Working solo is awesome, except…

I love working from my home office, the convenience, the comfort, the lack of disruption. It suits me perfectly yet sometimes I just can’t help feel a little bit like I am missing out on the camaraderie of working in a shared space, working physically close to other humans.

It’s claimed that women can happily speak up to 20,000 words a day, men about 7,000 words. That’s quite a lot of words to get out if you’re working solo. And what I’ve found to happen when I don’t speak for long periods of time is that I tend to over talk to the next poor soul I do see in person (later on hoping that they didn’t think I was totally mad!)

Then there’s the lack of someone else around to bounce ideas off of or even just someone to discuss what they thought of the latest Game of Thrones episode. I wouldn’t want to change my current self-employed status but these are a couple of issues that we all experience – are you with me?

My solution: Smile Friday

So what is Smile Friday? Well it’s simply a get together of like-minded individuals that meet up once a month to chew the fat, so to speak. Think of it like Facebook – but in real life. Where we actually talk face to face about whatever we want.

It’s an opportunity for anyone who needs to expand their social and business network. In fact it’s not just for the self-employed really. It can be anyone who wants to join in so we all learn from each other whatever situation and background.

It’s not all about work, work, work. You don’t even have to talk about work if you don’t want to. If you do then you’ve got the perfect opportunity to find out what others think of that idea that you’ve been mulling over, share a story or get some motivation and stop procrastinating.

In essence it’s a place to interact, share resources and generally have fun in a casual environment. There’s no pressure and no expectations.