If you work at home, you know that isolation is sometimes a good thing. When you’re working on a project that requires concentration and focus, the peace and quiet of a work at home arrangement is intoxicating. Particularly when compared with sitting in an office cubicle overhearing co-workers candidly discuss their mortgages, hairdos and marriage troubles.

However, that peace and quiet soon turns to loneliness and deafening silence (Think Jack Nicholson in The Shinning) when it’s all you know day after day. Here are a few quick fixes that help me counteract the inherent isolation that accompanies the virtual workplace.

If it were possible, delegation would be my answer for everything. Cooking, exercise, brushing my teeth . . . Oh, Jeeves? My good man, would you come here? Hmm, what if we could delegate childbirth? I guess that’d be called surrogating, not delegating. Seriously though, I use any and all available resources to make “the magic” happen. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying dump all your workload on some poor unsuspecting employee. I’m merely suggesting that you focus on what you like. What you do well. Those areas where you are practically guaranteed NOT to procrastinate. I mean really, who procrastinates when it’s time to open a Christmas present or cash a nice fat bonus check? Not I. And I’ll bet, not you either.

I’ve suffered this last year with a small spec of a rectangle and a 5-shelf ‘over the door’ wire hanging system. Yeah, the kind in your kitchen pantry. After months of searching for just the right desk to fit my awkward and relatively small home office space, IKEA entered my life.