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How to Survive Remote Work Isolation
Just like the office, working from home comes with serious downsides
I’ve been working from home in a one-bed flat alongside my wife for over 14 months now. It’s been… a testing time.
We’ve had to learn to manage our work-life and life-life, switching between being colleagues and a couple depending on where the clock hands sit. We’ve discovered new niggles and irritating habits in each other and had to swiftly make peace with them else go completely insane. (Have you ever noticed how often your other half coughs? How loud they type? How loud they breathe?) We’ve had to manage our schedules to ensure we don’t gatecrash each other’s virtual meetings — though I did infamously embrace her in a cuddle without realizing she was on camera once. We had to put in boundaries and respect them, learning when to take time apart and when to enjoy moments together.
The fact that we just got married this month means we survived. We made it through the other side. But as my wife gears up to return to the office — what happened to “lets work from home forever!” — an existential dread is starting to grab hold of my stomach and tie it in knots. For the last 14 months, no matter how difficult it became between us, I’ve always had a companion; someone to share this experience with, someone who could prop me up when I was struggling, someone to share the little moments like a coffee break on the front doorstep in the sunshine. Soon, I will have no one, and join the many others who work on their own. The thought of the isolation is unnerving.
And with good reason. In research conducted about remote work among journalists, organizational psychologist Lynn Holdsworth discovered that full-time remote work increased loneliness over office work by 67 percentage points. In addition, multiple reports released over the pandemic, including the State of Remote Work report by the social-media management firm Buffer, highlighted loneliness as the biggest struggle remote employees faced.
I knew this day was coming, though, and I’ve done my best to prepare. I’ve been implementing a few strategies into my work and life schedules that I’m will continue to rely on to stave off this loneliness and ensure I’m looking after my mental wellbeing.
