As a Life Coach I often work from home as well as in an office environment. Working from home is often a dream for many people. However, when you finally make the decision to give up paid employment and work from home, things are not necessarily as straightforward as you might think. If you work from home try following these simple tips on being more productive:Get sufficient sleep Ensure you get your quota of sleep per night. This varies for all of us, however, if you can get between 6 and 8 hours of sleep every night (or whatever is right for you) you’ll function much more effectively the following day. You’ll be able to think more clearly, you’ll get more accomplished and you won’t feel overly tired by the evening.Plan your day Planning your day helps you to use your time more effectively. Plan your day either the day before or in the morning of each day. You don’t necessarily need to plan each hour, however you should know what you wish to focus on each day.Allow time for the unexpected Life gets in the way of everything we plan to do. So when you’re working from home be flexible. Allow time in your schedule for unexpected occurrences, interruptions and things taking longer than you anticipated. In addition, you never know when you’re going to get that phone call that throws you, and results in you having to tackle something completely out of the ordinary.Rotate Try rotating around 4-5 tasks during the day. This keeps your motivation levels high, keeps you on your toes and helps you to get through a larger amount of work. Select the tasks you want to work on in the day. Decide how long you want to work on each: this could be 20 minutes, half an hour, an hour etc. Then simply rotate around each task.So if you choose to work on each for 30 minutes, this means you’ll start on task one for half an hour, then move to task two for 30 minutes, then task three for half an hour etc. After the fourth or fifth task you start again at task one. This works well when you have a number of goals you want to achieve, but you have no pressing or imminent deadlines for them.Incorporate household tasksOne of the beauties of working from home is that you can choose how, when and where you work. You can also choose what to work on. So when you want a break you can choose to spend some time working in the garden, cooking, washing or doing any other household task. If your work is technical in nature, incorporating household tasks in to your day not only gives you a break from working, it also encourages you to use the right side of your brain – especially if you’re doing something creative such as gardening or cooking.Change locations One of the options you have when working from home is that you can change your location. It can be refreshing to simply go to a local café with a laptop (or just a notebook and pen) and work from there. This takes you away from your domestic environment and all the things that have to be done there. This can be an unwelcome distraction.Changing location also gives you the feeling of being surrounded by other people, and the buzz of a café can be a welcome change from the silence of your home. If you take just one piece of work with you, you’re forced to focus 100% on just this aspect. This can result in you getting through much more work than you would otherwise do at home.