But working at home also presents unique challenges, one of which is how can you be more "at work" when you need to be? The lack of a commute can be a double-edged sword. It's wonderful not to have to battle traffic, bad weather and surging gas prices. But it's also tough to create distance that's sometimes necessary for you to focus on work while you're at home.

TEMPTATIONS APLENTY When I first started working at home, I often asked myself, "How do I mentally and physically disconnect from being at home so that I actually feel like I am at work, so that I'm not tempted to simply knock-off when it's two in afternoon and golf clubs are singing their siren song or kids want me to go on a bike ride with them?"

For a time, I experimented with "dressing" part--complete with button up shirt and business-casual pants--but felt somewhat "silly" sitting in my office, resplendent in my business attire, with nary a client to see me (I do all of my work by email or phone). I soon found absurdity of my garb to be more distracting than issue I was trying to solve!

CREATE WORK-LIKE ROUTINES My solution has been to develop simple and flexible morning, midday, and afternoon routines that mimic a typical work day--but retain all benefits of my being at home:

* My morning routine involves rising at roughly 7:30 a.m., eating breakfast with my family, and then after showering, shaving and brushing ivories, I "commute" to work. Only I don't commute by car. I commute to my office via a short hike up stairs to my office on second floor--a hike that symbolizes what for me used to be a 20-mile drive. I then launch into my day with a check of email and phone messages, and then sequester myself in my office until midday, emerging only for coffee and inevitable mid-morning bathroom break.

What's that? You don't have a home office?

You work, instead, on kitchen table or computer station in family room or--much to your spouse's dismay--on cluttered desk in corner of bedroom (clickety-clackity, clickety-clackity go keys until wee hours of morning).

Get a room already! Preferably one you can claim and make your own. Concentration, focus and productivity will improve--and so will your peace of mind.

LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION! Being a home office, by definition, space you choose as your own actually has to be in your home--so right away you're constrained to a certain, fixed location. Your "home office" can't be in building down street.

That said, here are five items that mattered most to me when I chose location for my home office:

1. My office space needed to be physically practical while also being good for my psyche--no stark four walls, cramped space, or gloom for me.

2. I needed a space into which I could literally disappear for hours--away from hubbub of family activity, noisy children, cooking smells, and errant pets.

3. The space needed to work for me in physical terms, with adequate room for a desk, work area, reading nook, printer stand, fax machine, storage of office supplies, etc.

4. I needed a room that afforded me a view of outdoors--a room that provided me something to look at other than my computer screen.

5. The space could serve no dual purposes. This had to be my office with my "stuff" in it, from pictures on walls to books on shelves.

CREATING THE SPACE Fortunately when we built our home over a decade ago, I imagined that I would someday want a home office. During construction I had a spare 10-foot by 13-foot bedroom on top floor wired for an additional phone line and electrical outlets in room equipped with surge protection. I also placed sound deadening board in walls, six inches of fiberglass insulation in floor, and topped it off with a heavy six-panel solid wood door--complete with lock and key--making for a very cozy and quiet setting.