I've recently started working from home on a more regular basis. I'm sure it's something that many people in the software industry, especially start ups and consultants are familiar with, but it's a new concept for my workplace.
I actually started it by accident while I was getting some work done to my central heating and sat in the spare room over the laptop doing some design work, but in the 2 hours I spent at it, I probably managed more than the 3 weeks I had in the office.
I remember reading an article a few years ago about "cognitive interruption", which is the idea that interrupting someone while concentrating, even very briefly disrupts their through processes and can result in a total diversion or around a 15-30 minute delay to get back on track to their previous state. I started thinking about this based on my work at the time (ironically on index fragmentation) and realised it was exactly what was happening to me.
Fortunately for me, my boss suggested that I trial it out on a more regular basis for some of the more isolationist strands of my job in an effort to avoid the spiral of endless meeting requests that I'm being continually sucked into.
So in an effort to stay more focused I've setup a small study in my spare room, and I've found myself becoming ridiculously productive during these periods. I'm not sure if I'm becoming anti-social with this or it's the lack of interuptions that's really doing it, either way it's allowing me to try and get some of my projects actually delivered.