Spend Some Time Alone [and Focus on Yourself]

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You need alone time!

Requests from others bombard us all day long.

Colleagues who need something or just want to chat at the water cooler. Friends who want to meet up and talk. The family wants to connect and take a bite out of your time. Meetings that seem to go on forever.

The time with others can be fun. You might enjoy every minute but every now and then take some time alone. Time for you to relax and do nothing or do something you love. Block out 40 to 60 minutes of your day and focus on yourself.

During the coronavirus lockdown, people had  to be in isolation. In that period, even the people who usually avoid crowds started to feel the need for connection.

But for some it might have been a time to focus on themselves over a long while.

Being alone is a great when you make the choice when to be alone.

Science of alone time

One study found that people consider being alone as a restful activity. More than half of the 18 thousand participants in that study felt it’s an enjoyable way to spend their time. When you look at the other activities that people consider restful then the top five contains things that you mostly do alone.

• Reading (58%)
• Being in the natural environment (53.1%)
• Being on their own (52.1%)
• Listening to music (40.6%)
• Doing nothing in particular (40%)

Another study showed that sometimes people avoid hedonic activities when they have to do it alone. For example, some people tend to think going to the cinema alone is not a good idea because of what others may think. However, science says:

Notably, consumers seem to overestimate how much their enjoyment of these activities depends on whether they are accompanied by a companion. – Rebecca K. Ratner Rebecca W. Hamilton

Freedom of being alone is intoxicating. ~ Kangana Ranaut

Alone you are more productive

Private working space is the key to productivity. In open offices, the increase of noise and loss of privacy destroys your results. Although it may be blindingly obvious to many people, you are more productive when working alone. In this study, you can see what aspects of environmental quality are important to people in different office settings.

Meditating and thinking

Meditation is something that you should do daily. You usually have to be alone or in a place where distracting other people is considered rude.

Meditation requires mental focus and energy. Do it when you can. If not, then you can go in the opposite direction.

Think about what you are doing and where you are going with your life, where is the current trajectory taking you. Think about your goals, has anything changed in your priorities, do you need to adjust your course?

More on thinking later.

Free-flow writing

Sometimes I sit behind the desk and just write about everything that crosses my mind for 40 minutes. Free-flow writing helps me to get a fresh perspective and ideas I may otherwise lose in the rush of daily activities.

In freewriting, you are doing the opposite of meditation. In meditation, you want to stop your mind from wandering. In freewriting go off on any tangent that your brain throws at you. The exercise helps you clear your head and get a better understanding of the issues you are facing.

Working alone, you are more productive and have better ideas. Usually, when I start with free-flow writing, I will converge to a topic important to me. My brain focuses after about 10 to 15 minutes of random writing.

What a lovely surprise to finally discover how unlonely being alone can be. ~ Ellen Burstyn

Thinking and planning

One important thing you can write about is your goals, progress, and plans. When you are constantly surrounded by people, you don’t have the time and focus to think deeply about your life. Take that time to improve the quality of your life. Do it in writing as the written format makes you focus even more.

I use these six questions to help my thinking process:

1. Am I excited to be doing what I’m doing or am I in aimless motion?
2. Are the trade-offs between work and my relationships well-balanced?
3. How can I speed up the process from where I am to where I want to go?
4. What big opportunities am I not pursuing that I potentially could?
5. What’s a small thing that will produce a disproportionate impact?
6. What could probabilistically go wrong in the next 6 months of my life?

I don’t know the author of these questions. If you do, let me know, and I’ll link back to the source.

Without great solitude, no serious work is possible. ~ Pablo Picasso

Exercise alone

Alone time doesn’t have to be a hard brainstorming session or even reading. If you feel like it, go for a walk, and clear your head. If you have more time go to a movie or day spa. There’s no pressure; you can do whatever you want it is your time.

Walking is the easiest activity that lets you get away from it all. Walking is also low intensity and lets you think deeply about your life. But you can do some serious exercising by bending iron or maybe running. However, the more energy you spend on physical activities, the less you have left for mental tasks.

But sometimes it’s totally OK to switch your brain off completely.

No distractions

Of course, you also need a silent space. A location where you can’t bump into people you know. A place where there’s no noise. Some people think coffee shop background noise doesn’t break their concentration. Well, it does.

If you have a quiet place like that, then good for you. For others, one place that usually meets all those criteria is a public library.

To make sure that your time stays yours, put your phone in silent mode, close all notifications from email, IMs, and social networks. And do not use the time to browse the net aimlessly.

I’d be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That’s how I refuel. ~ Audrey Hepburn

6 types of rest for your alone time

1. Physical rest is when you relax and don’t have to move a muscle.
2. Mental rest is the time when you don’t have to solve problems and think hard.
3. Emotional rest, when you are alone, can be something like purging your emotional load by writing it down.
4. Sensory rest without gadgets and books, and other people. You can try to spend 10 minutes in a completely dark room.
5. Creative rest will help you get more creative. Go for a walk in nature or park.
6. Social rest, that’s what it means to be alone.

Indulge yourself

Whatever relaxes you, do it. Just a disclaimer here: no drugs, alcohol, or any other activities that leave you incapacitated to continue that day. Somewhere on the spectrum between meditating and crossfit workout are million other things: learn to play the guitar (don’t do it in the library). Start to paint or draw.

Did you know that you can get pretty good at almost anything in as little as 20 hours?

In some cases, you can take off extended chunks of time. For me, one of the best activities for alone time is snowboarding alone on the powder slopes. Hours pass, and there’s no one around. You can get similar experiences when hiking or running really long distances alone.

If you don’t feel like moving yourself a lot, then you can spend a day on the secluded beach and enjoy the soothing crash of the waves in the background.

The dark side of loneliness

If you are lonely by choice, then it’s a good thing. You need time to rest from social interactions where people have various expectations for you.

However, long periods of loneliness with no positive life events lead to more depression. Here, they define loneliness as having feelings and thoughts of being isolated and disconnected from others. The study found that:

Specifically, the association between loneliness and psychological maladjustment was weaker for those who experienced a high number of positive life events, as opposed to those who experienced a low number of positive life events [PDF].

I wrote about random acts of kindness where you can invite your lonely friends and relatives to make their days brighter. Create interesting life events for them.

How often should you take time to be alone?

You don’t have to do it every day but make sure you have enough alone time every other day or so. At least 10 to 20 minutes, preferably 30. But take at least one day every month where you can disconnect and replenish yourself in your alone time.

Your time alone does not mean that you are depressed or sad. Alone time will lower your stress levels, and you get a better grip on reality.

Being alone doesn’t have to be quiet either. Go chop wood or shred Master of Puppets until your speakers blow out.

It’s your alone time.

Do what you want.

If you feel that you can’t find the 30 minutes for this every other day or two times a week, then it’s a sign that you really need it.

You are not a robot.

Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone. ~ Paul Tillich

Do it at least once a week

There are a lot of options to take the time you need to be alone. The question is not what to do but where to find the time. Make a date with yourself. Put it on the calendar. A few hours, one time a week. You owe yourself some alone time.

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Image by Priit Kallas: ‘Powder Day’
Image Screenshot of Audrey Hepburn from the film Charade

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