Ten tips for working from home: Olympics edition

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Olympics runners

The huge influx of tourists into London for the 2012 Olympics will put huge strain on the transport system. As a result, many businesses in London and elsewhere in the UK near to Games venues have told staff to work from home for some or all of the Olympic period.

Read this: London Games: Planning a business and IT strategy

For many staff it will be the first time they've had to work from home. As any athlete will tell you, gold medals are awarded in the summer, but they're earned in the winter. It's the same with working from home: preparation is everything.

With the Olympic opening ceremony on Friday, you don't have long to get your plans in place — so here are some ideas to make sure your remote working during the Olympics wins gold.

1. Test, test, test

Test your home-working set-up before you have to use it. That VPN connection that worked fine when you tested it in the office will have a nasty habit of not working when you are remote, for example.

And as most of us rely day-to-day on passwords and web addresses stored in our browsers' history, if you are using a different PC to the one you work on, make sure you know all the passwords and URLs you'll need.

Also — as the helpdesk is unlikely to want to wade through one million tourists to reach you — make sure you're running the most up-to-date versions of software already by installing any updates needed before you go home.