Social: variety is important: spend time with people you don't like, not just with those who reinforce your own prejudices.9. Work: vary the types of work that you do and network with others in your field.7. Social: make contact with other people in your area to break up the day.8. Work: if you're overloaded, contact clients and try to move deadlines.5. Work: if you haven't got any, give yourself a structured break before launching back into sales mode.6.

Money: create a strong relationship with your bank manager, accountant and financial adviser.3 Work: learn to say no to work you don't want to do.4. The technology is certainly there, but is the social technology around? Not at the moment."Ten top tips for teleworkers1 Discipline: put in place a set of rules and routines.2. Professor Cooper would like to see the development of more flexible work practices but is concerned about our ability to cope healthily: "The future is likely to be partly office, partly home. They have some structure from part- time employment, and at other times the freedom to do more of what they choose. The cushions of company life - PAYE, company cars, pension and insurance schemes - take away some of the responsibilities that otherwise fall solidly on to the loaded, aching shoulders of the self-employed.The people who pronounce themselves happiest with self-employment tend to be those who don't do it full time.

The identity that work gives us, supported by peers and group membership, provides a sense of power and self-respect that is often not available through other activities. Symptoms follow: headaches; endless minor colds; difficulties in sleeping and concentrating; greater aggressiveness and anxiety; too much coffee or alcohol.We may not like company rules, but the social side of office life and the demands placed on us daily by working relationships give us a wider dimension and another context to be ourselves in. You have to defer to people in a senior position, and you can become infantilised When you're self-employed, suddenly there are no rules .. There are no bosses, just clients. You have to be a grown-up.For some, the transition is hard and depression can set in along with social isolation. Others who are task-driven, rather than relationship-driven, will function a heck of a lot better."The move from being an employee to being self-employed is similar to the transition from child to adult: an organisation sets rules and creates a hierarchy. People who are more gregarious, who have high sociability levels and need to interact with others, are not going to find teleworking satisfying.

They avoid the confrontation of other people; they start to get frightened; their social skills go off the boil a bit."Professor Cooper has observed that the freelance culture produces insecurity, with home workers often making many frantic telephone calls to all sorts of people, creating tele-contacts to establish a social context: "But they want to be eyeball-to-eyeball, not tele-socialising. When they're not getting that social contact we see symptoms: some people get withdrawn, become almost housebound. We're hearing more and more from psychologists that changes in the nature of work are going to be quite profound in the next millennium: the future will not be office-based work But people have an overwhelming social need. Its publisher, Robin Johnson, says that his inspiration for launching the monthly magazine came from the massive array of technology available and the many benefits of working independently: "Flexibility with more control, and an ability to plan your day according to your lifestyle. British Telecom have spent pounds 30m saying 'Why not change the way we work?' SoHo Life is going to show you how."The benefits of teleworking are numerous: waving goodbye to office politics, bureaucracy and commuting; gains in independence, flexibility and time with the family; choosing the work you want to do. But there is a price to pay: lack of financial cover for pensions, sickness and holidays; the feast-or-famine nature of much freelance work; the lack of company status and structure - and the lack of company.Cary Cooper, professor of occupational psychology at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (Umist) has seen plenty of evidence of the social isolation that can affect the worker from home "I think it's a problem.

It's described as the freelance teleworking life and the language of the future: home-based nomads, telecottaging, out-sourcing, portfolio careers.A new glossy targeted at people working from home or a small office, SoHo Life, will hit the newsstands in early June. What they have in common is technology: screen-centred, modemed, e-mailed, linked to the Net. Freedom from tyrannical bosses and petty rules, or a sad, lonely separation from workplace friends and colleagues? Penny Fox finds that working from home can be hard There are some 3 million self-employed professionals who have set up their office within easy reach of their kitchen, whether it's the spare room, a shed at the bottom of the garden, or a specially converted loft space. There are as many men as women and among their ranks are architects, accountants, journalists and consultants for almost anything you can think of. The perfect travelling companion, perhaps for those who deal in slightly risque circles - your secrets will be well and truly guarded.Speedmaster Professional X33, pounds 1,575, available from Watches of Switzerland, 16 New Bond Street, London W1 and stockists nationwide; enquiries 01703- 646 800.Halliburton attache case, from pounds 250, laptop case pounds 345, available from Selfridges, Oxford Street, London W1, and other stores nationwide; enquiries 0181-208 3080.Holly Wood.