To avoid that feeling you can:
- Join journalist Facebook groups or ones for local freelancers. There’s a lot of chat in those.
- Seek out co-working spaces. You might think this sounds expensive when you have a perfectly good desk at home. However, many will let you sign up for a day pass or just a few days a month. These can be very sociable and some will have events like yoga classes.
- Network! Our senior tutor, Judy, is a member of my local Chamber of Commerce and there are branches of these up and down the country. They offer plenty of chances to meet up with other people with many networking events, discussions, and debates. There are plenty of other networking groups, some national and some local.
- Meet up with non-journalist friends. I have regular walks and runs with friends who do completely different jobs. I know their working hours and days off, so we get regular dates in the diary. It's sociable and healthy - and definitely stops me feeling lonely.
