The idea of working from home is very appealing for many. After all it gives you your own space with no distraction so that you can put your head down and be as productive as possible.

You get to work in a totally calm and quiet environment with no interruptions. Everything you need is a matter of seconds away. If you feel peckish you can just nip down to your kitchen to make a quick snack and best of all there's no long journey home at the end of a busy day.

Working from home is great, well in theory that is anyway. In practise it isn't always as rosy as you might expect.

Not being in an office can lead to feeling too relaxed so that it can get to midday before you change out of your dressing gown into regular clothes. Moreover, daytime television has an attraction that would be impossible in a normal office environment. You find yourself watching Trisha and Kilroy for far longer than you intended while phone calls go unmade and reports go unwritten.

Somehow boundaries can also tend to get blurred when you work from home. Spouses who would never dream of disturbing your desk in an office do not have the same qualms when it comes to a home office. All too often you open the door at the start of the working day to find their mail or shopping lists cluttering your desk.

The biggest problem of all though is the tedium of working completely on your own. There is no one to chat to or have a cup of tea with when you want to take a break. You can't let off steam to anyone about an irritating client and it can be pretty lonely looking at the same four walls every day.

For these reasons many people who have tried working from home have begun to take control of their working environment by renting a desk in someone else's office. Office sharing, as this is called seems to offer the best of both worlds.

It enables you to keep your overheads down whilst at the same time differentiating between work and home life and finding a more social setting in which to work.