Dealing With Remote Loneliness

I’ve worked remotely for most of the last decade and have long been a strong proponent for this movement. It has so many benefits it becomes difficult to list them all. This has been especially true as a parent, having the flexibility to be able to work around pickups and drop-offs and sick days and playdates and etc and so on.

What I wanted to highlight in this post is not so much all the many positives, but one of the major drawbacks or tradeoffs that I have experienced and still continue to struggle with whilst working remote, loneliness.

This is perhaps exacerbated in my and many others’ situations when combined with living far away from the friends and family we grew up with. Though it can have an impact on anyone in different ways and can seem to thrive in the vacuum that’s left when you don’t have that regular office-centric interaction.

Loneliness is one of those afflictions that creeps and seeps into your life, difficult to define and approximate when and how it happens, but there it sits as a weighted shadow in your life.

Unfortunately, loneliness is an epidemic of our age and by no means unique to those working from home. However, it can feel more poignant with the absence of the daily office experience, team collaboration, meetings, coffee runs, lunches and after-work drinks.

I’ve noticed some correlation between those long durations alone transitioning into feelings of loneliness with remote work and have heard others battling with this topic as well. More recently those who were new to working from home when it became the new standard during the pandemic. Though that is a rather extreme and high-intensity version of remote work - due in part as it was by force rather than choice and within the context that social interaction broadly was limited for many of us during this time.

Here is a shortlist with a few ideas on combatting remote loneliness that I’ve tried and think are worth giving a go to see if they help others:

• Just getting outside, for a walk and exercise does seem to help, you can also go to a public space for this like gardens or a park to be around people.

• Visiting or working from a cafe, whilst not directly social it does have the feeling of company and just having people around now and then gives a bit of an office feeling.

• Getting a pet, especially if you live alone — this constant companion with its affection and need for interaction is a nice change, and getting out of the house for breaks to play or walk is also positive.

• Listening to music — food for the soul in any situation 🎶

• Pair-programming, or an adaptation of that as pair-working for a time-boxed window can be a nice way to recreate the experience of working together, with that impromptu dynamic interaction that often occurs naturally in person.

• Meeting up with people for lunch or a coffee as a work break or after work. Ideally, this could be a regular arrangement, weekly or bi-weekly.

• Team/company meetups, now that’s broadly possible again, I always cherished these in person catchups with my colleagues. Apart from a nice excuse to travel somewhere with expenses covered — it makes such a difference to team cohesion and bond when you know each other in person.

• Meetups generally, whether they be interest or activity-based, just finding communities to be part of, especially when living abroad is a good social outlet.

Those are the ones that jump to mind, if you have other suggestions I’d love to hear them either in comments here or via Twitter @fullstackpapa.