Again, this is a great post. I have been strug­gling with keep­ing a sched­ule lately and the social life has almost dimin­ished. I’m going to just have to make myself take a break like you said.

Nice office by the way

Do you really want to socialize with ex-coworkers from the corporate monolith who didn’t have much in common with you, or with the people who share your specific interest in science fiction, fly fishing or growing roses? Get into the groups that you enjoy most.

You’re socializing in order to be happy, so build up some group memberships where you’ll have a constant influx of new acquaintances to choose friends from — that already share a topic with you. Internet can work well for this. Social media do help, you can always look for your interests locally online and show up to the outdoor painting thing or whatever.

It also helps to prioritize. Taking a few minutes in the evening or morning to plan and look ahead, decide what’s the most important thing to do next, then rank everything else that needs to be done in its importance is vital. Obviously your work has to have a top priority — but equally important, don’t just go self employed without actually doing something you love and are willing to learn and get good at. Preferably have already learned well enough to do it marketably.

A lot of self employed people and work at home people, the majority, have found professions that are more fun than their hobbies. It’s part of a happy life tc do that, to think of your occupation as something that really matters to you. To enjoy the work for the most part — there are chores involved and which activities are “chores to be done so I can get to the fun part” or “fun and I would be doing this if no one paid me” is personal.

The huge advantage of working at home is being able to be yourself and arrange your life to suit yourself. The more you do that, the more effective and productive your work becomes too. When there’s real passion for the work, then laziness doesn’t come into it.

You’re entirely right to remind people to take vacations because when the work’s that satisfying, the vacation may seem like a bother and an interruption. But it’s also a chance to spend more time with your loved ones who may or may not be that much into your passion, and get into other things you enjoy doing.

Vacations don’t need to be “go somewhere” either, they can be changing what you do so that you catch up on a bunch of movies you always wanted to see or you spend time at the local lake hanging out camping or volunteer on some local project. It’s mostly to take a break in the routine and go do something else that’s enjoyable for a week or two.