When I interviewed for the position on Scott Hanselman's team, one of the questions Scott asked me was if I'd be able to handle working from home, with the isolation that usually entails. Telecommuting (I hate that word) isn't for everyone, so the question was actually very important.

Prior to joining Microsoft in October, I actually worked from home a fair bit. I'd still get out to client meetings and sometimes to the offices, though. There was enough variety to mix it up. I was also a manager, and often managed people who were working alone at a client site or from their homes.

Now, the only times I leave my house on business are when I travel to Redmond or go to a conference.

I've also been working insanely long days every day of the week in order to handle normal work as well as finish my Silverlight 4 Book. That definitely kicks it up a notch. Here are some tips that I've found work for me, as a professional in the software industry.

1. Build a Comfortable Office

My home office is not perfect, but it is pretty comfortable. I have a big semi-circular desk (Ikea), a door that can be shut (essential when you have kids) and a comfortable chair. The room is out of the main flow of traffic, in the basement.

I even have a 55 gallon fish tank behind me. I enjoy the noises from it and having a little green and life in here. Plants would be good too :)

I only have two gripes about this room:

• There are no windows
• The washing machine and dryer are too close

I'm going to move my office to the other side of this wall late this year or next. That room will have more space, be custom-built to my needs, and... it'll have a window :) It'll be even more out of the main flow of traffic and won't have any nearby appliances. I need to finish up some other projects around the house before I can do that, though.

That's what you want. You don't want traffic going by the door constantly, and you can't have the distractions of family around you. The corner of the family room definitely won't cut it. The spare bedroom next to the kids rooms is probably not a great choice. But hey, that unused back room in the basement, attic or over the garage might just be the ticket.

2. Up your Bandwidth

I use Verizon FIOS and have business-class service running at 35/35. I needed business class since I run my web site from servers in a rack in the other room. The additional bandwidth also helps with VPN to Redmond, and to uploading videos to channel 9.

One of the best perks of working from home is the bandwidth; it's almost always better than you'd get in an office, and without any netnanny junk either. Get the best you can afford, and don't skimp on upstream, especially if you plan on using Skype and other webcam options from the tips below.

3. Get an Awesome Computer System

Multiple monitors, a comfortable keyboard, good mouse, Cinema HD camera, fast processor, plenty of memory and a nice noise-canceling headset. These are all things that can make a computer more usable and a pleasure to sit in front of.

Get the best you can, and keep it upgraded. One of the frustrations of working in a cube somewhere is you often get stuck with old equipment and low bandwidth. At home, both are fixable problems.

4. Get More than one Awesome Computer System

I have a second machine, supplied by Microsoft. It's a quad core, 8gb machine running 64 bit Windows 7. This is my machine dedicated to connecting to Microsoft. I keep it vpn'd in constantly, and my browser home page is set to our intranet home page. Its display is to the left of my main display, and I use Input Director to share my mouse and keyboard with this machine.

I also use this machine for editing and encoding videos. Having a second machine I can dedicate to those time-consuming tasks makes it easier to multi-task and get more done.

Having the machine connected to my workplace helps me stay connected to Microsoft. If I have to take extra steps to visit our intranet (go, VPN in and then do some other junk), I am far less likely to do it.

Unfortunately, I missed the DirectAccess pilot when I joined, so I can't keep connected without manually vpn'ing in. Instead, I just reconnect whenever I see it disconnect, effectively keeping me online there 24/7.

5. Stay in Touch using Twitter

I'd previously blogged about how I use Twitter. I've found Twitter essential to help me stay connected throughout the day - at least until the next big social platform comes along. It's my water cooler.

Hint to stay sane: Don't follow people who post things that make you angry. Don't give bile a permalink. :) (that's why I rarely if ever mention anything about politics, religion, parenting styles, etc.)

6. Skype and Office Communicator

One of the most important things for me has been to see my team members on camera. I can't stress just how much better communicating is when you can see the face of the person you're talking to. Not only can you be sure they're paying attention (in any given conference call, half the people are doing something other than paying attention to the call), but you make that important human-to-human connection.

Skype is, in general, full of win. I use it when I travel, so I can call my kids and have them see me (again, that connection makes all the difference to them), and I use it here to make free phone calls and also to call people on the camera.

My wife even uses Skype from the laptop upstairs to tell me when dinner is ready :)

7. Shower Every Day

Yeah, you know, shower. When all you need to do to go to work is grab a coffee and shuffle downstairs, it can be tempting just to go and plop your stinky self in your work chair and forget about the rest.

TMI: Showering isn't the first thing I do every day (usually dealing with my email is), but it does need to happen every day.

After all, you need to be ready for those skype and OC calls :)

8. Get out

This is something I often forget to do. Leave the house. Leave the house before your car battery dies and field mice take up residence in your air conditioning system. (Both have happened to me, the mouse thing has happened 3 times).

At the very least, you need to dress up to go out to ensure your clothes still fit. Trust me, sitting on your butt working all day, without even having to walk to your car, does wonders for your figure. (Speaking of which, treadmills and similar are a great idea). I mean, you're working from home, so you're probably wearing sweats or other nice accommodating clothing. Please, don't tell me.

You have flexible hours. Take your kids to the park for a couple hours in the middle of the day, or go to that user group meeting. Run some errands. You want to get out, get some air, and meet other humans face-to-face. Make sure you do this a couple times a week at a minimum, preferably in the daytime.

Some folks like to go and work at the coffee shop or Panera or wherever at least once a week. The plus side is you get out, get good food and air, and get to see people. The downside is you lose your awesome setup and bandwidth. For me, this works only for days when I have non-creative stuff I need to slog through (expenses, q&a etc.)

Want some good advice here? Talk to a stay-at-home mom and see what she does to up the level of human contact.

9. Be Flexible, but be Accessible.

Working from home, especially when there's a time zone difference (3 hours for me) means you should generally consider yourself to be more accessible. That said, my team respects generally accepted working hours for the group (Me, Jesse, Joe and Rey are on the east coast, Scott and Jon are on the west coast, and the product teams are in Redmond, WA). I do make sure that if I leave the house during those hours, I keep my mobile handy and am able to take calls. Communicator lets me forward calls to my mobile; I really should do that.

In any case, in return for the flexibility you're getting by working from home, be accessible. Few things are as frustrating as trying to get in touch with a remote employee when you need something immediate.\

Oh, and don't sneak out. If you're going to be out, let folks on your team know.

10. Point out What You've Done

Out of site is out of mind.

If you want to stay a part of the team, you need to make sure you tell folks what you've done lately. On Scott's team, we have a weekly Monday "what I plan to accomplish this week" email and then a Friday "what I actually did" email that helps for intra-team visibility. In other projects, we've done status calls, or just informal email. It doesn't really matter what form it takes, as long as you can show that you've been productive and that you're actually working.

Let's face it, not every manager is comfortable with a remote team, and not every team member works effectively from home. Sharing this type of information with the whole team helps keep everyone motivated and honest.

At Microsoft, remote employees need to go above and beyond to show what they've done for the teams that are on-site. Microsoft isn't really a culture that supports lots of remote workers; it's more team-by-team basis. Visibility is important.

At my last job, there were only 200+ people who worked there, but most everyone was remote at various client sites or at home. The same thing applied there.

What do you do?

I'm still learning how to make working from home both more efficient and more enjoyable. Share with me any tips you've found work for you or others on your teams.