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How do work from home people keep their sanity!?


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grateful heart

New to the site, have things I could post i multiple categories but think I will start with this question. Have been working from home since March, and I love my job, but I am bored to death being home all day everyday. Moved to another state (story for another thread lol) and can count on one hand the number of people I know here. How do SAH workers keep their sanity?!

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How strange. And here I am wondering how people who work 9-5 in an office keep THEIR sanity... :laugh: I love love love working from home. Love being able to wear whatever I want and have zero rush hour commute. Love being able to wake up at whatever time I want and set my own schedule. Love having enough alone time instead of being in a place full of people for 8+ hours a day. Love being able to take a break anytime I want to go for a walk or do shopping when nobody else is around or have a quiet late lunch in a cafe. Did I mention I love working from home? ;)

 

But yeah, I do still have my SO, family and friends. If I didn't have anyone to talk to at all, I would probably make more of an effort to go out and socialize. Do you have any hobbies or volunteer activities you are interested in? That could be an option.

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1. Have a specific place to work

2. Get up and dressed even if you don't have to go to an office

3. Try to keep specific work hours

4. Take a 15 minute break in the morning and afternoon, along with lunch, where you get away from the desk/laptop. Walk, watch one show, cook something, etc.

 

When your work hours are done, get busy out of the house. Join a gym and/or hobbie groups. Get active in church if that's your thing. Volunteer.

 

Those are things that worked for me when I worked from home.

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CautiouslyOptimistic
How strange. And here I am wondering how people who work 9-5 in an office keep THEIR sanity... :laugh: I love love love working from home. Love being able to wear whatever I want and have zero rush hour commute. Love being able to wake up at whatever time I want and set my own schedule. Love having enough alone time instead of being in a place full of people for 8+ hours a day. Love being able to take a break anytime I want to go for a walk or do shopping when nobody else is around or have a quiet late lunch in a cafe. Did I mention I love working from home? ;)

 

But yeah, I do still have my SO, family and friends. If I didn't have anyone to talk to at all, I would probably make more of an effort to go out and socialize. Do you have any hobbies or volunteer activities you are interested in? That could be an option.

 

I agree! I've been doing it for just over five years now, and I am never bored. I watch a lot of TV while working, though, and keep Facebook open, LS, and another forum. I take breaks, go to the gym, have a treadmill desk, have a dog. I do miss my former work peeps, but I am an introvert so working from home works very well for me. I have loads of friends but don't need to see them every day, and don't need to be around people every day. Everyone's different, though! Extroverts would probably hate it.

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I wonder if there is a bit of introversion/extroversion at play. I am more extroverted, and one of the things that was hard for me about working at home was feeling so isolated. And yet my friend who is more introverted thrives on that very aspect.

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grateful heart

I guess my problem is that I have never worked from home before, always in an office environment with lunch dates and after work plans. Now, I'm in a strange town, no friends, and no set times to really need to work. I can work day or night as long as deadlines are met. Maybe I'm just missing the schedule of being in an office. I do exercise daily, keep the house running, and am trying my hand at some crafts (not a very crafty person lol) but I like to socialize which is one reason I joined this site!

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Not to hijack the thread, but can people share what exactly are these work from home jobs they’re doing? Call center, programming, customer service, etc? I’m truly curious because I have a friend whose goal is to work from home, but it always sounded slightly absurd to me. I always associated work from home job advertising with scams.

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grateful heart

My work from home job is maintaining a national website. There are tons of scams out there that say they are work from home jobs. I was lucky to find a true position!

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OP, IMO if you're finding WAH not your cuppa, view it as a transition back to the work environment you're used to and prefer. Everyone is different.

 

Back when I was immersed, days could go by and I wouldn't even notice lack of human contact until a customer stopped by or called. When it was really busy and I had a couple guys working for me, it was less peaceful but more robust monetarily. There's always trade-offs in life.

 

IME, it helps if one truly enjoys what they do.

 

what exactly are these work from home jobs?

