10 ways to improve your work from home productivity this year as you 'telecommut

Thanks to the flexible world of the Internet, I've from home - joining an estimated 37 percent of Americans who say they've telecommuted. Working from home can have its own charms and challenges. Here's what I've learned about teleworking in my time away, including some tech tips to make sure that your office of one keeps chugging along.

Make your own space.

This is important. Without some separation, you can feel like you're always halfway between working and not, and that's a recipe for a bad work-from-home experience.

Set a schedule.

Setting a basic schedule can be one of the best things you can do to keep a basic structure to your day. The wonderful world of time management apps has been my best friend in this regard. I use an app called 30/30 to roughly block out the day based on what has to get done. I like that app because it lets you schedule several tasks at once and has a timer - but also lets you be flexible with the blocks in your schedule so that you don't get too stressed out if you run over on a particular task.

Work like you're at the office.

Try not to schedule doctors' appointments in the middle of the day, or agree to take a shopping trip with a friend in the middle of day. If you're worried about the appearance of slacking off just because you work from home, this will do you no favors.

But make sure you stop working.

The flip side of making sure your nose is to the grindstone is ensuring that you aren't always holding it there. In the early days of working from home, I was so worried about seeming distant that I worked even more hours than I did at the office and put myself on the road to burnout.

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