How to Spend Time Alone

6+ tips from a professional solo artist

Not to brag, but I’m really good at spending time alone.

It’s not a recent thing – although, working for myself has certainly kicked it into high gear— but I’ve been, as my therapist once said, highly independent for as long as I can remember.

I think I have a genetic predisposition towards introversion (sorry to put you on blast, mom) but my independence, let’s call it, blossomed during my high school years. Because I didn’t really enjoy my surroundings and the people who inhabited them (if you went to high school with me, no offense), I spent a good amount of time by myself. Like every other part of teenage life, I felt embarrassed about it. Enjoying my alone time was bad because it meant I didn’t have friends (I did), or that I was a weirdo (we all were).

But I was also perplexed by the people who were on the other end of the independence spectrum. Most notably was the bathroom companion phenomenon. For those unfamiliar, high school girls would rather pee in their pants before walking across the lunchroom to use the bathroom by themselves, so they’d always beg a friend to walk alongside. I’m still confused by it. The bathroom is the one safe respite from ongoing social interaction. Why ruin that?

I chalked this insensitivity up to my brooding, not-like-other-girls bit (read: clinical depression) I had going on as a 15-year-old. But as I’ve grown up and made genuine, fulfilling friendship, the pleasure I feel in my alone time has remained fundamental to my self-identity. Perhaps this is just the nature of being an introvert, though I don’t like to assign too much deference to these labels (Carl Jung himself says they’re far from the end all be all) since I find them to be a little over-utilized and a scapegoat for lack of accountability in our relationships. I digress.

Spending time alone, whether it feels natural or not, is a key step in leveling up your wellness game. It forces you to develop a rapport with yourself that’s unique to any other experience or relationship we have in this world. At the end of the day, you are the only constant you have throughout your whole life (barring change, time, and uncertainty, of course) so you should probably enjoy your company.

Before I get to the guide, I want to make it clear: this is not just for my extroverts trying to get comfortable with silence, although, yes let’s work on that. It’s also for my fellow loners and ambivert (?) folks who are looking to get re-inspired by the art of joyful solitude. Myself included.

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1: Put it in the Calendar

First order of business. We want to be intentional with the alone time before it even starts.

Even as a certified independent person, I still conflate loneliness with alone time. This is where most of us get into trouble. Loneliness is when I feel isolated from others, alone time is when I feel creatively inspired and fulfilled. Loneliness happens when I neglect to make plans with friends or when I spend an entire day by myself running errands and sending emails or when I feel FOMO. Alone time is fun.

So in order to make sure we are spending ALONE TIME without LONELINESS, we must be deliberate about where it fits into the schedule. Some rules of the road, having gleaned from past mistakes:

• Don’t schedule alone time in the midst of an already lonely week or weekend. I mean, do whatever you want, but I find that this only exacerbates any feelings of isolation and perpetuates the gloomy thought spirals that are already in motion.

• No multi-tasking. Alone time while working doesn’t count. Exercising doesn’t count. Household chores don’t count. Side hustles don’t count. Those are all valid, even commendable ways to spend your time, but that’s not what this is about. This is about getting to know and nurturing your relationship with yourself. The corniness is inevitable here, I’m sorry.

Literally put the time block in the calendar. A week night, a Saturday afternoon, whatever. Give yourself 1-2 hours of unadulterated you time to look forward to. Do not flake on yourself without rescheduling, if you absolutely must.

2: Your Phone is Only a Camera and Not a Cellular Device

Before we get into the nitty gritty of the alone time, we must align on perhaps the most important rule. No cell phones. Pulling out your phone is a one-way ticket to either a) a bad headspace or b) showing yourself that you’re not worth your own attention.

Look, this is the beauty of the smart phone, right? It connects us with our friends and loved ones and fellow Redditors across the world. But in order to truly spend time alone with yourself, we need to do a comms blackout. Don’t worry. Nothing is going to happen if you don’t answer a text for a couple hours. Everyone will live. I promise.

There is one exception which is the photograph. I know people say that ~true presence~ is interrupted when we take photos because they take us out of the here and now, but I don’t like that. I’ll take a photo of flowers on the street if I want to. I like pretty things and I like having memories of them. Plus, when I’m by myself, I’m more inclined to take photos of said beautiful things because I’m not being perceived or distracted by others. I don’t need to justify my camera usage, actually.

hilarious photo of David and me during a solo trip to Florence

3: Make it a Date

If you read the Artist’s Way, or have any familiarity with its whole schtick, you’ll know this solo date isn’t a novel concept. At this point, your alone time is scheduled in the calendar, and therefore you’ll need to assign it an agenda. I’m fully exposing myself as a control freak.

