Live Q&A - Home business owners: can you achieve a good work-life balance?

Working from home may seem almost like an impossible ideal for some of us who long for a lie-in and a work life where the only authoritarian orders to answer to are those from your inner voice demanding an increased caffeine intake.

Basing your business at home offers more benefits beyond being your own boss. For example, those with family responsibilities can reap the rewards of being home before bedtime and remove some of the burdens of paying for childcare. Those who don't have children can revel in their newly defined rush hour, which now describes a short walk from their bedroom to their desk, rather than a clammy commute from Clapham to Kings Cross.

However, the dream of operating an enterprise from your dining table raises a series of dilemmas. For example, how to do you define where the office ends and home begins?

Although working from home does mean a work life free from office politics and interruptions, this idyllic environment can also become isolated. With nobody around to keep an eye out (or even laugh at your jokes), it could be tough to stay focused enough to stay on track and steer clear of Twitter.

To advise on everything from avoiding burnout, balancing work and home life to the practicalities of running a business from your abode we have assembled an expert panel to share their insights. Post your questions now or join us live between 1pm and 2:30pm on Tuesday 15 April to chat directly with our panel.

Please note the date of this Q&A has changed

The panel includes

Stuart Saggers is an underwriting manager at Direct Line for Business

Judy Heminsley, the founder of the How to work from home blog and author of Work from Home

Sara Hall, co-founder of Lonetree Cards, set up the business with her sister. They live next door to each other in Yorkshire and have one house set up with a studio office and the other house set up as the resident crèche

Phil Cox runs a workplace counselling and executive coaching service as well as running a private counselling practice. Before running his own business, he held a number of roles for bluechip companies relating to workplace wellbeing and stress management

Hannah Martin is the co-owner of Talented Ladies Club. Talented Ladies Club was set up for women searching for the perfect work-life balance

Robert Craven is a business development consultant, author and founder of The Directors' Centre in Bath

Helen Dowling runs her marketing advisory firm Exceptional Thinking from home

Matt Franks works two days a week on his social enterprise Connected Roots, which installs and maintains food growing plots in homes and offices, alongside his part-time job as a strategist for an advertising agency

Ute Wieczorek-King is a mentor and business coach who runs Success Network, a business support organisation. She is a mum of three grown-up children and has juggled a home-based business for more than 20 years

Sign up to become a member of the Guardian Small Business Network here for more advice, insight and best practice direct to your inbox.