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Comment by jnbiche | Hacker News Reader

These are all great points. However, he doesn't mention something I have dealt with after a decade of freelancing: isolation.

I was always an extrovert before I started freelancing, and enjoyed meeting people and going to events/parties. Unfortunately, after a decade of working alone from my home office, I've slowly become an introvert, and am decidedly uncomfortable in social situations. I'm attempting to change this by forcing myself to go to various meetups, but it's hard.

Working from home has been a great benefit, and has helped my wife and I raise our children in the manner we had hoped. But I've definitely paid a price for 10 years of freelancing from home, by myself.

I'd recommend scheduling frequent social events on your calendar from the very start.

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This was by far the biggest problem I had working from home. I had a little bit of a double-whammy; I moved from Northern California to San Diego and started working from home at the same time. I simultaneously lost most of my social circle and surrounded myself in a bubble of work. I was working for a company, so I at least had my coworkers on Skype most of the day, but really, my only sources of face-to-face interaction with people were my wife and the dog park in my apartment complex.

Between the isolation and the stresses associated with the job, I wound up moving back up to the bay area. I work in an office now, and essentially only see coworkers in the flesh for a few minutes each day, but I still feel so much less isolated.

All of that said, I am pretty sure that I want to be working from home again in the future; I'm just going to come up with some better coping techniques for it.

A good antidote to this is to live in a neighborhood where people are nothing but a short walk away.

Obviously, this isn't feasible for everyone. But if I'm feeling isolated, I have about 10 cafes that are a 5 minute walk away, and crowded streets where I can see human faces. Really helps to relieve isolation.

Note that if you're working remotely anyway, there are many cities in the US where walkable neighborhoods with lovely cafes are nowhere near as overpriced as in NYC/coastal CA/etc.

Pittsburgh and Milwaukee are two where I've lived; Chicago is quite affordable for a major metropolis with 24/7 rail service; there are also many lovely college towns out there.

On the flip side, as an introvert, this is exactly why I love working from home. Especially as more and more start-ups and even large companies are starting to adopt open floor plan practices, I've really felt my productivity take a dive because I hate working with any kind of peripheral distractions.

And I'm social enough that I do prioritize hanging out with friends and seeing people on the weeknights and weekends so it's a good balance.

> he doesn't mention something I have dealt with after a decade of freelancing: isolation

Um, did you read the section titled "Preserving sanity"? It starts with: Working from home can be a lonely experience. And goes on from there...

Did you consider that this section might have been added to the piece after I read it? I'm not 100% sure, but I remember re-scanning the post for any mention of isolation before I commented, and didn't see anything.

It's entirely possible I missed it, but you're commenting a day after this discussion took place, so it's also quite possible it was added to the post.

I worked remotely for seven years, and I found the same thing. That is one of the reasons why I always went out for lunch. I just missed talking to people.

Yes, great advice, and I'm running into this pretty hard as well. For any given event I'd rather just do whatever by myself, but add that up over time and it gets kinda ugly. You have to force yourself to interact with others which sounds weird but is ultimately valuable.

Is that why a lot of people spend their time in a coffee shop? While probably not what you'd define as 'productive', it at least puts you in a social setting.

It's not just physical isolation, since you are the only one working on your projects, it's hard to find people to discuss your work interests (that's why i think freelancer meetups wouldn't work). It's a real problem though, i wonder if one day someone comes up with a startup idea to solve it.

You could try enrolling in a postgraduate program, if you have the time.

Meetup will save you there.

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