This agenda can be flexible — the point is not to be militant — but let’s at least have a vague outline of the activities that will ensue. Give yourself something to look forward to! A few ideas:

Beginner Level

• Walk — pretty basic, I know. But the key here is to not have a destination. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but walking to your friend’s apartment does not count as alone time. Pick a new neighborhood, flag a couple of shops on your Google Map (we can permit brief phone usage for this), and give yourself two hours to roam around as you wish.

• Movie — this is especially great when you’re feeling mentally over-indexed because you don’t have to interact with anyone. You’ll also have an easy time abiding by rule number 2. A solo movie is one of my favorite ways to disappear, as my friend

  Heather
  so brilliantly put it.

I stopped to smell the roses but I took a photo first

Intermediate Level

• Coffee shop + analog activity — bringing a hard copy book, a magazine, or a crossword to a coffee shop and ordering a $10 latte is one of life’s greatest joys. This is intermediate level because this situation opens you up to conversations with strangers, which I personally love but understand they can be anxiety-inducing for some.

• Museum — nothing better than going to a museum alone so you can actually spend 10 minutes starting at a Picasso painting and skip right on by the Rothkos without anyone questioning your taste / pacing.

go to the Frick if you’re in NY!

Expert Level

• Go out to dinner — what can make this so scary is the idea of being perceived as friendless — harkening back to this lunchroom trauma quite a few of us seem to have. I dare you to sit at a bar at a restaurant you’ve been dying to go to and order a proper meal. Strike up a conversation with the bartender. Bring a book. Whatever. Just no phone.

• Travel internationally — I can’t recommend this to a novice, but it’s one of the best things I’ve done. Not to be all ~I found myself~ but not no.

best day ever by myself in London

4: Bring a Notepad

Something happens when I unplug from technology where all of the thoughts I’d been repressing with blue light now overflow in my brain. Some of the thoughts are practical reminders (it’s your best friend’s birthday tomorrow!) and others are more… esoteric (taken directly from my notes app: Why do some people say other peoples’ names more frequently than others).

this is when my true genius shines through

I’m being such a hypocrite with all of this notes app activity, I know, but the reality is that I usually don’t have a notepad. Which is why I’m making it a step here. Carrying a little leather-bound notebook and a stolen hotel pen in my purse would improve my life tenfold. And how chic!

In a similar vein, I have legal pads and notebooks in every corner of my apartment so I’m never without the ability to jot down a phone-free epiphany. The scene in here makes me appear slightly deranged, but hopefully in a romantic, Kerouac-ian way.

5: Get Curious

Here is the part where you start to think thoughts. Not the good kind. If you’re a well-adjusted human being, it’s inevitable that you’ll start to feel uncomfortable at some point during your solo experience. Particularly if you’re new to the loner community (oxymoron intended) and particularly if you do one of the expert-level activities.

Many of us will instinctually judge ourselves for said discomfort, or let our minds go to a place of judgment in general. No no no. Instead of judging yourself for JUDGING YOURSELF — we’re not interested in the guilt-ception here — we’re going to invite curiosity.

Instead of “I look dumb and ugly,” which, okay, it sounds like “huh, I feel so awkward and weird. I wonder what that’s about.” You start to engage in a dialogue with your own thoughts and insecurities and fears instead of shutting them down temporarily like whack-a-mole. The inner monologue goes crazy when you start to talk to yourself like this, but that’s sort of the whole point of this solo time thing.

6: Gamify It (a.k.a. Make a Bucket List)

Generally speaking, I think the over-gamification of our interests is indicative of some societal Peter Pan syndrome. That being said, I’m absolutely complicit in all my Beli-ing and Goodreads-ing. Call me a West Village girl, but I love a list. What I love even more than a list, though, is checking things off of it.

So write down a list of all of the places and activities you want to do by yourself. The simplest form of this looks like an amalgamation of random solo date ideas (i.e. sudoku in a new cafe, an infrared sauna session). If you want to take it a step further, you can target it to a specific endeavor. For instance, my best friend and I have a list of all of the best chocolate chip cookies in NYC that we’re (slowly) attempting to try. Who’s to say you can’t do that for with you yourself and you.

The beauty of this list is not necessarily that you HAVE TO accomplish everything, but it gives you a a little extra padding to fall back on when you’re out of ideas. It also serves as a log where you can reflect on all of the fun memories you had with yourself.

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I’m actively looking for more alone time ideas, so I’m passing the mic over to you.