RWL017 How to Break the Cycle of Loneliness in Remote Work and Enhance Your Experience

Preventing Isolation in Remote Work

Speaker 1

0:00

If you're worried about being alone and having those feelings of isolation as a remote worker, then this one's for you, because I know what it's like, having worked remotely myself for a number of years. I know what it's like and how it feels to be alone, in a sense, because in the early days when I worked remotely, I just I would isolate myself, and that wasn't deliberate. It just got to a point where I'd get so engrossed in my work that I'd start in the morning and then, by the time I knew it, it was good. You know, the day just flew by and before I knew it was time for time for bed and one day turned into two, turned into a week, turned into two, turned into a week, turned into a month, turned into a year and I began to. My productivity started to slide, you know, a little bit. I started to not really feel as though I was into what I was doing. My creativity went downhill. I felt all of those things, even physically. From a physical perspective, my body deteriorated. I became stiff, my levels of fitness just really sort of went downhill. And, like I said, it wasn't because I was deliberately isolating myself, it's because I was just becoming so engrossed in the work that I was doing, that I was perhaps not paying attention to the other things or the other important things. And one of those important things is human contact. Because no matter how much you like to be on your own, no matter how much you like your own company, we all need some form of human contact. It doesn't matter how much of an introvert you may be, you need that human contact. But having said that, as I said, in the early days I didn't really know that much about remote work and I wasn't really aware of what was in store.

Speaker 1

1:53

And as I've become more and more sort of accustomed to remote work, I've begun to understand that perhaps there's a bit of a misconception when it comes to remote work, and that misconception is sort of in the name itself remote, because remote gives you the sort of perspective or the feeling that you're on an island, that you're on your own, there's nobody else there. But in reality, some of the best remote teams are there for each other. They talk to each other on a daily basis. They socialize, they get together, because all they they understand that all of this human interaction is what inspires the best work, you know. So that misconception of remote work that isolation is, is is not, is not apparent in some of the best remote businesses and tax charge one of those, and what you'll find is I mean, I've interviewed a number of bosses of remote businesses and what they tend to do is they tend to go out of their way, in fact, to make sure that the, the, I suppose the communication and the interaction between their members of staff, their team, is on point, because they understand the actual effects, the potential effects that isolation can have. You know, mental health is a big thing. They understand that. They understand that interaction is what's needed. So what I've done in this particular episode is I just want to just summarize a few things that I recommend that you do, especially if you're not part of a big team or if you're a freelancer who works alone from you know much of the time.

Speaker 1

3:39

Here are a few things that I recommend that you do to get yourself out of that sort of um, out of that sort of cycle of isolation. It's really important and the first thing is don't isolate yourself, just deliberately. Don't isolate yourself. Schedule calls with a friend or a colleague during the day, or even just you don't have to schedule anything. That's probably a bit um, I don't know, probably a bit too sort of uh, formal in some ways. Maybe there's somebody that you can call at lunchtime maybe it's your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your partner, whoever it may be call them and just have a conversation, because even you know, the most basic of conversations can prompt and sort of inspire thoughts. It can help you just to sort of think about something else for a little while. You know, just take your, take your mind away from from what you're doing, because you can't just focus for eight hours a day, ten hours a day, whatever it may be, on the thing that you're doing. You have to break away for maximum sort of creativity, for maximum productivity. You know, like I said, schedule a call.

Speaker 1

4:48

I have a friend, I have a good friend who's also a coach and we regularly he's he's worked um remotely himself for a number of years and we regularly talk on skype. We. So we have facetime on skype and that really helps because, again, it helps because he's been in the world of business himself. He understands about, you know, the feelings of isolation that you can get working remotely. He understands that it's important to share ideas and you it's good if you can sort of find somebody who's like that, somebody who is you know, knows about business, knows about the world of work, so that, so that they can share ideas and they can, you can balance your ideas off them. So don't isolate yourself.

Speaker 1

5:35

So the next one I've got on my list is go to networking events and socialize. So something like meet, meetupcom is a great way, is a great platform for finding local meetups where you can have some FaceTime, because I think FaceTime, not just on the phone, facetime, human-to-human FaceTime is important. And the other thing about meetups is that sometimes you can. It's one of those places where or they have events where you can actually find potential clients. And again, it's one of those things, one of those platforms where you can find events that are related to your niche, events that can help you to to make friends, to make those contacts that you need to to thrive as a remote worker. So, yeah, go to meetups, meetupcom. Even eventbrite you must know eventbritecom, have a look and just see, see what's going on.

Speaker 1

6:38

And the whole point about socializing as well. It's not just where you have to go to a networking event which is work-related, maybe just call a friend or you know, if you make friends at these particular networking events. Go to a bar, go to a restaurant and, like I said, just free yourself from your desk and from the work mindset. You have to do that to refresh yourself desk and from the work mindset. You have to do that to to refresh yourself. So number three on my list is mix it up and and go to different venues. So, for example, there are days where I might work from home, from my home office, and then I might do that for two days, and then another day I might go into the library, which has really good internet, and then I might go to a co-working space on a different day. It just gives some variety to the to the whole process of work. You know, it gives some, it stimulates my mind and, again, going to the library is somewhere you can meet people who are, who are new people, who can. You can share ideas with people who you can just socialize with. And the co-working spaces co-working spaces, again are good for meeting people who may be in a similar situation to you and, again, great, great platforms for sharing ideas. So so mix it up, go to different venues.

Speaker 1

8:02

Another thing if you're not a freelancer, maybe, and you're probably just trying to get your, you know, dip your toe into the world of remote work. You may decide to, you know, work remotely for two or three days of the week with one company, and then you may decide that you want to go on-site, because not all businesses are 100% remote. Some businesses offer you the chance to work remotely for one or two days a week and then go on-site for two or three days a week. Two or three days a week. So mix it up. Or even if you are 100 remote, you you may have a part-time, remote job which allows you to work remotely for for that two or three days a week, and then you may have another job where you're on site for the next two days or so. So mix it up again.

Building Community in Remote Work

Speaker 1

8:56

Where, when it comes to working remotely and working on site, and the last thing on my list and probably I mean again this list is not in any particular order talk about your feelings, talk about what you're feeling when it comes to your, your work and your life. And because I think it's really important if you can find somebody who is a good friend, somebody who you can trust and rely on, somebody who knows you pretty well to you know really share your thoughts, share your feelings. Don't clam up, don't sort of keep all those feelings to yourself, because if you pile those, if you stack those feelings up, it can become a real, a real burden, it can become a real pressure on you. Talk about how you're feeling, how how work is going, what's going well, what's not going well, ask questions about how you can overcome any feelings of sort of I don't know anxiety that you may be having any feelings of, of loneliness that you may be having, because, like I said, you know mental health is an important thing and if you, like I said, if you if you keep all of those, if you keep everything into yourself, then it just becomes a burden to you. So I hope that has helped in some way.

Speaker 1

10:09

If you've got any more ideas about how you know we can, as remote workers, support each other in terms of those feelings of loneliness, those feelings of being alone, then please share them with me. And just to let you know I'm, I put together an event actually, which I hope will help you to begin to network. It's an online event, it's 100% online, but what I've done as part of the event, I've created a Facebook community which I hope is the starting point for friendships, which I hope is the starting point for new relationships. So if you go to remoteworklifeio, sign up for a ticket for the Remote Work Life Summit and join our Facebook group and come over and start a conversation. Who knows where it may lead. So that's it from me for now. I want to wish you all the best and I'll speak to you soon.