Who'd have thought you'd miss your co-workers? Those annoying people you were forced to share an office with? Well, okay, some of them were nice, but, let's face it - you were glad to see the back of some of them.
If you're anything like me, one of reasons for starting a home business was to get away from people like these. And yet, when you do work at home all day, every day, you might find that you start to miss that kind of companionship, and feel more than a little lonely. This, you will discover, is one of the major disadvantages of homebased business.
Home Alone...
Picture the scene. You get up for another day of work. Your partner has already left, since they have to get up early to commute to their job. All the neighbours are at work. Your house feels deserted, and your neighbourhood feels like a ghost town.
It's all too easy to become demotivated in this situation, and to begin to feel like starting a home-based business was a bad idea. Worse still, when you get stuck or something goes wrong, you have no-one to turn to - at least, at work, you were all in it together and could have a good laugh about it afterwards... But now it's just you, out on your own and bumping up against the disadvantages of homebased business.
Even if you don't feel like it's affecting you, the lack of human interaction could be causing you quite a few problems. Ask yourself honestly if you've been more irritable than usual recently, found yourself lacking in energy, or felt upset or sad without being able to figure out the reason why. If you have, then it could be related to home-worker loneliness.
The Power of the Web
Since you've presumably got a computer and Internet access on your office computer, you might find it worthwhile to do a quick Internet search and find a few forums for your industry or niche, especially ones dedicated to people who run home businesses. You might think what you do is too obscure, but it's a big web out there.
Finding friends on web forums or social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook can be good for replacing the lost interaction with co-workers. More than that, these sites can offer you a good outlet for your frustrations and problems - many of the people you're talking to will have been through the same thing themselves, and will be more than happy to sympathise with you and offer advice.
There's one thing you need to be careful of, though: don't let chatting about everything and nothing on the web interrupt your work. Give yourself a certain amount of time each day to talk to your newfound 'colleagues', and don't go over it. You don't want to be sitting there pressing 'Refresh' on a long discussion when you should be getting some work done, do you?
Get to Know Your Clients
Here's a good way to turn your loneliness into an advantage: make your clients your friends! The customers that will be the most loyal to you are the ones that trust you and know you, and going to meet with them sometimes as a friend can be rewarding on both a personal and a business level.
Associations, Groups and Societies
If you look, you might be surprised at how many things there are out there that you could join. Perhaps your area has a Homeworkers' Society, or an association for your industry that holds regular meetings? Go along, and you could find some new friends, as well as some good business contacts. Two or three groups should be enough to keep you going.
Go to a Coffee Shop Sometimes
You've seen those people who seem to be doing work in Starbucks, right? Well, they've figured out something valuable - being at home alone all day sends you crazy, and it's nice to get away sometimes and have some coffee while you work. Over time, you'll even become a regular, and people there will start getting to know you. In the summer months, I regularly take myself off to the coffee shop in the grounds of our local stately home. I get a seat in the window, overlooking the duck pond, and it's blissful! Now, how often do people say that about their work environment? :)
Use Your Breaks to Contact People
Most people have a list a mile-long of friends and family that they've been meaning to get in touch with for ages, but never seem to have the chance. A great thing to do can be to make a big list of all these people, and then phone or email one of them each week, in one of your breaks. Not only does this fight loneliness, but it's also a fun and nice thing to do.
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