There are three things you need to be to successfully work from home: disciplined, organised and self-motivated. Unfortunately I am none of the above, which probably explains why my work life is so chaotic.

While other home-workers plan their weeks, their days and even the hours within their days, I lurch from job to job, letting my mind wander as I scribble a few notes here, do the odd bit of research there and leave everything until the last possible moment.

If my deadline for a piece of work is Tuesday morning, you can guarantee I will be running round shrieking until late into the night on Monday looking for notes I have neatly filed in several teetering piles around my office while trying to remember exactly how many words I was supposed to write, for who and about what.

The key for me is never, ever to write anything down. When someone phones up with a job offer I make a point of not making a note of their name or telephone number and of not jotting down the content and deadline details in my diary.

Just take a quick look in my diary for this week if you don't believe me. Now I know I have several deadlines looming in the next few days, but all I have in my diary is "Tuesday 9.40am, optician" and "Wednesday, Jo and Ellie for lunch - bake buns".

I bet York architect Phil Bixby and North Yorkshire garden designer Rosie Allisstone don't have acres of virginal white space in their diaries. Theirs are probably stuffed full of notes, reminders, deadlines, names and numbers. No mention of buns though.

This obviously highly organised, disciplined and motivated pair were featured in the Evening Press as part of National Work At Home Week - a topic I was going to discuss in last week's column, but forgot because I didn't write it down.

Phil and Rosie wouldn't have forgotten. But then Phil and Rosie are obviously not as talented as me at faffing around. I am without a doubt the Queen of Faff and the undisputed world champion of procrastination.

Take today for example. It is now just after noon and what have I done? Here's a quick rundown:

7.30-9.30am: struggled through the traffic to Leeds and back, chucking Munchkin out of the car and into grandma's house along the way.

9.30-10am: nuked and woofed down an enormous bowl of porridge while pretending to read the paper but while actually watching Trisha ("You're Outta Control, So Get Outta My House").

10-10.30am: turned on the computer, checked my e-mail (funny picture sent by chum of a Thai restaurant with a very rude name - tee, hee), finally sat down to work on my column (started previous evening but put aside in favour of CSI on Channel 5), but decided after a couple of paragraphs that coffee was needed.

10.30-10.45am: drank coffee, opened post, emptied bulging bin, bunged in some washing, tickled cats' ears and checked TV guide to see what delights were in store for tonight.

10.45-11am: tippy-tapped a couple more paragraphs.

11-11.10am: put videos scattered around the telly neatly back into their boxes, picked glued on breakfast cereal off sofa cushions, removed small blue car from cats' food bowl.

11.10-11.30am: squeezed out a few more well-crafted words of wisdom.

11.30-12 noon: phoned pal to discuss world affairs (ie. Corrie, haircuts and plans for a girls' weekend that may or may not involve drinking, dancing and falling over).

And that's my entire morning - pitiful isn't it? I wouldn't mind, but I've got several phone calls to make and two more pieces to write this afternoon before I set off again at 3.30pm along the long, thin car park that is the A64.

Now if only I can remember who it is I'm supposed to be phoning and what on earth I have to write knowledgeably about, I should be OK. Until then, it's lunchtime so I'm going to take a well-earned break...

You just can't beat a cheese and pickle sarnie can you? Anyway, while on the subject of frighteningly organised folk, I have to give honourable mention to York "super mum" Tracey Simpson-Laing. Now there's a woman who really could organise a drinks party in a brewing establishment.

She has just graduated from the Open University after combining her studies with the birth of her first child, a part-time job, work as a city councillor and standing for Parliament.

How on earth did she do all that? I don't know about you, but in the first flush of new motherhood my greatest achievement was finding a pair of socks to wear that actually matched.

I wonder if the OU would accept a dissertation on The Symmetry of Socks: A 21st Century Perspective? If only I had actually written any of it down.

Updated: 08:32 Tuesday, April 23, 2002