“Doing Lunch,” a concept recently made popular for women in shows such as Sex and the City, is one in which I am trying to take up in my own life. Meeting up with a friend, colleague, or other SOHO women during the week to eat, chat, and enjoy being out of the house I have found has many benefits both personally and in business.
As a home office girl that is without children, I have very little scheduled in my day other than meeting with clients or deadlines I am supposed to follow. A few weeks ago I began scheduling happy hour meet ups with friends to get me out of the house and interacting with people. In a slow business week, having a set time to be somewhere keeps the week interesting and makes the time go faster. It also motivates me to keep trying and keeps me active.
After a couple of weeks meeting up with friends once a week, a colleague of mine, also my mother, began meeting with her friends for morning coffee. The weekly meeting has now become more of an organic networking experience for her. With the morning coffee times, most of her friends are also SOHO women. These simple scheduled times to get out of the house has now turned into an excellent networking circle and true referrals she can provide to her clients.
Forming a community- whether it be a group of friends or other SOHO women, it could be to just catch up, for a book club, or a bible study- will get you out of the house, give you interaction aside from talk of business, and will remind the women you are surrounded by of what you do and why you love doing it!
Doing any type of community building activity, while it may bring you personal sanity, will also bring you new business opportunities. With more people knowing what you do and what you are in need of, they will help you fill your week!
While in college I majored in Political Science and dabbled in Urban Planning and the “third place” was an important concept in both of those studies. The third place is generally thought of as a place outside your home and your work, or your first and second places of being. However, if you work in your home, what about the second place? How does that fit into the equation?
The home, workplace, and a place to build community… or the third place, is a concept created by Ray Oldenburg (in the Great Good Place). He argued that a third place is free or inexpensive and has the availability of food and drink while being within walking distance, and have regular participants. Third places are neutral ground and a place to bring people together (1).
More than anything, finding your third place, or in our case, second place, will offer you encouragement. Having a bad week in business, or even a good week for that matter? You can rely on your friends to get you back into shape or keep you moving.
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Elephant & Castles
Also look through directories to find exciting new places to dine at:
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I am a SOHO Wife and write this blog for women working out of a small office or home office that are looking for inspiration in developing and sustaining a healthy SOHO lifestyle.
