Another thing that I've learned is to be crystal clear on when your normal working hours are, especially if the bulk of your team is in a different time zone. Don't be inflexible, of course, but establish normal working hours and stick to them.
The weird thing is I started working in my bedroom a while back. Not only have I had the most productive year in my life (and I never had a computer in my bedroom, even as a child) I also have managed to completely eliminate my sleep disorders.
The most important things I tell people, including my own remote developers:
-Exercise and be active -Eat healthy -Control your light: flu.x, lightbulbs, tape all blue electronics lights -Be social; working from home in a remote area is really bad, in a city its great
If your smart, you can figure out the rest of the stuff because you won't have to worry about your health. I jump out of bed in the morning happy and ready to work.
But my wife is the opposite, if she uses her iPad or laptop in bed, she will go to sleep a couple hours later than usual. Different strokes and all ;)
I tried just about all of the other tricks short of sleeping pills, none had any meaningful impact.
This is all my way of saying what works for one person may not work for another. Which is one of the points of remote work, isn't it? To create the perfect environment for you?
This is what I have to say about #1. It's important for your psyche. So you can feel like you are "leaving work" at the end of the day. But after a while it becomes less important. You get used to working from home and don't need the office as much. My routine is I get up ~7:30, make some coffee and work from the couch until 10, take a shower and then go back to work (could be any number of places around the house or outside) until lunch. Then I like to work in the office more during the afternoon.
For me the routine works because I am much more of a morning person. It's easy for me to have 2 pull requests ready in the first hour of working. The afternoon is tougher so I go to my office to concentrate. But absolutely, the first couple of months working from home there's a jarring sense of work/life imbalance and having an office is critical to bringing the balance. Eventually the need simply goes away.
I couldn't manage more than a day in a row at home, until I made my own space for it. It went from impossible to more productive. Having a space just for work also eliminates the "at home commute" of switching out personal and professional computers/books/papers/phone/etc...
I separate my computer as well. I have a personal and professional laptop. I know a lot of people live the lifestyle and mix the two, but the separation keeps things clear for me.