Home office away from home

[Lauxa]

I need to make some money, and before I feel comfortable applying for actual jobs I want to work on my portfolio a bit. When I'm at home, I feel very unfocused about this, so I was thinking I should find a workspace away from home where I can commune with my laptop for a few hours a day without distractions. Most likely when I do look for a job it will be telecommute work, so this practice can carry over. Okay, and I have another ulterior motive, I would like to see people during the day, and not feel so isolated from being alone in my house all day long. I did like going into work and having my cubicle to work in but then being able to see people during breaks, every hour or so.

Does anyone else find this practice to be helpful? Where do you go? Libraries? Coffee shops? Eateries with WiFi? I'm looking for something that won't be too expensive or wreck my health, hopefully with a regular clientele so I can feel connected to a mini culture.

Alternately, I could set up a dedicated home office space where I can block out distractions, and then find some other social outlet, but my other "job" is homemaker and it's definitely location-specific and it seems it would be harder to make that social. Or maybe everyone else has cooking / cleaning / shopping / laundry parties that I am missing out on... you do, don't you??

Socializing only for the sake of entertainment without accomplishing anything useful seems a bit flat to me.

Open for ideas here.

[ssandra]

There are offices where you can rent an office for a few hours a day. I believe regus is a big one.

Otherwise, I'd suggest something like a Starbucks, although how much will you actually socialize there, with people you don't know?

Socializing for socializing has a purpose. The purpose is entertainment .

Do you have any hobbies that you can use to meet people and socialize? Maybe not hanging in a bar, but going bowling, or doing sports or cutting out news paper letters to make randsom notes... or something.....

[VinceG]

I love my local coffee shop so much, that I've structured my whole life around it, for years. The last three places I've lived were within 3 miles of it, and I ride a bicycle there every day. I use my bicycle rides to fuel my Manifestation visualizations, and I even installed a rack on my bike and bought a special bag that hangs off of it, so that I don't have to wear a backpack. The coffee shop is next to a supermarket, so I never have to make dedicated shopping trips, I just buy small amounts of things here and there.

Being a regular there, I know all the other regulars. Networking is easy and simple. Very little of the money I've made in the last three years couldn't be traced somehow to that coffee shop.

Coffee there's expensive, $2 a cup, but it's worth every penny.

A library's quieter and cheaper, but go for the coffee shop. Trust me. Pick a nice local place, if you can. Starbucks often just doesn't cut the mustard for a regular haunt.

A good routine to get into is to start working until you feel your mind start drifting. Then move yourself and your machine into another room. When you tire of that, head on down to the coffee shop. There's something about a change in scenery that gets the brain back on track effortlessly.

If you really want to amp up the social connection, try a local bar. Assuming you're not an alcoholic, you can really do a lot of networking there. The bar I go to is awesome. I know all the servers, the owner, the weekend doormen and the regulars. Many of them have wi-fi too, so if you get tired of the coffee shop during the day, the bar will let you focus more, and you can always order coffee there to get your fix.