When I first came to the Bay Area I was thrilled that California law stated unequivocally that I could work on, and profit by, my own stuff on my own time and e

When I first came to the Bay Area I was thrilled that California law stated unequivocally that I could work on, and profit by, my own stuff on my own time and equipment. I exploited that law by consulting on other projects while I worked for Intel. But what I discovered was that since I had made "home" as much an office as "work" I didn't have anywhere to go that wasn't "work." That was very stressful for me since sometimes you really do need to get away. After that experience I became much more judicious about working from home. A trick I used to help maintain mental sanity was to "set up" a home office for doing work when I needed/wanted to work from home, but then taking it down when I was done. That it wasn't there was the important bit in allowing me to not get stressed out about it.