Pre pandemic, if someone had suggested a 100% stay at home role I would have firmly declined. I loved that four of my five days a week were spent traveling across the country meeting customers within a highly sociable role. I loved being out and about. And as a singleton living alone, socialising and making contact with new people was a great thing.
However when Covid struck the world, like many people my role became home based. Although at first it was difficult to adjust, I soon got into the swing of it. Working from home didn’t feel so bad after all. No commute was a bonus. I could work in my PJ bottoms and no one knew. Morning traffic wasn’t the bane of my life anymore. I didn’t feel as tired. And I had more time to spend with friends and family. Despite my initial concerns the whole working from home thing felt pretty great to be honest.
Yet three years down the line, ask me again how I feel about remote working and I’m not so sure. Especially as someone living alone.
Here’s a few of my own challenges with living alone in tandem with working from home.
Trying to keep home and work separate whilst working remotely
I don’t imagine this challenge is one only experienced by anyone who lives alone.
Working from an office, or any other location, creates a sense of separation between your work and personal life. But when your office is merely a few steps away from your living room, it’s hard to halt work or gain that mental distance when the laptop isn’t so away. Which makes it far too easy to dip into the workload pre-working hours and post, or lose a lunch break by thinking, ‘I’ll just do that one email’, and then before you know it the time to recharge is gone.
I think I can safely say that no-one loves a commute to or from work, but strangely, I miss them. Because those commutes offered time to wind up or down to or from the working day. And then when you get home you then enter ‘personal life’ mode. But without the commute, there doesn’t quite feel that disjoint from personal life and work, and so there’s never quite the full sense of being completely away from the 9-5.
It’s a strange situation to have your home, be invaded by your job
My home is quite literally my safe space. And work is the thing I’d like to leave behind at the end of the day, yet can no longer do so completely because it’s right here, in my home, constantly metres away from me.
And whilst I felt that my mental health was at first positively boosted by a more flexible remote working schedule and zero traffic stressed mornings as these benefits, afforded me more personal time. Only a few years later, I actually feel I have less time overall in a home based role. How ironic? Quite simply, I’m unable to draw a complete line between work and home mode. And so I am actually working longer hours than when I had a commute to factor into the equation.
Steve Hogarty has written an interesting article on how to separate home and work whilst working remotely, but unfortunately, as much as I try to set boundaries on my working hours, and have created a hidden away area in my living room for the home office, and as much as I try my best to utilize a lunch break by walking the dogs – which doesn’t happen often enough – and try to limit peering at the emails pre or post work, I still can’t seem to find that long-term balance with remote working.
Working from home isn’t providing the overall benefits to my mental health it once was
I really only have myself to blame of course. After all, no one is forcing me to log on outside of my contracted hours, or giving me a hard time for taking every minute of a lunch break. Yet I still can’t seem to break the tie from work in the same way I could when I left the office and all the work stuff behind in a different location to the other side of my living room.
Social Isolation
Without a team or colleagues to natter with outside of Teams or Zoom, the remote working world can feel quite small. Virtual calls can only offer so much in terms of feeling connected with colleagues. And mostly those virtual calls are distracted by incoming emails and Teams messages, so you don’t get that same attentiveness to the conversation as you do when stood in front of them. There also isn’t so much of an unwind from screen time, as a scroll on the phone has replaced the mid-morning coffee chats I’d have had in an office environment.
How does this impact someone living on their own?
Well, to be honest, I’ve realised that I heavily relied upon my work life to provide me with social interaction throughout the day. Those ‘How are you?’ and ‘What’s for dinner’ chats around the coffee machine might seem mundane and unimportant at times, but I’ve come to miss those simple conversations. Because unless I have plans with friends or family of an evening, I could spend an entire working week only speaking to people virtually.
When I do spend a rare day at the Head Office now, despite the long commute to get there and the ridiculously early crack of dawn start with hours of traffic induced anxiety, I feel invigorated by the coffee break conversations, general catching up with colleagues and the buzz of a packed office. The in person contact also helps to feel a part of a team or company and I come away feeling super happy.
Working from home for a long period of time can leave you feeling pretty disconnected from colleagues and the business. Those seemingly small moments of checking in with a colleague whilst making a brew, have a weirdly deep impact on wellbeing. And a hybrid approach likely creates a more happy medium for myself and my mental health as someone who lives alone and doesn’t naturally have as much social interaction outside of the working hours during the working week.
Daunting social anxiety
To be honest, even pre-covid I used to experience some social anxiety. Meeting new people didn’t ever feel entirely comfortable, yet my default humour to mask my uncomfortableness, inability to be anything but totally honest – and occasionally, way overshare – and my love of learning more about people, has served me well in creating good relationships and offsetting the social anxiety.
But ask me if long term remote working has impacted my in-person social skills? Absolutely.