 

Different for everyone. I lost my job back in the 80's so started a shop at home and moved it to the country and a commercial shop a couple years later. So work at home for me has been playing with metal and plastic and doing stuff for industry over the decades. Work at home for my neighbors is, variously, farming, trucking, processing, repair, etc. One of my historical customers operated a soil engineering and science business from his ranch. However, these days, telecommuting and information-based WAH stuff is far more common. As example, a friend in Maryland codes for Amazon in his home office and takes his breaks working on his muscle car collection that the robust compensation for that job affords him. Something for everyone.

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I guess my problem is that I have never worked from home before, always in an office environment with lunch dates and after work plans. Now, I'm in a strange town, no friends, and no set times to really need to work. I can work day or night as long as deadlines are met. Maybe I'm just missing the schedule of being in an office. I do exercise daily, keep the house running, and am trying my hand at some crafts (not a very crafty person lol) but I like to socialize which is one reason I joined this site!
Join a hobbyist group!

 

I wonder if there is a bit of introversion/extroversion at play. I am more extroverted, and one of the things that was hard for me about working at home was feeling so isolated. And yet my friend who is more introverted thrives on that very aspect.

 

Yeah, I think this is part of it. Some people also tend to prefer more structure in their lives than others - that seems to be the other part of the OP's problem. Personally, I've worked from home for almost 2 years now, and the only challenge I faced was keeping work and my personal life separate. This went both ways - I might get distracted at work because there was the temptation to "multitask" by running dinner, the laundry, and work at the same time (which reduced the efficiency of my work), and I'd also fall into the trap of checking my work email at all times of the day.

 

Not to hijack the thread, but can people share what exactly are these work from home jobs they’re doing? Call center, programming, customer service, etc? I’m truly curious because I have a friend whose goal is to work from home, but it always sounded slightly absurd to me. I always associated work from home job advertising with scams.

 

I'm a coder.

 

It's actually quite easy to distinguish the scams from the real jobs. The scams tend to say that "anyone can do this!", whereas the real jobs (beyond self-employment or running your own business, of course) tend to have very specific requirements, just like "real life" office positions. Scams are usually vague about who you are working for, whereas real jobs will involve a registered company or organization and all the paperwork that starting a "real life" job entails. Also, the scams will usually ask YOU to pay for something at some point before you get paid.

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CautiouslyOptimistic

I'm self employed as a web content manager. Content creation, proof-reading, editing of several websites. I only have one client, and it fell into my lap 5 years ago because my one client is a family member who asked me to work for them full time. I am starting to feel the need to branch out and try to market myself to find new clients and rely less on them, but it's very difficult to find the time to do that because I only get paid for work I produce.....time is money. I'm also talking to a friend who has just gotten into a MLM business and there's a chance I might do that also, if I can be convinced that I don't hate the MLM business model lol. It's a technology product and sounds good, but.....it's MLM.

 

Several times a year I also do some work for a local trade organization (registration/set up for trainings), but that also just fell into my lap and it's something I do for a friend who moved out of state and can't physically be at the trainings anymore even though she still works remotely for the organization.

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grateful heart

Thanks everyone! I do love my job but am sorely missing social interaction. I do think I need to set more of a schedule and get out more. It is way too easy to become isolated when you WAH!

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CautiouslyOptimistic
Thanks everyone! I do love my job but am sorely missing social interaction. I do think I need to set more of a schedule and get out more. It is way too easy to become isolated when you WAH!

 

I think there are Meetup groups for this purpose. People will all meet on a certain day and work "together" at Panera or Wegman's or something, just to get the social interaction. I keep telling myself I need to get out at least once a week and work at Wegman's for the day....but I never do it. Mainly because it's easier to just not put makeup on or do my hair! :)

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I have been working from home for 20 years and love it. I have a home office with better equipment than I ever had at an office. I sleep until 9 am, work 3 twelve hour days for a full week's pay. Often people forget about me and I can go weeks with nothing to do but watch TV. My job only requires an internet connection so I sit by the pool with my iPad or shoot some billiards. I have fixed problems at work in my doctor's waiting room. Best of all, no more 1 hour commutes to and from work in traffic jams. I get two hours of my life back. I can make my own lunch and snack when I want to. I watch TV while I work or listen to music. I have all the comforts of home. I cannot imagine commuting to work again. Dressing up for work, waking at 6:30am Sitting in traffic and sitting at a desk all day.

