There are a lot of people who love having strong connections with the people that they work with and, whether a small team or a large market of customers, tend to fit in very well with others. Then there are those who prefer to spend more of their time alone, to work under their own steam without distraction, and like a more quiet life. For the latter, the standard office job isn’t going to cut it. Here are five careers for the truly independent and self-sufficient.
Copywriting
If you want to work alone and from home, then there are few that allow you to be as self-driven in your work as copywriting. It may involve communicating with an agency or clients but, in most cases, this simply means waiting for briefs that tell you what to do, submitting the work, and waiting for any revisions that might come back. The research, planning, writing, and editing all tend to be done by you, yourself. Of course, there are many different kinds of copywriters working in different arrangements, but if you want to spend the majority of your day writing alone, then it won’t be too hard to make that work arrangement a reality.
Translation
If you have fluency in more than one language, then translation is thought to be a field that offers considerably better pay and more opportunities to work in the future as the world becomes more interconnected and more multi-cultural. Much like copywriting, a lot of the work is getting the brief or project you have to translate, then spending the time alone to translate it. If you have a deeper understanding of not just multiple languages but multiple cultures, then you can even work in localization. What is localization? Effectively, besides just translating the text, you also make sure that it’s adapted to better fit the culture and perspective of the people reading it.
Truck driving
Like the idea of working on the road and seeing a little more of the outdoors, but the idea of having a passenger in your car would drive you insane? If that’s the case, look for a career in truck driving. In particular, you want to find a position as a solo driver and not a team driver. Why sign-on as a solo driver? As the name suggests, solo drivers don’t have company in the cab with them. You need to keep in touch with dispatch and work with clients that you’re delivering to, occasionally. However, most of your time is going to be spent on the road. Bring the right qualifications and keep at it for a few years and the salary is above average in most states, too.
Book-keeper or accountant
How can it be that working with business owners and clients can give you a lot of time to yourself? Well, book-keepers and accountants tend to deal with the only kind of work that employers and clients don’t want to micromanage. They trust your ability and expertise to deal with all the numbers and records that they don’t want to do themselves. What’s the difference between a book-keeper and an accountant? A book-keeper mostly deals with ensuring that the expenses and income of the business are recorded properly. Chartered accountants work a little differently and are equipped to offer tax advice, too. Whichever role you choose, your employer or client is only likely to want to speak to you very occasionally. The rest of the time you can work by yourself.
Horticulturalist
Good with your hands and like to spend time outdoors? Perhaps you’re good at landscaping, but not too good with having to deal with clients and their ever-changing requests. If that sounds accurate to you, then horticulturalists tend to have a much more straightforward approach to their work. Rather than working to very specific client specifications, you can offer some services, including tending to different parts of the garden, dealing with pests, or diagnosing and treating or removing sick trees. There are many different directions that the career of horticulturalists can take, from a specialist in trees (also known as an arborist) to someone who mostly deals with pests. Either way, you spend most of your time working with plants rather than people.
It’s worth noting that, of course, most careers involve some level of communication with co-workers, clients, or customers. There are few that involve zero communication. But those above can be very well suited to those who want to spend the majority of their time working with their own company.
