Ways to Beat the Telecommuting Blues?

hungryfrog writes "After a few years in a typical office environment, I began working from home full-time as an independent contractor (web programmer) a couple months ago. My former employer is throwing me enough jobs that finding work is not an issue. Many people would consider this a dream work situation, but I'm starting to have my doubts. I like the relative freedom it gives me, but I'm finding myself rather starved for human interaction. Being in the same apartment to sleep, eat, AND work every day definitely leads to cabin fever. Have other people experienced this? What have you done to deal with the situation? Does dividing working/living spaces help (my apartment's small, anyway...)? I know of a few folks who have actually rented office space just to get out of the house. Is the cost worth it?"

Comments

For four years

[mcrbids]

I've been working as a freelance programmer/consultant for 4 years. To be fair, I have my wife and 5 kids at home.

I have an office, and I have a home-office. I switch between them. A few times per year I spend a week or two working at location with a client to improve relationships and help things work out when there's a big project afoot.

Also, have three (yes, THREE) phone lines:

1) Home phone. Only tell family and friends. Nobody you work with ever gets this number.

2) Work phone. On your biz card, on your website. Everybody you work with gets this number. Never answer it outside business hours. Never.

3) Cell phone. Mention on your work phone's voice mail with a "if this an emergency, call..." notice. If it's a doozy, people can call. Otherwise, they'll leave a message.

This has been one of the best ways I've yet found to separate home life from work life.

Don't underestimate the problem

[OpenSourced]

As I've been in the same situation for years, I believe that can give a bit of my experience.

First and foremost, lack of human interaction IS a problem, and a big disadvantage of working home. You are ahead of
the game, by having recognized it as such. But you seem a bit apologetic about the whole issue,
and some joking answers can perhaps increase that point of view. Don't ever. Humans are a
social bunch and prolongued lack of society is as damaging to the mind as prolongued lack of
water to the body. You need to get yourself society. Period.

The suggestions so far are good. Get out, see friends, walk a dog and talk to other dog-owners,
go to a date agency, whatever. Just do it regularly, as a routine. Other good idea is having
someone live with you, if possible. Even if she (or he) works out, in my experience the simple fact of her returning home in the
evening marks the day differently and changes the structure of working home.
If a romantic relationship is involved, so much the better,
but don't restrict you to that. You can change your living place to a shared place, for example.
(If you share with students, the social problem will probably change in the other direction :)
The extreme of this solution is having kids. Those will generate an inmediate desire of locking
yourself in your working room and banish all desire of human interaction for literally years.
Long-term solution, I call that.

Also if possible you can try to change the nature of your work, and insist in doing customer-
oriented work. And don't consider the hours spent in the waiting room like lost. You can
always talk with the secretary. That can apply to your situation or not, I don't know, but
I know it makes a difference.

In any case, when working home remember the importance of structure in your life. Other
peoples' presence adds structure to our lives, and that's also lost when you work home alone.
So don't lose your structure. Have a routine, and follow it to the letter. Wake up at the
same hour (it can be late, but always the same, that avoids all-nighters that are the root
of many evils). Then go out after waking up. Going out is important. It doesn't matter if
you go to buy bread, but go always out. That forces you to get a shower and get dressed, and
avoids the dangers of working in your pajamas. Then work for some hours, have another break,
etc. It's not only society what is lost when you leave the office. It's structure too, don't
let that happen to you. Renting and office out of your home helps with this structure problem,
but of course do little with the main one, the lack of society.

Good luck and my best wishes.

Find other home workers

[tbee]

You work 8 hours, usually almost in one stretch, and other people usually are also working in that time frame, so making short visits is difficult. In effect it's hard to have little social breaks during these 8 hours.

Being in a similar situation I'm solving it in two ways. For one I found other people who also work at home, and sometimes we try and work in the same place; usually first working at home for 2 hours (missing the rushhour) and then hopping over for a few hours.

Another solution is that I have some contacts (companies, usually a friend of mine is working there) I use to do some private work for, and they have no problem with me sitting at one of their unused desks.

And - if possible - I (after the rushhour wait-out) I drive to a client to work. They'll see something is being done and I get to sniff some office. This is the least preferable situation, because you're at "the clients".