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Eternal Sunshine

I am an introvert but I would die of boredom if I worked from home. I enjoy social life at work, enjoy getting dressed up and having a place to go. Lunches, coffees, after work drinks.

 

But I am single, living in a new city with a few friends, away from family. I would go insane with working from home on top of that too.

 

Maybe if I had a SO and a good group of friends, I would feel differently.

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Try going to Chamber of Commerce breakfasts or joining other work based meet up groups. Consider treating yourself to a shared work space place once every few weeks to get out of the house once a month or so if that is conducive to doing your work.

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Not to hijack the thread, but can people share what exactly are these work from home jobs they’re doing? Call center, programming, customer service, etc? I’m truly curious because I have a friend whose goal is to work from home, but it always sounded slightly absurd to me. I always associated work from home job advertising with scams.

 

I am a programmer for a call center.

 

OP - I have a hard time as well having just moved to a new town where I don't know a lot of people. I'm going to join the YMCA and take some classes to try and meet some people. I've also started hanging with another parent at my kids school.

 

As for keeping your sanity - it's hard. I've been working from home full time for about 3 years now but have been about 80% WFH for the last 10 years. I watch a lot of Hulu and Netflix.

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I work from home for many years now and absolutely love it and wouldn't have it any other way.

I am a social media manager and get to choose my own hours and get to live life on my terms.

Having hobbies and things to do outside of work hours is key. Meet new people - a great place to do this is through meet up dot com, they have all sorts of groups for all interests and age groups that you can meet people and participate in activities.

Go to the gym if you like keeping fit, yoga, pilates, meditation groups, nature walking groups, cooking classes - anything that sparks your fancy.

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Lots of people say they 'work from home' when they are actually scratching their a** at home i.e. doing anything but work (except calling in meetings to fake some activity).

 

If you're the rare other kind that actually work from home - yep - it gets boring. It is hard to motivate but as any other thing - in 2-3 weeks habits form and it gets easier.

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Add me to the people who LOVE working from home. I am in IT and, unlike some others here, I have a more-or-less set schedule -- I have to be available during standard business hours for meetings and the like. But I still have so much freedom - I can run an errand, eat what and when I want, be available if a repair person has to come, easily go for a run or to the gym at lunch, don't have to worry about commuting.

 

I work for a big company (10K employees) that provides SaaS. We're very corporate but they allow some positions (typically at management level) to work remotely.

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I love working from home and being with my dogs. I can also throw in a load of laundry and make a cheap lunch, but I also have days I go to an office and I usually eat out and kind of make it an event when I have to dress for work anyway and sometimes either eat lunch somewhere nice or sometimes stop at the rec center and get on the bike for a few minutes or both.

 

If you want to connect with neighbors and don't have kids, you can sign up for crime watch or something like that to get you out and about with a purpose. It is isolating and if you don't kind of stay in the habit of dressing and going out, you can get in a rut. My biggest problem is getting distracted and wasting time though......which I've been really bad at lately.

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grateful heart

Thanks for all the suggestions. I reached out to my local library to see if they needed any volunteers and am going to start taking my laptop and working on wi-fi away from home when I can (only places that have wi-fi in my area is McD's and library). Travelling is definitely on my agenda in the future which will definitely help.

I also set up a schedule that I am going to try and keep to help have a better work-home balance!

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As others have said, schedule and space is a must. My GF#1 works from home - she more or less keeps a schedule. She definitely has space. When she's in her office corner and her headphones are on, it is the "don't bother me" signal. If I were to interrupt her or try to be cuddly with her at that time, I'm probably going to get glared at or worse.

 

For a lot of people it simply doesn't work out. If I were to work from home, I wouldn't get anything done. I would be too distracted. For my GF#1, working elsewhere just isn't an option. She dislikes being managed by others, and dislikes having to work a traditional day.

 

Find your space, find your balance...it may just work out for you.

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