Avoiding Isolation when Working from Home
There is a dichotomy in home-based web work: we’re more liberated than almost any other gainfully employed professionals, and yet it seems that at times this freedom makes us free to work all day and night in blissful (or not) isolation from our small home offices.
People are looking for ways to counteract the inherent isolation that comes from being a lone wolf. Whether it’s virtual tools that approximate the experience of having people around you, or the group of casual or formal co-working arrangements that seem to be cropping up, there is a growing movement to take web work back into a pseudo-office environment.
But why?
Why are we driving to coffee shops and meet-ups and other places that are filled with the distractions that we’re supposed to be getting away from through the peaceful beauty of our web workerhood? Could it be there is a happy medium between coding for five hours without seeing another human face and sitting in an open bull-pen listening to our colleagues yak about their mortgages, hairdos, man/woman trouble, man/woman success, and beer-drinking plans?
What do you think?
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Video calling should be as good as it gets. Stay at home, talk only as long as necessary.
I have been web-working for almost 2 years now. Before that i was always immersed in meetings, group coding sessions, cube-farms etc. To this day I still have not become accustomed to zero social interaction. When people I know tell me how bad they wish they could work from home like me I tell them to be very careful with that consideration because many do not realize what you are giving up. Of course working from home has its benefits and I do not plan to change my arrangement anytime soon but I believe if you are a social person by nature it can be difficult. I agree with the poster above, video conferencing helps.
Ryan
I’ve been working from home for about 7 months now and am starting to get a bit of cabin fever. If I could afford it, I think I would definitely get a small office that is outside my home. That way, I’d still have the peace and quiet of a private work space, but have some human interaction at the water cooler, coffee machine, etc. My dad is a sole-proprietor and has never worked out of the house.
I’ve been working from home for almost a year now. For the most part it’s been great, because I can focus on my work more easily when there’s no people around to distract me. But it’s nice having people from your old job to talk to after work.
Now that I’ve moved to a new city, I realize that making new friends when you don’t leave the house very often isn’t that easy. Luckily as a freelance journalist, I spend a fair bit of time meeting and talking to people, so I have some human interaction, but not with “friends,” per se.
If my wife and I didn’t already have friends in the city, I’d probably spend more time working out of the local coffee shop than I do.
I attended the last “Jelly” session.
As much as what you highlight (escaping isolation), I think the co working experience can help you find collaborators, exchange ideas, test them.
There is something of the barter economy to it.
There is more to gain from the co working experience if participants come from different professional backgrounds.
Unfortunately I could not stay more than a few hours.
I plan on attending the next “Jelly” session and if the opportunity arises start a space here in my corner of New Jersey.
Take care
Serge
‘The French Guy from New Jersey’
http://www.sergetheconcierge.com
You should never over-estimate the value of human interaction on a daily basis. I just recently started renting and sharing a small office space with a long time friend of mine who is also into freelancing, though in a different field. To me it offers all the benefits of working “with” someone and working by yourself. Sometimes it’s nice to have a real person to talk to when you take a break.
On avoiding isolation, in the 10 years I’ve been doing this, a key for me has been to actively build into my work day informal interaction I would normally have with my work group as I made my way, say, to and from the coffee machine in a traditional office environment. Sometimes that’s over IM, sometimes over phone, but I found I had to force myself to do it so that I had interaction with other people that wasn’t completely work related. A lot of people need non-verbal interaction to avoid that feeling of isolation, but for me, it worked pretty well to take 30 minutes a day to talk about kids, vacations, and all the other things listed in the original post. That made me feel more connected to people and less on an island by myself.
On why is there a movement to get web work back to the office, I think a big reason for that is that not everybody is responsible enough with it. I made a comment on a post here a few weeks ago pointing out that if you were a poor performer IN the office, you aren’t going to magically become a great one OUT of the office. Given that, I think the source of the movement is that employers are finding not everyone can be productive in a setting where they have great flexibility. Some people need the structure of a more traditional office environment in order to be productive while others can do without it.
Pete Johnson
HP.com Chief Architect
Personal blog: http://nerdguru.net
I think it’s more than that, I think that (if you have kids and a family) you might need to get out of the home to get more done! Sometimes there can be many more distractions at home and your family may believe that you can drop anything anytime you want (because you work for yourself).
I work in a two man office. While the atmosphere is generally jovial, I find myself envious of my friends who have a large group of work friends. At times I find it can get lonely.
About 8 months ago, I moved from the Bay Area to Denver, while maintaining my position at a startup there. It was great being in a new area, while, at the same time, not having to worry about a work transition. Working in a coffee shop was cool. Of course, over time, I started realizing that I couldn’t talk on the phone as much so I ended up spending more and more time at home. And that gets lonely after a while.
I still get my social interaction by making sure that I talk to my colleagues on the phone and by making it a point to come back to the Bay Area just to sit in my old cubicle. And I guess that the best way is just to consolidate the days being on the phone and spend the other days in the coffee shop.