Get some exercise

[lewistotle]

I've been working at home for years now and found that ice hockey is a great way to get out the stress of sitting at home working all day. There's something quite primitively satisfying about smashing someone else into the boards that goes a long way towards relieving the stress of the day.

Besides, in my work my brain and fingers get a lot of exercise but the rest of me needs something else.

I will also go out and ride my motorcycle through the hills around San Francisco or go hurl myself out of a perfectly good airplane. Other people have been known to ride a bicycle or go jogging. Swimming or soccer are also good choices. Even going for a walk is better than sitting at home in the same room you've been working in all day.

In other words, I don't care what you do, but try to get outside every now and then and do something physical. Watch out for that big bright thing in the sky, though; it's called the Sun. ;-)

Re:TELEcommuting blues ?

[lars-o-matic]

...whereas I had to look it up.

explanation here

*Now* I feel the familiar warm, geeky goodness.

TeleCommuting Blues

[vaxcrasher42]

I've been mostly telecommuting for the past 3 1/2 years and have discoverd the same thing - I need a certain amount of human interaction every or I start to go more than just a bit crazy. I've done the following:

• Don't grunge out: I make sure I get up, take a shower, shave, get dressed and eat some breakfast at roughly the same time every day. I also make sure I am presentable enough to go out in public before I ever start working. If I know I am going to a client site I dress appropriately when I get up (and then eat breakfast very carefully)
• Keep to a schedule: I typically start my work day around 9:00 am, work until 11:30, eat lunch in another room, take a nap (one of the benefits of working from home - a strictly enforced Siesta Policy), work from 1:00 to 3:00, go out for coffee, work from 3:30 or 4:00 to 6:00 or 6:30 at the latest. I might work on the weekend or in the evening, but that is considered an exception to the rule and I make sure I feel guilty about that.
• Exercise: No, this doesn't have to be a marathon run, but try to walk a few miles every day. I quickly discovered that a brisk morning walk beats the hell out of coffee for clearing your head, gives you time to think (don't think too hard, though, as you tend to walk in front of cars), and may force you to purchase a slightly smaller-sized wardrobe :-)
• Get Out: See the point above - and then get out of the house more than that. I walk to my coffee shop and, whenever I'm stumped, I get out of the house and walk around the block. Living in some sort of an urban environment makes this a lot easier, but even when I lived in the 'burbs I would go walk around the neighborhood for some head clearing.
• Talk to People: I don't have a formal office in the town where I work and most of my customer interaction is via telephone or email. I try to make sure that I get out to talk to people at the coffee shop, my favorite bar, my apartment complex office (amazon.com forces me to go there once a week at least) and various other places. I also have a number of outside groups that I interact with and keep a couple of IM sessions going at most times.
• Call People: Yes, IM is easy and most of us are constantly checking our email, but sometimes you just need to hear a friendly voice. I have a collection of customers and co-workers that I call and I'm amazed at what a short call to a customer every month or so will do to your relationship (call your SO a bit more often, though).
• Do Lunch: If you work for yourself (tax writeoff) or you have an expense account (even a small one) take customers out to lunch. You don't have to be extravagent (I rarely spend more than $20 on lunch for two) but you can have a great time. Your schedule is probably more flexible than theirs is and they want out of the office just like you want out of the house :-)
• Visit a Cube Farm: Every so often I have to go to either a customer site or "corporate" and I make sure I spend a bit of time in a cube - this reminds me why I no longer work in that environment.

I wouldn't trade working from home for anything, but I do agree that it comes with its own set of problems...

Re:This one's easy...

[Graff]

The thought of someone peeking over my shoulder or stealing the laptop is a serious issue.

Set up an encrypted partition on the laptop and make sure you sync it up when you get home so if it is stolen you lose little data. When you work outside the home just work with your back to the wall, I'm sure you'll notice if someone is trying to sneak a peek. Set a hotkey to blank the screen or lock out the laptop quickly for when you need it.

It's really not as big of a risk as you might think. I work outside the office all the time and I can tell you that it comes fairly naturally once you find a few places that are comfortable.