Welcome to the Lounge

• Getting a really good office chair is very important. After using crappy chairs for a couple of years I invested in a really nice (Aeron) chair that cost about $900 at the time. Best investment ever.
• If you have kids, you need a door, and you will need to spend time training the kids ("When dad is in the office, it's like he is not at home. You can come in for a hug and a kiss, but then you gotta go.") That worked for me, they could come in, solving the forbidden place problem, but they couldn't stay.
• I agree that getting dressed like for the office is important. Of course, if you wear jeans and a t-shirt to the office, that shouldn't be much of a problem.
• You'll have to push yourself to get up reasonably early, maybe split the morning commute time between sleeping in and extra productivity. Keeping a schedule will make it easier to start work.
• It's really easy to lose track of time when you're working in the quiet of your home. Be sure to get up and move around, take a walk, or exercise. Eat your lunch away from work stuff, even if you're surfing the web or watching a video.
• I got "mouse elbow" from too many hours at the desk. I solved it with a "vertical mouse". I'll never go back.
• Music is a partial cure for loneliness and isolation, but it shouldn't be music with words. There is endless "focus music" on youtube. A lot of classical music is a good choice. There are also endless tracks of "ambient sounds" like birds chirping and water flowing.

Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote:

what are the important things for a productive home office?