When you work as a social media freelancer, you are alone a lot.

You probably mostly work from home. I know before I had my daughter I would sometimes not use my voice to talk to another soul all day. I would put the television on in the background to make it feel like there were others there. To say it made me weird would be an understatement.

But beyond being weird, being alone all the time has some major implications for your mental health. So if your goal is to work on your mental health, a great place to start is not being alone all the time. And that’s what I’m about to do now that my daughter is going to school. Check out a bit of what I’m planning to do:

Office hours

This was a brilliant idea that floated around awhile ago. Set yourself up in a coffee shop and let friends know that you are having weekly office hours with the times.

I love this idea. It’s not as much of a commitment as making plans with a friend. You’re just there, and if someone wants to stop by, they can without even telling you first. It’s a great option for when plans fall through or you just felt like getting out. I’m planning on experimenting with this idea, but I do have some concerns.

As a female who has had someone be very aggressive after not getting the attention they thought they deserved from me online, I’m not too into the idea of advertising this widely. So I’m going to limit who can show up which means I’m also limiting how successful this can possibly be from the get-go. That probably means most of my “office hours” will be a lonely time. But I think I’m okay with that. Just committing to being out where other people are is a good start.

Work away

When I first started my business, I was friendly with an agency that included a weekly work away for all of their employees. What did that mean? It simply meant that they had to find someplace else to work other than the agency office for an afternoon or morning every week. The idea was to look at problems with a new set of eyes at a new location. And it gave some flexibility to how the employees work.

If you’re feeling like you’re alone all the time, it might be time to try the idea of a work away into your week. Does it guarantee that you will be talking to other people? No. But it puts you more in the way of other people so there is a higher chance of that happening. And in my case, I honestly love to hear the way others talk when they think no one is listening. Why do they think no one else is listening when they’re talking loudly in a coffee shop? I’ll never know. But it does give me some content ideas from time to time and sometimes some juicy gossip as well.

The point is that if you provide yourself with opportunities where you are not in your home by yourself, you are providing yourself with opportunities to not be alone.

Join interest groups

This has to be the easiest way to make sure you are not alone. Get out and join a group full of people who have the same interests as you do. It doesn’t require anything from you except that you show up. And in many cases, you can show up as often or as little as you like.

If you’re stumped as to how to go about this, then start with thinking about what you would do if you had more time. What is a skill you’d like to develop? Or maybe a hobby you’d do more of?

Let’s pretend you said crochet, because I know that hobby a little too well. In that case, I’d look at local yarn shops to see if they host any stitching groups. For whatever reason, there aren’t that many dedicated crochet groups in the world. So this is a case where you would have to go a little broader to find those with the same interest. That’s not unusual in the hobby world so don’t be afraid to do that.

And in my case, my local yarn shop, Dye Mad, produces a guide around available craft groups. So I can pretty much do some kind of craft every day of the week if I wanted to. But that also means that there are a lot of groups for me to try out. I can find the right one for me. Because if you try this and the first group is terrible, don’t let that stop you. Keep trying groups until it is the right vibe.

Invest in your neighborhood

You really don’t have to go far if you really don’t want to be alone. The most effective way I’ve met people lately is by investing in my own neighborhood.

To underline how much this is true, on my daughter’s first day of preschool, I received texts from multiple neighbors wishing us luck. I also had to send pictures of her first day to a librarian who put them up so all of the librarians would be updated on how it was going. And this was all because we do what we can to help out. No Herculean tasks. Just putting events in our neighborhood Facebook group, taking care of lost dogs and whatever else pops into our lap that feels right for our family to do. Slowly those little tasks add up to something big, and you realize you suddenly have a whole community who cares.

So if you don’t want to be alone anymore, maybe your first step should be looking around where you live and finding something small to do to help. You might be amazed by where that leads you.

Are you trying not to be alone anymore? What have you done to be around other people?