Working from home is becoming more common, and it’s extremely popular because it affords workers more flexibility and enables them to achieve a better work-life balance. However, it isn’t all roses, and many work from home employees, freelancers, and sole traders find that they begin to feel lonely without the contact of colleagues during the working week.
Here are some of the things you can do if you’re a home-worker who’s currently suffering from weekday loneliness:
Set a Routine
Although having a daily routine in place won’t directly stop you from feeling lonely, doing the same things every day will set you up and stop you from getting lethargic, which will help you do more of the things that will help you feel less lonely, many of which you’ll find below.
Visit the Local Coffee Shop
Before you start work, during your lunch break or even at the end of the day, make an effort to go out to the local coffee shop for a relaxing drink or two. Take the tie to have a chat with the barista and strike up conversations with the other patrons, and you’ll get some of the meaningful human interaction you crave. If you’re able to work in a busy environment, you could even take your laptop with you and spend the day working in a place filled with people.
Try a Coworking space
Coworking space is becoming increasingly popular as more people choose to work from home. It is a place that you can go to one, two or five days a week to get on with your work in an environment that is more akin to an office, and which will give you endless opportunities for human interactions. A side-benefit of coworking spaces is that when you are there, you will build up lots of contacts in various industries, which could help you to find new work opportunities and make lots of new friends.
Turn on the Radio/Podcast
So, it’s not the same as having someone nearby you can. Talk to, but listening to a talk radio show or favorite podcast is a great way to feel less alone, and actually, it’s often quite preferable to listening to your colleagues talk about their family problems or the latest reality TV show when you’re trying to concentrate on an important project!
Use Social Media
If you’re the kind of person who plans to check Facebook for a couple of minutes, only to find yourself scrolling through post after post three hours, this probably isn’t the right thing for you, but if you can moderate your social media use, logging in a few times throughout the day, sharing a photo or two and commenting on friends’ posts is a good way to diminish loneliness and make you feel more connected with the wider world.
Get Out
The beauty of working from home is that you can, in most cases, schedule your day as you like. This means that you can go run errands, meet a friend for lunch or finish work early to do something fun. Take advantage of this, and there’s no reason why you should ever feel lonely as a home-worker again.
Photo credits: Pixabay, flikr
