The Ten Commandments Of Working From Home

If you’re one of the 24% of Americans who work from home full-time or part-time, congratulations! You’re already avoiding bad office coffee and turning your former long commute into some glorious free time.

Here’s the thing, though: Working from home is different than working in an office, store, or factory. You don’t want to be that weirdo ditching work to watch Netflix in your pajamas on the sofa (Or maybe you’re that person right now, which is fine! We’re in an all-love zone here). You also don’t want to veer the other way and work 12-hour days with no human interaction and lots of burnout.

I have worked as a freelance journalist and content strategist for a decade, and run a personal finance site for freelancers and the self-employed called Almost Millions, so I know a lot about these things.

These are the 10 Commandments Of Working From Home: Whether you’re a longtime remote worker or are new to working from home, I hope you find them useful and, indeed, not-terrible.

1. Thou Shalt Have A Dedicated Workspace

Everyone needs a home, and every worker needs a workspace. If you’re working from home, you will want a dedicated place to work. This space is where you’ll do your day-to-day work, store papers, and keep supplies.

In an ideal world, you’ll have a dedicated home office or studio in a separate room. But if that isn’t possible, try to have a separate desk in your house that you use only for work purposes. If worst comes to worst, use a corner of your kitchen table or household desk exclusively for work.

Remember: Space + quiet = good things for getting your remote work done.

2. Thou Shalt Make Work Hours

When you work in the office or at the store, you have work hours. You also need work hours if you work from home, and it doesn’t matter if they’re 9–5 or reverse vampire hours.

Not setting work hours for yourself leads to one of the most common remote work problems: Burnout.

An eight hour workday or whatever equivalent you might have means you’re able to separate work from life. Once 6pm or your end of day rolls around, put the laptop away, put your feet on the sofa or go for a walk, and chill out.

Don’t be that goon answering emails on your phone at 10pm because you fell into a Reddit black hole at 11am. We all know that goon. Don’t be that goon.

3. Thou Shalt Talk To The Coworkers, Bosses & Clients IRL

In an ideal world, everything would be a meritocracy and everyone would be judged solely by their work. However, we live in the real world and relationships matter.

This is important. As a remote worker, you’re at a disadvantage in communicating with bosses, clients, and coworkers. Everyone in your home office is drinking coffee together, making small talk about Game of Thrones in the break room, bonding over who got that one really crappy spot in the parking lot, and eating that same cake at the office birthday party that week.

You’re doing none of these things as a remote employee. You might be an awesome presence rocking the room IRL, but when you work from home, you’re just a name showing up in Outlook or Slack.

Your remote status means keeping track of bosses, coworkers, and clients is crucial. Check in frequently in-person if you can, and try to visit them multiple times of year if you live out of town. If this isn’t possible, do videoconferences or phone calls as often as possible. Be a face with a voice and a personality, and not just a name in the inbox.

4. Thou Shalt Acknowledge Thy Distractions

Working at Almost Millions, I learned a dirty secret about working from home. Everyone watches pet videos on YouTube, plays phone games, or cleans/cooks/exercises/naps (again, no judging!) while they’re working from home. Everyone.

This isn’t a bad thing. You’re working from home, your supervisors and clients are offsite, and you’re missing the human interaction that comes with working onsite.

However, you need to be honest with yourself about what distracts you, how much time a day you have to be distracted, and how you need to adjust for it.

Missing a deadline because you’re playing a video game is a rookie move. Add two hours to your workday if you know you’re goofing off online a lot, or use a tool like StayFocusd to stay on track.

5. Thou Shalt Leave Thy House

One of the most common pitfalls of working remotely is not having in-person contact with other human beings. Working by yourself with no human contact all day will reduce your productivity, frustrate you, and cause a crappier working from home experience. You don’t want that.

Make time for walks, trips to the coffee shop or lunch at restaurants (You have a job! You can afford that!), and schedule hangouts or get-togethers during the workday with people you know who live nearby.

Remember: You’re working remotely, and you’re not isolated on an Antarctic research station. Get out of the house.

6. Thou Shalt Take Thy Tax Breaks

Remote employees leave money on the table all the time by not using tax deductions that are designed just for them.

Talk with your accountant about your work situation and what tax deductions you’re entitled to. Even if you work for a company remotely and are not self-employed or an entrepreneur, you could get a much bigger tax refund next year.

In many circumstances, things like rent/mortgage and bills on your home office space, work-related magazine subscriptions, your internet connection, work-related travel, and printer ink cartridges are tax deductible. So ask your accountant!

7. Thou Shalt Not Slack Off

If you’re working from home, that means you have work to do.

Don’t be the remote employee binging on Netflix and taking a three hour lunch break. Everyone knows that person, and you don’t want to be that person.

8. Thou Shalt Not Leave A Mess

Normal workplaces get cleaned up by people whose work duties require them to clean up workspaces.

Surprise! Your home is your workplace and sweeping, organizing shelves, and keeping things tidy are your responsibility.

If your desk is covered in papers or you leave a trail of open wrappers in the kitchen, that’s going to be bad for work. Add cleaning to the list of extra duties you have to do at home as a result of your job.

9. Thou Shalt Choose A Good Videoconferencing Space

Trust me: Noone wants to look up at your nostrils when they’re talking to you on Skype, and your coworkers will judge you for your messy, a tornado-just-plowed-through-it home.

Remember that appearances matter when you’re hopping on video calls, and find a spot in your home that you’ll use for all your Skype or Google Hangout meetings. Make sure it’s clean, well-lit, and looks good on camera. It’s a small thing that goes a long way when it comes to meetings.

10. Thou Shalt Enjoy Working At Home

While your coworkers and contacts are stuck in the office, you’re skipping the commute and working from home. You’re living the dream — enjoy it!

Neal Ungerleider is a Los Angeles-based writer whose work appears in Fast Company and other publications. Neal also runs Almost Millions, a personal finance site for freelancers and the self-employed, and works as a freelance content strategist.

If you enjoyed this article, send Neal $4.99 so he can buy a fancy coffee because, man, it’s been a long day.