How to Fight Loneliness When You Work from Home

by lisa on January 4, 2011

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The following post is from Lisa of Working Naked:

source: Jen SFO-BCN

Working from home can be lonely.

When I started my first home-based business, I was thrilled to see or hear from anyone, including phone solicitors and my neighbors. I was lonely. I knew I had reached rock bottom when I looked forward to seeing the UPS driver every few days!

Now that my business has grown quite a bit from those early years, I could use a little more quiet time.

If you’re just starting your business or have been working from home for years, don’t get discouraged if you feel lonely. It happens to all of us. Consider these four ways to overcome loneliness.

Join a mastermind.

To keep my sanity, and to improve my business, I started a “mastermind” group. Each week, for a couple of hours, I met with six other business owners to share business ideas, discuss marketing strategies and create goals.

It was great to get insight from several business professionals and an even better excuse to leave my office. I’m in a new mastermind group, and I’m already making a few profitable changes to my business.

Get dressed and get out.

When I don’t have client meetings and I’ve spent too many hours in my home office, I head to my local coffee shop. Almost every time I walk in there, I see groups of people holding business meetings or working alone. Even if I don’t interact with anyone while I’m there (usually I don’t), it’s nice to be around others and to have a change of scenery.

Find an exercise partner.

It’s harder to roll over and go back to sleep when you know a friend and fellow business owner is waiting for you to work out with him or her. My neighbor, a CPA, has made a conscious effort to stop feeling isolated by walking each morning with a friend/business associate. Each of them admit that they’d rather skip a few days of exercise, but they’ve both lost weight and feel better than they’ve ever felt.

Set up a weekly Skype session.

Whether you know another business owner who lives a few hundred miles away or across the country, meet virtually through Skype. Set up a specific time to meet each week and have a clear list of ideas you want to share. Don’t forget to discuss goals you want to reach. These weekly meetings can help you keep your business on track and make sure you stay in touch with others.

It’s possible to fight isolation when you work from home, but it’s going to take a conscious effort by you to reach out to others both online and in person. Remember: You’re not alone and there are others just like you. They’re probably at your local coffee shop right now.

What do you do to fight loneliness?

Home office expert Lisa Kanarek is the founder of WorkingNaked.com and the author of five books about working from home, including Organize Your Home Office for Success. Lisa works with entrepreneurs and home-based employees through seminars and individual consultations, to create functional home offices that meet each individual’s working style.

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  • http://www.thecoffeechef.com Keneesha Hodge Shorter

    This is awesome. Simple, yet inspiring ideas to help business and personal growth. I love it. Knowing I’ve needed to get out in the world has made a difference in my frustrations of working from home, but not knowing where to start is even more frustrating. I will do as I’ve been thinking and take my computer to the local coffee shop and hang out with someone other than my dog for a change.  

    • Anonymous

      It definitely takes effort to get out and work around others, especially when you’re comfortable working from home. When I have a big project I need to finish, I’m more productive at a coffee shop. Maybe it’s because I see other people hard at work and get motivated myself.

  • Cindy Murphy

    I love these ideas.  I do implement many of them and I am active in local Meet up groups as well.  

    Thanks so much for sharing. 

    Cindy

    • Anonymous

       Thanks, Cindy. I’m going to join a Meet-up group. Great idea.

  • http://www.adjuvancy.com/wordpress Roy A. Ackerman, Ph.D., E.A.

    Great advice.  
    We have four ‘homeworkers’ in our organization.  Which is more related to their severe (to us extroverts) introversion than the need for them to stay at home. But, even they find they need to see there’s a world around them.  And, they participate in each of our weekly  meetings via video and their team meetings (which are on different days of the week) to keep them “in the loop’.
    I suggest one finds a great, local coffee shop and frequent it as an augment to Lisa’s suggestions.

    • Anonymous

       What a great way to connect…via video. I’m sure they appreciate the opportunity to stay in the loop. Thanks for your comment.

  • http://www.getoutofstuck.net Roberta Budvietas

    Sometimes I want the loneliness to get things done. I keep struggling to find a decent mastermind group. Too many of the people I want to work with are overseas and scheduling seems to be a big problem

    • Anonymous

      It’s tough to find a good mastermind group, but I have several friends who have finally found good groups. They say that the group has helped them grow their business.

  • http://twitter.com/Akos_Fintor Akos Fintor

    Hello Lisa, 

    great tips. 
    There must be something wrong with me because I never felt lonely at home. I’m a very “cast away” type a guy who could live on a desert island …….with a laptop :)

    regards

    Akos

    • Anonymous

      You’re fine, Akos. Not everyone feels lonely while working from home, but those of us who started out in a corporate office, surrounded with co-workers, have to make a few adjustments. After working from home for so many years, I’m used to it and actually enjoy the quiet. But I still work a day or two at my local coffee shop so I can interact with others and have a change of scenery.

  • Anonymous

    It definitely takes effort to get out and work around others, especially when you’re comfortable working from home. When I have a big project I need to finish, I’m more productive at a coffee shop. Maybe it’s because I see other people hard at work and get motivated myself.

  • http://www.UrbanOrganicGardener.com Mike Lieberman

    Gmail is great and helps me to achieve 0-inbox each day. The other tip that I would add is using the keyboard shortcuts to quickly, label, archive and go through emails.

    • http://lifeyourway.net Mandi @ Life…Your Way

      I agree! I love the keyboard shortcuts, except for those few occasions when everything goes crazy while I’m typing an email. I’m not even sure how that happens, but it always makes me want to turn them off!

  • http://joyceandnorm.wordpress.com Joyce and Norm

    I didn’t know about the task feature before. I’ll have to let hubby know to use that more often. =p

  • http://twitter.com/martinedeluna martinedeluna

    The Canned Response option is GREAT! Been using it since I learned it from your blog, Prerna. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=578438650 Jacqueline Teo

    The title enticed me because I’m feeling so lonely! I don’t miss the 9-5 routine but I do miss my colleagues a lot since I left employment. I do have a weekly forum on Tuesdays and home meetings every Fridays with my business partners but that’s not enough. Lately, I’ve been discussing with some like-minded business owners to start a Mastermind group like you’ve mentioned and also a Business Book Club. 
    If an introverted person like me can feel lonely working from home, I don’t know how intense it would feel like for the extroverted ones. 

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