Well they say there is two kind of people, the one who likes to talk to people, hate to be alone too much and wants to be surrounded by people and his friends and the one who does not.
I don't deny that everyone needs to be alone sometimes and in the other hand needs to meet people and be in a group but one that defines you as an extrovert or introvert is what you feel or do most of the time.
What an extrovert person does?
There are some good things and bad things about being extrovert, we will mention the ones that are related to freelancing.
- Talking: I hate to admit this, but when I'm alone in front of the laptop, I miss talking to someone so much that either I start talking to myself about the work that I'm doing(most of the time it became like a tutorial video) or I seek someone to chat in the social media which is not the best option.
- Sociable: I want to do the work by actual communication, talk to people about the best way in person. If I be alone more than 2 or 3 hours, I can't focus on the work anymore. I'm like a drug addict who needs to inject some communication.
- Distraction: Distraction is a bad thing when you're in charge of timing, financing and doing the actual work. You need to handle all of these yourself and and distraction can be harmful. As an extrovert, I'm enthusiastic about most of the things and imagine if someone texts me for a "thing" or I just caught up in the instagram or youtube loop.
So while you might have a lot of traits that make you an extrovert, you might also find yourself sometimes exhibiting traits that are more introverted in nature.
These were my feelings around the time that I'm freelancing and of course you can relate to some of them and not all of them. I sometimes think that should I do somethings that make my freelancing more bearable for an extrovert or should I completely forget about this and change the way I'm doing programming? Or should I just have another job?
I love the freedom of freelancing, I can work whenever I want, whenever I want and that's great! But as I read somewhere and it was so true, this freedom is a two-edged sword. Most of the time, I take too much advantage of this freedom and drown in my extrovertial activities that I forget I need to work too.
What do I do when I get bored programming?
Yes, I get bored when I'm by myself, coding for more than an hour and nothing is exciting anymore.
First of all, I play the damn music to avoid that terrifying silence. The genre depends on my mood but it never stops. Maybe when I'm in the mood and the music is good, I dance! Maybe I get out and make a coffee, Maybe I chat for a while with most accessible person.
These things make the freelancing more bearable and from time to time, I change my workplace and move to someplace else, Because that's what gave freelancing a meaning; You have the freedom of choosing the place and the time of doing your job.
But still I'm struggling for finding the best solution. What do you think about this?
Top comments (3)
I've tried blocking out time for dedicated work time; I feel like you could do something similar with conversations. Maybe see if you can schedule conversations with people in your local area who are experts or experienced in things you're interested in and just ask them if they'd want to meet up and chat about what they do over coffee. You get to learn something new all the time, you build up a good network of people you can talk to in person, and you have the chance to recharge a bit with some social time without any guilt of feeling like it's just something you do at random times.
Yeah, building a community to hang out with and talk to is helpful and I try to do it. But when you're not in a proper area, that's a problem.
A prison that no one can take you of it but yourself :D