Report
The 6 Secrets of Overcoming Isolation When
Working From Home
By reading this report you will:
1. Discover why working alone can be a problem for homeworkers.
2. Appreciate why it can be so hard to make time to meet people even though you know you need to.
3. Spot the tell-tale signs that it is time to leave your desk.
4. Identify the kind of external input you need, whether it is going for a walk or meeting a friend for coffee.
5. Realise the dangers of cancelling your plans to go out for any reason.
6. Discover why putting your own needs first is far from selfish.
Are you one of the many people who already experience the benefits of working from home, or are you still wondering if it’s right for you?
There are many advantages to working at home:
You could save money on travelling to and from work, on childcare, buying and drycleaning workwear and on snacks, coffees, drinks after work and impulse shopping.
You also save time by cutting out your drive or trip on public transport to the office. And avoid all the stress of traffic jams and cancelled services, not to mention office politics and dealing on a daily basis with people whose only common interest is their occupation.
If you work at home you can concentrate for long periods if necessary, without being disturbed by someone’s loud voice or colleagues asking you questions. Your days are within your own control – you can plan work around the school run and visits to parents, let in workmen and sign for parcels, attend doctor’s and dental appointments when everyone else is at work, shop in deserted supermarkets and swim in empty pools.
You might even find that your work opportunities and earning power increase when you are not limited to the jobs available in your local area. Doing the research for my book, I spoke to several people who enjoy London salaries while living permanently in the depth of the countryside.
I have worked from home for most of the last 20 years. I fell into it by chance when starting my first business, but was quickly converted and wouldn’t have it any other way. I have run my own home businesses and been employed as a home-based adviser to other small businesses.
But however much I might promote the joys of homeworking, I always add that there are some challenges too, which you need to understand and deal with if you want to work from home happily and successfully.
The greatest of those challenges is probably learning to work in a disciplined and productive way when you are alone in your own home. No colleagues to consult when you run up against a problem, nobody to chat with at break times and no sympathy when you’re having a bad day.
In fact the fear of isolation may be the thing that most puts people off the idea of homeworking. Over and over again, when I tell people what I do, those who don’t work from home respond in a similar way – ‘Oh, I could never work from home, I’d miss the other people at the office too much.’ And those who do work from home always cite the balance between producing results and getting enough company as one of their most difficult challenges.
I know from my own experience that in order to work from home and stay happy and productive, it is essential not only to get out of the house regularly but also to allow in new ideas and influences from outside. This is why I chose a logo for Working from Home Wisdom showing a house with the door standing open.
Note: I use the word ‘office’ throughout as a kind of shorthand to refer to the traditional workplace, which might include workshops, factories, hotels, restaurants etc. Similarly I refer to the desk in your home workspace when it could just as easily be a studio, garage and so on.
1. Why isolation can be a problem for homeworkers
We are all social creatures, even those of you happy with your own company for long periods of time, and you may not realise just how much you draw on outside stimulation until it is no longer there.
All the things about working outside the home that might have annoyed you – the commute, greeting colleagues, office banter, discussing work issues, going out to get a sandwich at lunchtime etc – were also bombarding you with images, ideas and personalities that you just don’t get when you only have to roll out of bed and into your home workspace.
Working alone is great for concentration in short bursts, but if there is no relief from the thoughts in your own head, it can quickly become demoralising and lead to procrastination and lack of motivation.
Andy is a trainer and coach who has surely experienced the whole spectrum of company and isolation at work – he worked in a 9 to 5 job for a multi-national and then as a trainer at their corporate headquarters, which meant staying in residential accommodation on-site Monday to Friday.
He now runs his own business from home: ‘You don’t realise how much of a safety net you have until it’s no longer there. Out at work you are in a kind of cocoon with help and feedback always to hand. Working at home can make you feel vulnerable and lacking in protection.’
If you make the change from going out to work to working at home, it can be a big challenge to adapt to structuring your own time when you have been used to your employer doing it for you. It involves taking on a lot of extra responsibility for time and mood management.
When I first left a full-time job to run a business from home, it felt strange to be out and about at the times I used to be ensconced in my office. It was a bit like playing truant and I half-expected to be hauled back inside by an indignant superior!
