For professionals who feel cooped up and hemmed in by an office environment, the thought of work at home seems sweet. But for those who have actually experienced self employment, working alone isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Self employment is really the loneliest job, one that brings a lot of stress and boredom. Can you handle being self employed, and working alone?
Work…Alone
For busy parents, work alone might sound like an ideal dream. Daily distractions often make it difficult to reach self employment goals. In these cases, working alone suddenly becomes desirable, needed. Successful self employed professionals have to learn to work even with home-oriented distractions. The phone will ring. Roommates and spouses might want to chitchat. People may come to knock on the door. And, if there are kids in the house, they’ll be sure to demand their fair share of attention.
The Loneliest Job
Self employment can almost always be categorized into two basic conditions: times work at home professionals want to be all alone, and the times working alone becomes its own distraction. Finding a happy medium between the two, or better still, learning how to work through it anyway, is the only way to maintain self employment success.
Sometimes, any little distraction is welcome, even wanted. Working alone every single day can be exhausting. Nothing makes it hard to work like a silent house and a blank computer monitor. It’s easy to feel lonely when one is all alone, and no one understands that better than the work-at-home professional. In these cases, it’s a good idea to create distraction. Turn on the TV or let a DVD play, creating noise and voices in the background. Sometimes, it’s actually easier to work with the noise than without – especially if the self-employed professional in question is used to fending off daily at-home work distractions.
Dealing with Working Alone
Self employment is the loneliest job, and working alone is never easy. Take a break if the solitude starts to feel uncomfortable. Call up a friend for a few minutes before getting back to work. Even a small break in the routine can help self employed professionals return to work feeling rejuvenated. Maintaining a regular schedule and to-do list can help self employed professionals stay on track work-wise, and prevent those days where work stays piled up for long hours on end. Don’t work too much. Working alone is something that should be liberally interspersed with social interaction, because staying self employed is an extremely difficult and lonely job.
KC Morgan - KC Morgan has been the featured writer in Self-Employment since 2006, using personal experience to create guides to being self-employed.
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