Working from home is driving me mad!

Once cabin fever sets in, you really do start to miss the office environment, with its steady supply of workmates, colleagues and daily banter. There's always someone in the office ready to socialise and trade a few thoughts about the state of the world, or the state of the company, or even just the films they've seen lately.

Once you hit this point, a lot of people don't know how to deal with being lonely; they don't have any frame of reference to handle claustrophobia, and they've never really considered how to fight the isolation of working from home.

A common technique is to find other people in your area, and meet them for lunch on a regular basis - just an hour or so a day around others can chase away the cabin fever, and prevent feeling lonely during the rest of the working week. Many areas have local groups of people working from home, which arrange exactly this sort of thing.

Professional organisations also provide an outlet - there are several mixers and networking events in most regions that allow small business owners to meet one another, and even arrange for future business relationships. Working from home provides a level of flexibility that permits frequent attendance of these gatherings, which can easily take care of any home working blues.

And if it's the amount of work, work, work that bothers you, working from home can even allow you to recapture the carefree social life of your youth - there's no reason you can't go out and just have fun; head out for a walk every so often, or attend local concerts and shows. You're not bound by 9 - 5 office hours, so why not take full advantage of this?

Cabin fever doesn't have to be a terrible thing. It's simple to find ways that you can be around other people, and there's certainly no need to stay lonely. Make use of your flexibility and working from home full time can be as stress free as you always thought it would be.

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Image:lonely girl 14? by bionicteaching