly on weekends.
If the photographs are taken in a park, Paul can bring along the family and they play nearby.
The Hickeys say the expense of full-time child care and before and after school care would not have made financial sense if April had gone back to teaching.
Recently, the business was nominated for a photographic award and previously they have been finalists in a business achievers award two years running.
Checklist
* Ensure repetitive actions are not continued for long periods without breaks.
* Breaks involve stretching and alternating activity.
* Make sure your workplace has good lighting and ventilation, and your furniture and computer are suited to the task.
* Keep your work area away from hazards in the home, such as hot cooking surfaces in the kitchen.
* Keep an unimpeded emergency exit path, ensure power outlets are not overloaded with double adapters and power boards, that smoke detectors are installed and your home has good security.
Tips
* Separate your work area from your living area. This includes phones and computers.
* Stick to a schedule. Treat your days like a regular work day. A nine-to-five or ten-to-six schedule will help keep you on track and productive.
* Take regular breaks. Go for a walk, go outside, meet people for lunch.
* Get dressed every day. Just because you can stay in your pyjamas all day doesn't mean you should.
* Limit distractions. Be careful not to replace office-based interruptions with home-based ones (such as children and friends).
* Take a lunch break. Even if it's only 20 minutes, get away from the computer.
* Take holidays. Leave the house or you'll be tempted to work.
