Your home is your castle. Somewhere to spend time alone or with your family; a place to kick back and be yourself. It could be that while improved information and communication technologies have made it easier to work from home, you have always chosen not to: this is your home, not an office.

Or perhaps turning the spare bedroom/dining room/shed into your home office has long been the dream. You just haven’t had the chance to make it a reality.

Either way, current restrictions on movement mean that unless you are a key worker, home is now the only place you can work. And to do it successfully, you’re going to have to make changes.

So, how do we manage our jobs, home schooling and the inevitable interruptions?

• First, we need to find a suitable space to work. This sounds easy but the majority of families are two-earner families with kids, who are now off school and require their own space and home schooling. During a stressful health crisis they also require some ‘family cuddles’ and social support. This can be achieved by the family setting out ground rules about who works where, when each parent needs uninterrupted time to do their job, when home schooling should take place and when family meals should be organised and by whom.
  
  
• Second, there needs to be a ‘family pow wow’, where the whole family plans and structures the day from Monday to Friday, so everybody agrees the boundaries and, as the military say, ‘the rules of engagement’. Structure and planning are essential to minimise conflict so that each member of the family can get their needs met and work-life integration can work harmoniously.
  
  
• Third, once the physical and family environment issues are sorted, it is important that all family members take some exercise during the day, otherwise cabin fever will set in. It would be great if the family can build this into the day because physical exercise, like walking, is necessary for clearing the work-related cobwebs, releasing tensions and enhancing one’s mental wellbeing. This applies equally to the millions of people who now find themselves both living and working from home alone.
  
  
• Fourth, it is important for anybody working from home to maintain their social contacts, not only with work colleagues but also with friends and relatives who are our natural support system during difficult times. Platforms such as Skype, Zoom, Facetime, Houseparty, and so on, make this so much easier than it was even a decade ago and studies have also shown that when it comes to inter-personal bonding, it is important to see someone face-to-face to pick up what psychologists call the non-verbal forms of communications – facial expressions, eye contact/avoidance, body language. This helps you understand fully how people are feeling.  
  
  
•  Finally, try not to work longer hours than usual as this will make you feel that your home is not just your office but your prison as well. If you are sharing your home with loved ones, take the coming weeks, possibly months, as an opportunity to be more integrated into the family while fulfilling your work objectives. If you are alone, stick to a routine, make frequent social contact with colleagues and friends and minimise exposure to negative news on the media.

As the social reformer John Ruskin wrote in 1851 ‘in order that people may be happy in their work these three things are needed: they must be fit for it, they must not do too much of it, and they must have a sense of success in it’. Ruskin, incidentally, worked from home.

Professor Sir Cary Cooper, CBE, is Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at ALLIANCE Manchester Business School. He is co-author of the recent best-selling books, The Apology Impulse and Work and Wellbeing.