How To Work From Home Without Going Stir-Crazy

Some people say it takes a special breed of person to work from home. Even when you have children, a spouse, or human company in the house with you, it can seem grueling to sit in the same room each day in front of your computer.

At some point, you realize you just have to get out of the house, even if only for a little while, especially if you haven’t spoken out loud to a single other person all day. You start feeling isolated from the real world, and probably zapped of mental energy.

The simplest solution to the problem is to work some ‘outside the home’ time into your schedule as often as possible. You may even consider choosing specific days of the week that you’ll move your office to a different location, like a coffee shop or library.

At a minimum, though, you can break your day up more effectively if you schedule ‘out of the house’ visits and errands in a distinct block of time. In other words, decide which time of day (e.g. morning, afternoon) you work best, and schedule everything else around that.

What this does is give you a better sense of the boundary between “being at work” and “being off work.” You could go for a walk or shopping for clothes from 8:00 a.m. to Noon, for example, then work from Noon to 6:00 p.m.

Experiment with your schedule to see what works best. You can do that. That’s the beauty of being your own boss.

Another option to consider if you simply can’t stand working alone is to share ‘office space’ with other self-employed individuals. You can find out what resources are available in your area by checking out the ‘CoWorking Wiki’ at: http://coworking.pbwiki.com/.

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