5 Ways to Deal With the Solitude of Remote Work

Loneliness is different from working alone. | Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

While remote work is liberating in so many ways, there’s one drawback to this workstyle. Freedom from geographic constraints and working on your own terms seems like a dream come true. But when the only human interaction you have during the day starts and ends on the screen, it can feel lonesome.

When I landed my first remote job, after a couple of first blissful weeks a strange feeling started to creep in. I mean, I was on cloud nine because I broke free from the white-collar torment and was living the remote dream. 

But after a while in a distributed team, I started to feel isolated and disconnected. 

Contrary to popular belief, the majority of people who pursue remote work are not introverted. According to the remote work survey we ran at TalentLMS, only 28 percent of respondents have described themselves as introverts. While 38 percent identify themselves as ambiverts and 34 percent as extroverts. 

Meaning that the majority of remote workers are at least somewhat social, and have a need for human interaction and togetherness. Also, that they could use some help in dealing with the solitude of remote work.

If you’re one of them, you’ve come to the right place.

Drawing on the survey findings, but also my own experience, I put together five tips for combating the inevitable loneliness of remote work. Use them to shatter the walls of isolation and nurture the feeling of belonging. 

Have a home? Have an office? Then you’re all set for Hoffice

Trying to figure out how to deal with my lonesome days, I stumbled upon something new, called Hoffice. In a nutshell, Hoffice is a concept where you get together with other remote workers in your city, and work side by side from the same home -- which one of you has offered. Meaning that when lunchtime comes around, you can share a meal and talk with real, flesh-and-blood people. You can also support each other and exchange ideas, go for walks, or just have a chitchat when productivity runs low. 

To start Hofficing, you can either connect with the people behind this initiative, or you can find work-from-homers in your area in some of the numerous online communities. If you find it comforting when you’re around other people — even when you don’t know them very well — then you should try this.

However, for some, Hofficing may feel too intimate and weird. Also, you might not be comfortable visiting homes of people you don’t know — or inviting them over to your place. 

Don’t worry, there’s always other solutions.

Go Coworking

There are other places where the crowd you belong to gathers under one roof — freelancers, remote employees, journalists, solopreneurs, contractors, digital nomads. All you have to do to find them is to head to a coworking space. 

I don’t believe in networking for profit and boring yourself to death with dull people because they can be useful for your career. But I believe in human connection, gathering around a joint cause, and connecting with like-minded individuals.

And shared office spaces are the perfect place for doing that. Coworking space is a place where your crowd is hanging out, a place where you belong. Where you can meet interesting people and make new friends along the way.

So, give coworking space a chance.  It can be a powerful ally in ditching the loneliness.

Get together with your teammates on non-work-related stuff 

You communicate and collaborate via email, shared drive, video calls, DM, through Slack channels and group chats. You’re nailing Asana tasks, Trello boards, and Jira backlog. But do you have a digital place for getting together with your teammates on a no work-related staff? 

If you don’t, then you’re missing a great opportunity for bonding through informal chitchat. This will also help you create deeper bonds with people you collaborate, while boosting the feeling of social connectedness.

Some of the ways to do this are to hang out on the #watercooler, #random, or #music Slack channel, to play a blitz game, or to go undercover and form a group chat with your colleagues within your personal messaging apps.

Have some digital chill time with your distant comrades and you’ll have a sense of collectiveness and familiarity. 

But sometimes, you need some completely different stimuli.

Connect with nature from your desk

Sometimes, the connection we’re longing for is not necessarily a human connection. Sometimes, the feeling of belonging we seek can be found in nature. And just feeling like you’re connecting with the outside world.

Now, don’t worry, I’m not going to tell you to work from the beach hut or from a tree house. But I’m going to tell you how to take a non-walking shortcut for connecting with nature by listening to its sounds.

For some people, and I’m one of them, deep focus is this perfect, distraction-free zone we want to reach, and stay in when we have something demanding to do. And remote workers already know that getting into the flow comes naturally in a quiet environment. That’s why it can be difficult to reach the state of deep work with frequent interruptions and distractions that usually exist at the office

But still, it’s not so much fun to work all alone in silence. While music is a loving companion that remote workers are relying on, today we have even more sounds to bring us into the state of togetherness. You can be in the comfort of your home office or coworking space while listening to a summer storm or sea waves crash against the shore while you work. For those of you who are more productive in the coffee place, but can’t be bothered to put on some decent clothes, there’s a coffee shop sounds app. And it’ll trick your mind into believing that you actually are at a coffee shop.

We also tickled the listening habits of remote workers in our survey. We found that remote workers in majority rely on their ears to stay focused (79 percent).

Still, 21 percent of remote workers prefer no sound at all while they work. So if you’re one of them and you didn’t find this advice useful, read on to hear my last tip.

Go for a walk

For me it’s one of the best ways for dealing with alienation — getting out of your head and getting on your feet. A walk can bring you out from physical isolation; it can help you see that the distance between you and other people is not so huge — as it appears while you’re somewhere all by yourself.

Just being outside and seeing other people pass by — without even interacting with them — can open you up to the outside world. And wane the perceived distance from it. A good walk can also flood your brain with endorphins and completely turn around how you feel. You can walk in the park, on the streets, or just aimlessly stroll around your neighborhood. And sorry, but circling around the room doesn’t count!

Those were my hard-fought wisdoms on how remote workers can deal with a lack of social connection that comes as a part of the job. I truly hope they’ll help you cultivate a sense of belonging and keep top of your mind different choices you have when loneliness strikes.

Getting out or staying in, there are always things you can do that’ll make you feel more rooted and connected.

Alone, after all, is different than being lonely. 

And if you have other ideas or a different approach on how to deal with the solitude of remote work, let me know in the comment! 

Guest writer Ana Casic is Media Relations Coordinator at TalentLMS. Get in touch with Ana on LinkedIn or Twitter.