Working remotely, coworking spaces, and mental health (opens in new tab)

For the last 2.5 years I've been working at DigitalOcean as a remote employee. DO has more than 50% of the staff remote. I think it's important that a large chunk of a company & team be remote, to be successful in the exercise, so that there be a forcing function to use asynchronous communications. It's been really life changing for me.

We have a bunch of style of remotees; work from home, work from coffeeshop, work from coworking spaces and work from a new place every day.

I've tried all of these styles, starting with work from home, then getting super depressive from loneliness and getting a coworking space (DO pays for it), then realizing I didn't use it and instead working from a mix of home, coffeeshop, and random visits I pay to my friends. And now I've been switching to mostly working from the crazyest settings I can think of. I worked from camping spots, from a sailboat, in a national park, on a beach in Asia, and it all works out once you're used to "travelling from anywhere".

I'm having the best time of my life by experimenting with what it really means when your ability to feed is now decoupled from your physical location. I feel like I'm living in a future that maybe more of the people will have the chance to live soon, and that it's my duty to find a "Theory of Working In The Future". My first theorem is "Don't stay home everyday else you shall go crazy".

Also, think about the implications of OneWeb and the constellation that SpaceX has been working on; I'm thinking "what if I could get low latency/high bandwidth internet from the middle of any ocean"? The future looks bright.

[edit]: just realized I'm kind of praising my employer a lot here. My comment isn't meant as recruiting spam, tho I think DO's great to remote folks. Also we're building massive distributed systems everyday and it's fun. So uh... check this out? http://grnh.se/wv3fgo

As a remote worker, I would really enjoy a coworking space at least 1-2 times per week, but the hour commute and the expense just are not worth it for me. I've been working remotely for two years and absolutely go stir crazy, and even into fits of depression, when I'm not really pro-active about getting out.

I've been volunteering with a community theatre this year, which gets me out of the house after work most week days. My mood goes up about 10x when I do this. During the month or so downtime between plays though, things start going bad again.

I'm also involved with some other meetups/clubs and do piano lessons. Putting together a deliberate schedule of "outside activities", at least for me, is absolutely necessary to make it work.

And I would still never go back to working in an office!

I wouldn't consider myself an extreme introvert but I am 100% satisfied working from home (been doing it for 4.5 years now).

The author mentions socialization only in real life. What about online socialization? I still talk to 2 of my best friends in a chat room (used to be IRC, now we use Slack). I keep up with old friends on Facebook. I have discussions and arguments on HN and Reddit.

And probably most importantly, my remote company has a VOIP chat that everyone is on and we routinely have "water cooler" type convos, in addition to serious stuff.

So yeah, I think you can solve this problem without needing real life interactions. Embrace your digital life to the extreme! And, companies hiring remote workers need to support them better, with VOIP and text chat rooms that they can be in (with other employees) and feel like they're part of the team and not just a worker.

Overall a well written article with some valid criticisms. After 2 years working remotely I observed roughly the same facts, but have a slightly different spin on the whole thing.

Like everything in life, working remotely has tradeoffs. One person's pro is someone else's con.

Pro: I potentially gained hours of my life back every day. I know many people who work for similar companies who spend more than an hour commuting every day. They take less-desirable jobs and leave behind their coworkers just so they can get an hour of their life back and reduce their commute from 2+ hrs to 30 minutes.

Pro: I can disassociate my COL from the company's choice of office location.

Pro: I can cook food in the crock pot on a regular basis without worrying about my house burning down.

Pro: I can walk my dogs during my lunch break (or pick up food from the grocery store or run some other errand).

Pro: (subjective) My coworkers competence is higher than what I typically observe from companies that limit their hiring pool to people who live within a few minutes (or hours) of one office building.

Pro: I can and have worked from a hammock, a camper van in a state park, a car on a road trip, and a cafe in Paris.

