Working remotely doesn’t have to be lonely

By TRISOFT team

Being a working from home freelancer poses a lot of questions from financial concerns to social aspects, one of which being the loneliness factor. Unlike working in a traditional office, you can’t just spin your chair around and start talking to some colleague. You’re not even around that many people because you’re no longer commuting everyday to work.

There’s no sugarcoating it — remote working can be lonely. However, you don’t have to let it make you feel lonely. Having a social life is totally up to you when you work exclusively from home. This means you have to make it one of your priorities to stay a social person.

Here are a few ideas to help combat loneliness.

1. Vary your workspace

There is no reason that home should be home each day of the week. On the contrary, the freedom to move around and vary your workspace should be explored to the fullest. You have various option — from coffee shops, to libraries or an outdoor location. We’ve talked about all the many possibilities in a previous post, so there are ways, you just need to go ahead and explore them.

2. Go out for breaks and lunch

One important rule of home working — get out of your jammies after breakfast, put on your regular clothes and this way you’ll be less likely to stay indoors. A big risk you’re running when really getting down to work is not being able to stop. Breaks are important as they allow you to unwind and keep your productivity high, but as much as possible you should avoid staying in. During your breaks and lunch try to go outside — take a stroll in the park, play catch with your kid, walk your dog around the block, go out to eat with a friend or colleague. Once you are back, you will have a better state of mind, you will be more relaxed and ready to take on new challenges.

3. Get some human interaction

In an office environment human contact is almost permanent — at your desk, in the meeting room, on the hallways, in the cafeteria. At the end of such a day, you might even crave some alone time :). Remote working has the exact opposite effect. The isolation that most home workers live in daily can cause working blues and make you crave human presence. Even when your relationship is digital, you can find the tools to give you more real time and a sense of presence with your team.

4. Use video collaboration software with your team

One great tool for remote collaboration is the appropriate software that can ensure face time with your team. Through the right software you will always be up to date with what your colleagues are doing. Video lets you communicate better with your co-workers, allowing contact in a more personal way — through nonverbal communication, mimic, eye contact. It’s a great way to feel like you’re working alongside your co-workers even when they’re hundreds of miles away. Also, with the appropriate hardware you can laugh in the face of remote working adversity.

5. Chat with your team

Maybe your company isn’t open to using video collaboration tools. Still, you can use a simple chat software to talk to your colleagues every now and then. And don’t stop at chatting about work related stuff, talk to them on other topics as well. Maybe ask how their weekend was, what their plans are for the coming holiday or simply how they are doing these days. It will help you get closer and stay more connected to your team. You could also plan some meet-ups — online monthly, or even weekly (if you think fit) gatherings — that can give you a sense of belonging, even if you’re at the other end of the world.

6. Start a co-working membership

In case your heart cannot settle for a home office and a few regular visits to coffee shops and gardens, and you still miss the office style, maybe you should consider joining a co-working membership. What exactly is that? Well, co-working memberships allow you to rent a space that you and other freelancers can share. You can use it to socialize, exchange ideas or find new professional challenges.

7. Listen to music

Sometimes music can be quite an efficient replacement for human presence. Music can fill the room, give you a good mood when you’re feeling low, get you dancing or thinking about a dear friend (maybe call him on your next break?). You can create a few playlists for different times of the day to enhance your imagination and creativity, increase your productivity or simply help you relax. Moreover, music can connect you not only to other people, but to yourself more deeply and honestly than many other ways you can think of.

8. Use social media

Social media can indeed be a great way to interact with other people, share photos, opinions, jokes and so on. It can also help you maintain long-distance relationships and even short-distance ones, in case you lack the time for face to face gatherings. However, there are two tricks to it. One is the fact that it can easily turn into a huge time-suck, consuming more than you’ve planned of both your working and your personal time. And secondly, it can give you the wrong impression that it can and should replace human contact. Don’t let yourself fooled — keep it real!

9. Get a pet

If you ever wanted to get a pet, now might just be the right time for that! Pets are awesome at keeping company and if you think about it, it’s a great thing for them as well, since you will be home a lot, more than anyone who goes to an office. So the dog, cat, ferret or whatever pet you have in mind won’t suffer from being home alone all day long and you will have a friend to ’talk to’, who can entertain you and mainly be present and available every time you want to take a break and relax. If you don’t have the space or possibility to get your own pet, you could even consider ’borrowing’ one — maybe a friend of yours needs someone to look over their pet during the day.

Conclusion

At TRISOFT, we strongly believe that remote working is the future. But at the same time we have learned that socialization is a skill that needs to stay in practice in order to keep being effective and not to become ’rusty’. It doesn’t matter if you’re the chatty-cheerful type or the quite-sit-into-his-corner type, everyone needs to spend some time with other people every now and then, over a hot or cold beverage :).

So in order to confront the challenges and not turn into hermits, we do our best to make sure our guys and dudettes have the time and desire to get to know their colleagues, to make friends and be as close to each other as possible. We like our team united not only professionally, but on a more personal level as well, and, as far as we are concerned, it proves to enhance not only our good spirits, but also our focus and productivity.