When you are using a VPN connection to access some network in a secure way you normally loose your local network connection. All has to go through the secured network. This is all for good VPN reasons but is of course a practical problem. The VPN network might not allow as free access to the internet as you which so not all your services are available.
You might solve this by disconnecting and reconnecting the VPN connection in order to get to your local services. If you have to do this often during the work day it is a pain of course.
A simple alternative is to use a virtual machine for your VPN connection. With the use of a virtual machine you turn your physical machine into two computers. One with local access and the other with the VPN access.
This also can prove valuable in that it is almost like two different sessions. The VPN session will allow you to organize your bookmarks, tools etc to the tasks you do on the VPN network without disturbing your normal setup.
Like this it is simple to use your computer as you are used to while you work simultaneously on the VPN network.