Balancing work with home life during the summer months, especially when the kids are out of school, can be a tough call. With 80% of employers offering staff some flexibility over where and when they work — so found our survey of over 17,000 businesses worldwide — perhaps it’s time to consider flexible working. Even if you don’t have children, it can help you enjoy the summer.

Here are five ideas for using flexible working this summer:

1. Work nearer home: Instead of commuting, hot and irritable, to a faraway office, use local business centers for some or all of the week. It will reduce your traveling time, and make your working hours more productive. Try Regus businessworld for access to 100s of locations.

2. Change your hours: This works especially well if you combine it with working closer to home. Starting earlier beats the traffic, and lets you finish earlier. Equally, starting and finishing later could fit in with children’s holiday activities, and still reduce the time spent in rush-hour traffic.

3. Consider a workation: OK, we all know we’re meant to switch off on holiday, but better to work some of the time than not to take holiday at all. The key is to impose rigid rules on yourself: for example limit yourself to 9-11 each morning, and then disconnect for the rest of the day.

4. Be professional: If you want future opportunities to work flexibly, it’s not in your interest to haemorrhage trust. So, work the hours you say you will, and at places with reliable internet, wi-fi and administrative back-up; and work as effectively as – or better than – usual.

5. Embrace technology: If you’re not already making full use of technology and connectivity, summer is the time to do it. Video Communication could save you from travelling to meetings, for example, and mobile devices will help you work and connect with colleagues on the move. Try a ‘freemium’ service like Dropbox, which will allow you to access your files via multiple devices from the cloud.

These ideas will help you enjoy a few more hours of sun, and possibly save on childcare bills as well. They could also have longer-lasting results: the changes you make to your working practices this summer could improve your work-life balance and productivity forever.