Nowadays I have to gear myself up before meeting someone in person, and so my social anxiety is most definitely heightened from a lack of in-person social interaction on the daily. I realised this when I noticed myself avoiding in person contact. When I was asked to attend in person meetings or networking opportunities and I declined where possible, I knew something was up. And when recently I spoke in-front of about ten people and my nerves were going wildly crazy, I thought, ‘This isn’t who you used to be.’
Pre-pandemic it wasn’t unusual for me to stand up in front of hundreds and deliver a still slightly nerve wracking, yet confident presentation. But the trouble with now is, it’s a never ending cycle. I know socialising in person is good for me, but I also struggle to do it from lack of practise. I’ve had to force myself to say Yes to things at times and get back into it because I know in the long term it will improve if I keep pushing through the uncomfortableness, And I do feel bloody great afterwards, which keeps me doing it.
Living alone definitely means I need time with people IRL, and so I have to make that effort. Because otherwise I’m likely to morph into a total hermit and become allergic to any kind of social interaction.
An extrovert working in an introverted world
To be clear I’m 100% an extrovert. But I’m also 100% one of those extroverts who thinks she’s secretly introverted as she occasionally likes a day or two to herself. And whilst I need more reflective alone time as I’ve gotten older, in reality, I am energised by people and I’d be rather lost if I ended up on a dessert island by myself one day.
Sophie Blaine said it best in her article ‘An Extroverts Guide To Working From Home’. “Working from home is an introverted fantasy, but for those extroverted, this could feel like a complete and utter nightmare. Extroverts gain energy from socializing and surrounding themselves with people who bring up their serotonin levels, so working from home probably sent many extroverts into total disarray. Silence and solitude: two words an extrovert never wants to hear in the same sentence.”
Spending time with people recharges my soul
I love talking to people and learning more about them. I love talking through ideas. Creating positive energy, is totally my thing. I enjoy communicating my ideas and engaging with people. And yet working from home is not really a suitable environment for an extrovert I’ve come to realize. Especially for an extrovert who lives alone.
Being someone who loves to engage with other people, and now being totally reliant on those engagements mostly via a screen and so less connected in a way, it’s a challenge for sure.
Working from home is definitely more suited to those who like to reflect and consider their thoughts inwardly, and aren’t saddened by the thought of long working weeks of solitude and silence. For me, remote working just doesn’t cut it to maintain a work life community in ways I realize I need to improve my productivity, quality of work, my sense of connectedness to colleagues and the company, and to stave off feeling a bit sad and isolated.
The negativity spectrum
I used to be pretty positive. But slowly (and sadly), my sway towards the negative side of the spectrum has increased. I’ve considered this a lot, and come to the conclusion that all of the above has had a big impact on how I react, interact, and the vibe I put out there.
Less social interaction, struggles to separate work life from personal, increased social anxiety, putting in longer hours at the desk, lack of peer support or contact, lack of feeling connected within a company or to colleagues, it all has a big impact. Combine this with living alone, and these are real challenges to wellbeing, resulting in a less than feel good vibe, low mood, and not reacting as positively as I once did.
In a BBC article written by Katie Bishop in 2022, she references the association people have of working from home with an overall positive thing for wellbeing and mental health, as far more complicated than it at first appears.
Working remotely sounds amazing on the face of it, but it has its challenges and detrimental effects
New data suggests that “80% of workers feel that working from home has negatively impacted their mental health,” pointing towards “An increasingly complicated picture emerging when it comes to the wellbeing of home-workers.”
Has working from home adversely affected my own mental health? And/or negatively impacted my social skills and heightened my social anxiety? It’s a solid Yes for me. And has this been made worse by the fact I live alone? I believe so.
Of course this isn’t a topic only relevant to remote workers living alone, yet I’m highlighting this portion of people, as they do seem a bit forgotten in all of these discussions. Remote workers are lumped into one pot, and whilst we are all facing the same challenges to varying degrees, I do believe that as someone living along and remote working, it takes the challenges to a deeper level.
So remote working might sound idyllic, but in truth it’s not a way of working life for all. For those of us who live alone, the remoteness of predominantly at home roles represents many further challenges to maintaining good mental health and wellbeing.
Of course different people will view working from home, differently
But that’s kind of my point here. It’s not straightforward or a model that 100% has the same impact on each person. Personal circumstances absolutely affect whether a working from home role eventually leads to benefits or downsides. And so companies should consider this if they are aiming to do more for the wellbeing of their employees.
For me, I’ve come to recognize that the lack of social interaction hasn’t been the best for my mental health or wellbeing, and so I need to seek ways to improve that outside of my 9-5 role, or incorporate a form of hybrid working to ensure I get in-person social interaction within my job at times.
I’m hoping to find balance.
Hopefully one day I’ll find it.
Amy Roullier
Amy Roullier is a British writer and author of Silent Reflections of a Fragile Heart. For her, writing began as personal therapy and has evolved into a way to connect with others, posing questions and offering reflections that might help readers find clarity. Based in Lincolnshire, Amy is an occasional vegetarian and a dedicated lover of carbs—her true soulmate. She’s currently navigating a mid-life crisis through running, and mornings are simply impossible without coffee.
