I have been working from home for almost five years now and here are some of my best tips for you. All people are different, but these tips help me a long way. Got any good tips your self? Please share them in the comment section.
1. Prepare everything you need the evening before
Each night before I go to bed I try to prepare everything I need the next morning. I put out clean clothes, I prepare everything I can for my breakfast and coffee and so on. So when I wake up everything is set up, and I don't have to waste energy on these kinds of things.
2. Separate work from private
A thing I like to do is to separate my work place from where I spend the rest of the day when I'm not working. By doing this you keep the distractions to a minimal amount and that can be very helpful.
3. Have a good headset
Even though you are at home there can be many distractions like people cutting the lawn, renovation in the building, music from neighbors and so on. Even total silence can be a bitch sometimes. So invest some money on a good headset. When I start to get distracted and my thoughts starts flying, I pump up the volume on my BeyerDynamics and that almost always get's me in the zone.
4. Take breaks. Often.
When you're working from home you're most likely doing something in front of a computer. When you're sitting still for hours without getting up you start becoming unproductive. For each hour you work, try to stand up and stretch your legs, get a few minutes of fresh air or something. Just get away from that computer. I can't count the number of times I've been struggling with something and after a few minutes of rest my brain is ready to work again and a solution just comes right out of me.
5. Communicate
Feeling that your boss don't think you're working or something like that is not a good feeling. You need to be good at communicating and talk about what you're doing and challenges you got. It's important to have the trust from your boss and one way to do this is to always keep him updated on your status.
You should also communicate with your self too. Write down on a piece of paper your goals for the day. It's much easier to see what your doing when it's written right in front of you and not just on some software like Trello or Basecamp.