Pro: No requirement to waste literally hours of my day in bullshit pre-lunch planning, post-lunch coffee, etc. When I'm onsite I'm happy to spend lots of time on watercooler talk, but I'm not obligated to do it every work day.

Pro: I can go hiking on my lunch break.

Con: I don't see anyone but my spouse. I have to go to additional meetups in order to make up for this.

Con: Not as much face time with execs. This can matter politically and for your career.

I relate closely to this post, especially the position that working remotely is for a certain kind of introvert only.

To such an extent do I relate to it that I wrote a blog post about it a year ago:

https://likewise.am/2015/12/18/why-i-love-industrious-and-ab...

This post struck a similar note:

Working from home might genuinely be the ideal environment for those closest to the introvert end of the spectrum, and I think those are the people who form angelic choirs of blog posts asking if you have met their lord and savior, the Fortress of Infinite Solitude, Home Office Edition. For them, the quiet work environment makes their jobs dramatically more enjoyable. But for me, it was the opposite: I’d gone from management (high social interaction) to software development (lower social interaction), and from working in an office (hundreds of people) to working from home (two cats), and expected that this would all be fine.

This echoes my current gig to a tee: worked at home for a couple of months, went stir crazy, found an office. For me, the first office space was a hipster cafe type place that was just too freaking noisy. I moved to a Regus office which was ok but Regus were awful so a few of us clubbed together and got a truly shared office with both closed and open spaces for different type of work. I can highly recommend this setup as some days you just need to hole yourself up in a private enclosed office to do brain work. However the open space promotes social interaction and feeds the soul.

Getting a girlfriend who also works at home may be hard, but it can fix most of this problem. I liked working while my girlfriend was working at the same time...with some fun interruptions.

My company is 100% remote. And I recall very clearly in the interview process one of the most important traits to succeed - Be self-aware.

Everyone is different. Every new remote worker figures out what they need to do to make it work for themselves. And we do not all do the same things. But we all know ourselves well enough to try things, see how it works for ourselves, and figure out what changes we need to make it work. Of course, we also talk to each other, give suggestions, etc. But ultimately, to succeed on your own, you have to proactively care for your own mental health. And self-awareness is vital to doing so.

I joined a co-working space this summer and it was...meh. The people were nice and the facility was great, but I don't really see the point unless your employer is going to pickup the tab and/or you have a small apartment with no office or an insufficient one.

I found myself missing my widescreen monitor, standing desk, and chair. The amount of money I've sunk into my home office felt wasted when I used the co-working space.

And the co-working space would swing between eerily quiet or way too much noise. It seemed weird to go (and pay) for a co-working space where everyone is primarily staring at their laptops.

On the other hand, I would maybe consider going from a two bedroom to a one bedroom apartment if I had a full-time 24/7 use of a co-working space and then the cost would more than even out.

Excellent personal story on finding the right workspace in a remote situation. Home office vs. Coworking space is a conversation I have with other remote works quite a bit, and the answer is different for everyone.

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As someone who spent the better part of the last decade working remotely, and having read tens of rants about open office floor plans with which I agree 100%, I think that the problem here is that there is no Silver Bullet. Those of us who prefer a results only work environment will never thrive in an open office, and those of us who need human contact will not thrive in a results only work environment.

More likely if you're reading this, you're somewhere between those two extremes. I'm an introvert when I need to get things done, but I'm an extrovert everywhere else. I have seen just as many people crash and burn trying to motivate themselves while working remotely as I have seen people go quietly nuts in an open office.

I am going to be working from a co-working space in the near future, but I suspect that I will still need to spend significant amounts of time on my own in my home office if I want to stay productive. I don't expect that solution to work for anyone else, but after nearly two decades in the software industry, I know what works for me.

Coworking spaces are a mixed bag. I went there for few months but stopped again.

