Many people who work from home find that a lot of people assume they don't actually do much at all.
They often think that because you have no one else around, you can just take it at your own pace.
This isn't always correct.
Often, you have numerous critical cut-off dates and employers that you need to balance, sometimes it's even more demanding than a normal job.
But how can you explain this to most people? A critical way of showing this is to ensure you work to a tight and regular timeframe so that people take your work seriously.
If you keep regular hours and stick to them, most people will come to respect that.
Importantly, for people you live with, you should have a sign that you can put up that tells them you are busy and that you will be free at a certain time.
If it is a crisis, you can figure out a policy for dealing with that as well.
Naturally, one of the benefits of working from your house is that you can keep flexible hours.
Thus, it can be good to take a break or mix your schedule up sometimes.
But this should be the exception not the rule.
You can make these simple allowances every so often.
If you want to go and watch your child's sports game, that's fine.
However, you should work later that night to compensate.
Not everyone will necessarily believe you at first.
Maybe you could show them your productivity log or tell them how many various projects you are managing.
Be understanding but resilient.
Make sure you respond to all enquiries and tell them that even though you can break your own rules sometimes, you have to pay for it at some point.
Make sure they know that your timetable is often as unrelenting as theirs.