For many people in the UK, the working week now mixes home and office: two or three days at home, the rest in the office, or fully remote. The benefits are real — no commute, more flexibility, a better balance between work and life. So are the pitfalls: the working day that never ends, the ache in the back, the loneliness, the fridge that is always ten steps away. None of it requires expensive equipment or a spare room.
1. Keep a Routine — and a Start and End Time
Get up at roughly the same time each day, get dressed, and start work at a set time. The routine tells your brain that the working day has begun, and — just as importantly — that it has ended.
Take a hybrid worker on a home day: up at the usual time, laptop open at nine at the kitchen table, the school run fitted in before the first call, lunch away from the screen, and the laptop shut at half past five before the evening starts. Nothing heroic — just the same shape every home day, so the day does not drift.
An end time matters even more than a start time. When the office is the kitchen table, it is easy for work to bleed into the evening: one more email, one more task, one more hour. Decide when you will stop, and stop. Close the laptop, leave the room, and do something that is not work. Tomorrow's work is usually done faster after a proper evening off than after an extra hour squeezed out of a tired brain.
2. Give Yourself a Proper Workspace
A spare room would be nice, but what you actually need is one spot that means work. Working from the sofa or the bed is bad for your back, bad for your focus, and bad for your sleep, because it blurs the line between work and rest.
A table and a chair you can sit at properly are the basics. If you work at a laptop all day, a separate keyboard and a stand that raises the screen to eye level make a genuine difference to neck and shoulder strain. Natural light helps: sit near a window if you can, and keep the workspace tidy at the end of each day so you start fresh tomorrow.
In a small flat with no spare room, the version of this looks different, and it still works: a folding desk against the bedroom wall, or the kitchen table cleared for the working day and packed away in the evening — laptop in a cupboard, papers in a box, table back to being a table for dinner. The ritual of setting up and packing away does the job a separate room would do: it marks the start and the end of work. If you have a disability or a health condition that makes standard equipment painful to use, it is worth knowing about Access to Work, the government scheme that can fund adapted equipment and support for people in work — your employer or a disability employment adviser can explain how to apply.
3. Move, Break, and Get Outside
Sitting still all day is one of the biggest health risks of home working. Office workers at least walk to meetings, to the printer, to the canteen. At home, everything is within a few steps, and it is easy to sit for hours without moving.
Build movement into the day. Stand up every hour. Walk to the kitchen for water. Take a proper lunch break — away from the screen — and, if you can, get outside for a walk. A twenty-minute walk at lunchtime does more for afternoon focus than another coffee, and it is the closest many home workers get to a commute: a clear break between the morning and the afternoon.
Exercise matters too, and it does not have to be intense. A walk, a run, a cycle, a home workout, a few stretches — whatever fits your life. Regular movement protects your back, your mood, and your sleep, all of which feed back into your work.
4. Stay Connected to People
The office provides something that is easy to undervalue: other people. Casual conversations, shared jokes, the sense of being part of a team. Working alone, day after day, can feel isolating even for people who enjoy their own company.
Use video calls, not just messages, for at least some conversations — seeing a face matters. Join the team chat, the virtual coffee, the informal catch-up. If you work fully remotely, consider working from a café or a library once a week, or joining a co-working space for a day. And keep up with friends and family outside work: the social life that the office used to provide has to be built deliberately now.
If loneliness becomes persistent, or low mood does not lift, it is worth talking to someone — a friend, a colleague, a manager, or your GP. Working from home should not mean feeling alone.
5. Set Boundaries — With Work and With Home
Boundaries are the hardest part of home working, and they run in both directions. Work creeps into home life: the evening email, the weekend "quick check". And home life creeps into work: the washing, the doorbell, the children, the neighbour.
A few practical boundaries help. Tell the people you live with when you are working and when you are not — and close the door if you can. Keep work apps and notifications off your personal phone in the evening, or at least silence them. And be honest with your manager about your working pattern: if you work better with a long lunch and a late finish, say so, and agree it openly rather than drifting into an unspoken pattern that suits nobody.
Parents working from home face a particular version of this. If children are at home, agree who is on duty when, and accept that some days will be messy.
6. Look After Your Eyes, Ears, and Mind
Screen fatigue is real. The 20-20-20 rule helps: every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Keep the screen at arm's length, adjust the brightness to match the room, and consider a pair of glasses if you get headaches or eye strain.
Mental health deserves the same attention as physical health. Working from home can blur the line between a bad day and a bad week, because there is no journey home to decompress. Notice the signs: trouble sleeping, irritability, dreading the morning. If they persist, talk to someone. Most employers have an employee assistance programme, and your GP can help.
One Change This Week
If one thing is going wrong — the evening that never ends, the chair that hurts, the lonely Tuesdays — change that one thing this week: set a finish time and shut the laptop at it, or swap the chair for one you can sit in properly, or work one morning from a café or library. Keep it for a fortnight and see whether the week feels different.