2. Why can it be so hard to get out and meet other people even though you know you need to?
We tend to consider ourselves modern, 21st century people who have shaken off the shackles of restrictive thoughts and behaviour. We feel concepts such as the Protestant work ethic and the idea that ‘the Devil makes work for idle hands to do’ died out with the Victorians.
Yet if you are not doing something that is obviously productive every moment of your working day, you might well feel lazy and guilty. Because these ideas run surprisingly deep. Not only were they probably passed on to you by your parents and teachers – ‘work hard and you’ll get a good job’, ‘you won’t make anything of your life if you fail your exams’ – they have been strongly reinforced more recently by society.
In the 60s and 70s there was a belief that technology would free us up for more leisure time. Do you see that happening? Look at the go-getting 80s, a decade all about making money and looking after yourself and your own.
Look at how fashionable it is to talk about ‘quality time’ and ‘work/life balance’. There is perceived to be a kind of virtue in a full diary – ‘I am busy and in demand, so I must be a useful and productive citizen.’
And now with the reversal in the world economy from apparent boom to very real recession, many of us are anxious about our jobs. Trying to make ourselves indispensable by working harder and harder is all too easy when redundancies and down-sizing are in the air.
All of which means you can find it surprisingly difficult to detach yourself from your workspace and get out of the door, even when you know you need to.
3. How to spot the tell-tale signs that it is time to leave your desk
I have found that it’s time for me to get out when I start to run out of motivation and inspiration for the jobs I have to do. I find myself leafing through my to-do pile and not wanting to do any of it. Nothing seems appealing and because I know I have to do it, I start feeling discouraged and panicky. None of it seems remotely possible.
This negative feeling can spread horribly quickly to my life in general and to worrying about lots of minor niggles I can normally put aside. If I don’t break the cycle I can get to the point where my whole life and prospects feel bleak. Just picking up the phone at any point, and having a chat with a friend or associate can change my whole outlook and mood.
Although it’s well-known that isolation can be difficult for homeworkers, it seems we tend not to talk about how it actually makes us feel, so I was glad to hear that my own experience is not as extreme as it might sound!
JP is a musician who works at home when he is not playing in a band: ‘When I’m working with the band I get instant feedback about my bass line and how the music’s going, so there’s always direction and development.
‘After a while of working on my own with no input from fellow musicians I start to lose trust in my own judgement. I get a kind of hollow feeling about my music and can end up feeling I’m not very good at it. If I don’t do anything about it, I start to feel bad about other aspects of my life and eventually to doubt everything.’
The secret to breaking the downward spiral is to be able to spot the first tell-tale signs that you are starting to run out of inspiration and that it’s time to do something different that involves the outside world. These are the kinds of clues that might help you:
You start to lose concentration and make silly mistakes.
You find yourself engaging in displacement activity such as surfing the net or making coffee.
Feelings of restlessness, discontentment, boredom and/or irritability start creeping in.
You begin to feel tired.
You have a low-level feeling of anxiety or dread, not necessarily connected to anything specific, and maybe with no logical reason.
4. How to identify the kind of input you need
So you know you’re not feeling great. Now you need to know exactly what it is that you need to improve your mood. Tracey is a book-keeper: ‘When I find myself gazing at the computer or a piece of paper with no idea what to do and starting to feel depressed, I pick up the phone. Either I speak to the client who can give me the information I need or to a friend who will give me a break by chatting.’
You may find you have different needs in different situations or at different times of day:
Do you need to get out of your familiar four walls, breathe in some fresh air and get your body moving?
Is it mental and visual stimulus you need, and if so do you need to get it by being with other people? You could try popping out for some shopping, making a point of speaking to the checkout girl and any neighbours you bump into on the way. I enjoy sitting in a café drinking coffee, reading the papers and just watching passers-by and other customers. When Veronica was working as a coach in London, she noticed that her best ideas always occurred to her in coffee shops.
Radio and television can be useful ways of bringing the outside world into your home, as long as you can resist the temptation to carry on listening or watching when you should be back at work. Diane is a massage therapist: ‘I’m completely hooked on Loose Women (a British TV programme with four female presenters that is shown midday each weekday), I don’t mind admitting that whenever possible I organise my schedule so I can watch it while I eat lunch.’
