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Working Alone: Who'd Have Thought You'd Miss Your Co-Workers?
Remember co-workers? Those annoying people who you're forced to share an office with -- some of them friends, but
most of them insufferable. If you're anything like me, one of reasons for starting a home business was to get away
from these people. 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.
All Alone...
Picture the scene. You get up for another day of work. Your husband or wife has already left, since they have to
get up earlier to commute to their job. Your children are at school. All the neighbours are at work. Your house
feels deserted, and your neighborhood feels like a ghost town.
It's all too easy to become enormously demotivated in this situation, and to begin to feel like your work is
pointless. Worse, when you get stuck or something bad happens, you have no-one to turn to -- at work, you were all
in it together, but now it's just you, out on your own.
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
get on a search engine and find a few forums for your industry, 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 can be good for replacing the lost interaction with co-workers. More than that, it
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 sympathize with you and offer advice.
There's only one thing 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.
Go to a Coffee Place 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.
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
plain fun and nice thing to do.
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