Isolation of Working from Home

Working from Home has Advantages and Disadvantages.

Since I moved to a remote country location more than two years ago, the internet has pretty much been my sole source of income. And not that things have been going well for the last year, but when you are in remote areas job prospects are very thin. In a world where it seems jobs are drying up, industries are dying and opportunities for business are slim, the internet might be the best work from home model for many.

But I have been working from home for many years now. Firstly as an accountant, marketing professional and business consultant. Then I started Value Equipment Rentals, a small business leasing notebook computers and laserjet printers. That was put on the backburner with the GFC increasing default and credit risk.

In years past I started boatplace.com.au (currently on hiatus as I try to find better server solutions after a deadbeat Russian hacker kept stalking me) to try and live out my passion for boating and sailing. Time-wise it couldn't have been worse. The GFC nearly destroyed  the boating industry and I have not even been able to find good employment opportunities in that industry. So boatplace is starting afresh on a wix.com website base and will have a completely revamped look.

In more recent times I also started adgreement.com, a business focusing on buying and selling advertising space worldwide. This is something I really wanted to get off the ground, but as with everything else when you start from nothing it's difficult to build anything. It's still there but getting people to become involved is extrenuously difficult. Unless you know the right people, you get ignored - or so it seems.

Having started up chixfashionz, an online jewellery reatil business which predominantly ran from eBay and Quicksales in Australia, I built up an online store and then sold it. This was something I should not have done, because I managed to build it up successfully thinking I could repeat that success easily with other types of stores. But now eBay impose seller limitations, meaning it would possibly take years before I could build up what I developed with chixfashionz!!! What's done is done.

My latest pet project is Oohyey.com which is another online retail store that sells pretty much anything and everything. I wanted to learn about multi-channel selling and different selling platforms and especially alternatives to Feebay. In marketing this I use a lot of social media and resources such as Selltag. I'm also learning about setting up a Facebook store, which is more complex than I thought (and certainly not free!).

Now I love working online. I absolutely love researching, finding new resources, new tools, new suppliers and doing all the day-to-day stuff that you need to do fast and efficiently - e-mails, paying bills, ordering products, downloading software updates and music. But isolation and quite frankly, the lack of business, is beginning to take a toll on me. At best, severe anxiety and at worst depression, chronic fatigue and even sleep apnea. Desk jobs are not healthy. But we are in tough times and there are many people like me struggling to make ends meet.

From a certain point of view I am unemployable. I have worked for myself for the best part of 14 or 15 years. In that time I have had a number of small business, done research or started others and helped countless other business owners with everything from accounting, taxation, business planning, to succession planning, marketing, advertising, website design and online marketing. But what I don't have on my resume is big-name experience in recent years with corporates. That's what recruitment agencies want.

The worst thing is that as depression has slowly eaten away at me, it has affected my enthusiasm and energy levels and really shot me in terms of spirit, goal setting and my ability to resolve problems and come up with my own solutions. I spent so much of my time helping others solve their problems but now I don't have the solutions to my own! And that really hurts. Working from home has many benefits. To me, I don't have to travel into the city everyday and lose 3 hours of unpaid travel time (1.5 hours each way for me!). I'm accountable to me. I decide what my time is worth, not someone else. I can set up the work environment to suit me...sounds great!

But on the downside you have to consider that when you work from home and are starting a business from nothing, the bills don't stop and living costs are going up! This is increasingly making it difficult for people to start their own business, because they need to cover more and more expenditure and at an increasing rate. The ability to save to start a business is getting harder. Then there are some who lose their jobs and are forced into starting a business, often with little or no available capital and a family to feed. It's tough going!

Talking about depression is also incredibly difficult. It has taken a long time for me to be honest with myself and say, "things aren't going well and I really am not the same person I was one or two years ago." That's the nice way to say it. Now I don't blame the isolation of working from home or the fact that I chose to work from home. But I know it doesn't help. Every day I make an effort to walk away from the computer every few hours and go and see people. Three times a week I go to gym and I walk every day to get exercise. A healthy body helps keep a healthy mind.

The problem is that for most guys, it's a difficult thing to grasp and deal with. Depression has negative connotations and we are taught to always be positive and deal with our problems. Which is what I am trying to do. I'm not necessarily winning this battle yet, but I am trying to turn the tide on what is a tough scenario. One which I have not yet encountered in my 37 years. But I am in a remote rural area, lacking employment and business opportunities and dealing with GFC carry-over and a stuffed-up relationship! Quite a combination and a good breeding ground for depression.

If you are working from home, or deciding whether to do it you need to consider some issues that might confront you in your journey. Starting your own business is a wonderful goal and worthwhile alone in terms of what you learn and whom you can meet. But be aware that when times are tough, it might impact you in ways you did not envisage you were susceptible. Being young, fit, strong and always able to produce my own results, I never thought I would be hit with depression!