Maybe your greatest need is to talk, either to a colleague who can help you resolve an issue, or to a friend or family member who can remind you of your position within your home or work hierarchy and that you are loved and appreciated. It’s also useful to know how often you need this kind of stimulus, so that you can book it into your diary as a priority and build the rest of your schedule around it. For example, you might want to make time for a daily walk, a trip to the shops every few days to stock up on fresh food items, and a weekly catch-up with a friend in a local café.
5. The dangers of cancelling your plans
Although you may have started with the best of intentions and put these commitments in your diary, I guarantee it won’t be long before you are tempted to cross them out, either because you feel you can’t spare the time or because someone is asking you to do something else at that time.
I know how hard it can be to stick with your plan to get out when work is piling up and you’re feeling anxious, but I have never once regretted it. Instead I find it clears my mind so that I return ready to tackle what previously seemed insurmountable. I may even have picked up some new ideas along the way.
Getting out and about or just picking up the phone can break the downward spiral of isolation. ‘If I’m not strict with myself, I can go past the point of even wanting to speak to other people,’ says JP the musician. ‘I feel so fed-up and demotivated that I don’t feel I have anything to say to them.’
And if someone suggests an arrangement that clashes with your plan, don’t feel you immediately have to scrap it. All they need to know is that you have a prior commitment. It could just as easily be an important client meeting or because you have a tight deadline to meet, and you wouldn’t dream of cancelling those because something else had come up!
To my initial amazement I have learnt to never be afraid of telling people I am busy at that time and can’t do it till a later date. Far from putting them off, it just seems to make them keener. I was in the enviable position of being able to pick and choose the cleaning contracts I took on and would only accept more work if it fitted easily around my existing commitments.
I used to tell enquirers ‘I’m sorry, but I simply don’t have the capacity for any more work at the moment.’ I don’t recall anyone ever just giving up at that point. The response would always be ‘When will you be able to do it? Next month? In three months time? Can you book us in for when you have time?’
I must admit it’s taken me a while to work up to it, but these days it would take a great deal to make me reschedule so much as a nap in the afternoon.
6. Why it’s not selfish to put yourself first
Never feel guilty for taking time for the activities described above. You are a valuable resource to yourself, and to your employer if you have one, and in order to maintain the value of that resource you must recharge.
You are not ‘taking time off’, you are recharging your energy. If you value yourself you will find that others also value you highly. Allow yourself to be constantly at other people’s beck and call and you’ll run out of motivation fast.
In my experience, ideas tend to strike when I’m not consciously thinking about the topic at all, in the same way that you can rack your brains to no avail to remember somebody’s name, only to have it pop up unbidden when you’re thinking about something else entirely. So if you don’t go out you are depriving yourself of the opportunity to have brainwaves and inspired ideas!
If you’re not used to taking time out for yourself, try starting in small ways so that you can feel the benefits and build up your confidence:
Only meet colleagues or clients to discuss work projects, but perhaps broaden out your topic of conversation afterwards if it seems appropriate.
Make your breaks work-related so you feel you are still achieving something. You could take a business magazine or some notes to read in the café. Think about that report you’ve got to write while you’re out walking.
Extend business trips by including some window shopping, having lunch out or meeting up with a friend in the area. Find out that it is possible to mix business and pleasure, or as Andy the trainer puts it: ‘I find that when I need to go out for a business reason, I tend to ‘milk it’ for all it’s worth. I’m out of the house and I’m jolly well going to enjoy it!’
Investigate the possibility of working outside your home for a day or half-day a week. It could be in the office if you have an employer, at a client’s office or even a coffee shop with wi-fi access. Knowing that there is already a fixture in your diary could help you to focus for the rest of the week. It provides a structure or what Andy calls a ‘positive deadline’.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this report and that it will help you to work from home happily and successfully. If you have found it useful, feel free to recommend to a friend!
My book Work from Home provides many more ideas on getting the best from living and working in the same place. You can buy Work from Home
I provide talks and workshops on getting the best from homeworking, and one-to-one support for individuals. For more information please contact me.
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Disclaimer: Nothing in this report should be considered personalised advice.
Copyright 2009 Work From Home Wisdom