Good is that you face more serendipity than when working from home. But really, it is not that much more. After only few weeks, the novelty wore off and I got bored and saw more the downsides. Like super small tables, no dual monitor setup, always too cold, the commute, less free fruit, and the people. Some are quite nice and you realize that you need random social encounters but there are also the typical odd people to whom you cannot relate at all (like everywhere). Those people don't hurt but I remember one who reserved the best flexdesk the night before by leaving tons of her post-its and other papers there. No big deal but nobody who makes you happy either.

I knew most people I met there before. Bonding with new people without having a common mission was not easy, it just didn't feel natural (and I am rather the extrovert sales type of guy). So, you can still feel 'alone' in a coworking space.

I think a coworking space makes more sense if you need a space as a team and want or need to see each other f2f on a regular base.

For business meetings or doing interviews, I prefer lobbies of top hotels, they are even more representative than the best coworking spaces and at the end of the month also cheaper with full service included and no extra fee when booking some meeting room. And for two hours working away from home, I am a fan of Starbucks or any coffee ahop with good wifi.

> If you’re thinking of working remote, then think about what kind of working environment you’re happiest with before you take the job, and make sure you’ll have that environment available to you.

Seems to me that the best part of remote working is the ability to figure out what the best environment is for you. Don't be a theorist, be an experimentalist: try a bunch of different situations and see what you like best. It sounds like the author started down this path, but stopped too soon (at first).

> Are you sad when a lot of your office is out sick, or are you relieved?

Usually relieved, then I wonder why I bothered with an hour of driving to sit in the office by myself, when I could have done that from home.

> Do you get uncomfortable when you’re in quiet environments for too long, or do you revel in them?

Love quiet! My office at work has no windows (not even internal ones); being able to close the door and cut off the outside world is the best!

> Do you feel weirdly lonely when you’re in a noisy coffee shop, or do you feel energized?

Annoyed by the noise mostly. Coffee shops are for getting coffee and getting out. Libraries are way better for actual work, IMO.

5 years remote. Personal bottom line:

-- negative: lost interest in having friends (and generally the patience needed to talk to people), no social life, no career, work-life balance completely broken

-- positive: sleeping 8 hours a night! (and more if I need to), making walks in the park/training at noon, never really sick, comfortable home office, can be efficient again (only my job doesn't require that). Started having ideas again and thinking about side projects.

Before going remote, during 15 years I was commuting 2+ hours in the morning (so 2 hours again in the evening), sleeping 4 hours a night by the end of the week, dozing off the entire weekend and generally feeling extremely exhausted, mentally and physically, easily catching flu etc.

Would I move back to office employment? I really hope I won't have to.

I have a similar issue at the moment. I have tried co-working spaces, but I work with people globally and my day tends to start at 5am. So to get to a co-working space, I'd have to leave at 4:30am, and that's provided they were open (they aren't.)

I've spoke to one about potentially giving me a key to the space, and perhaps that would work, but it's often easier just to roll out of bed, throw on coffee, and start my meetings.

I tend to repeat, and stop going outside much at all, just staying indoors. That then perpetuates my desire to not go outdoors.

It's solvable though, it takes effort on my part to continue experimenting, and trying new things. It only becomes an issue when I just keep repeating the same situation. Definition of insanity, repeating same things, expecting different results.

What's an "off day"?

Working remotely killed my mental health. Even with Slack, Hangouts, and all the rest, I became lonely, had difficulty focusing on work, and generally became significantly less happy and productive. I tried a coworking space, and while I made some great friends there, it still wasn't doing it for me.

I've been back at an office job for about 3 months now and it's been a huge improvement. I love being in an office with a team of people all working on the same thing, solving problems together, and socializing.

Obviously, different things work for different people, but I wish I hadn't bought into the remote work idea as wholeheartedly as I did. It's important to be aware of what you get out of onsite work in addition to the drawbacks.

It is not just remote work either - I've noticed a trend in my work where although I work in an open plan office surrounded by people, my teams are increasingly "global" which means that usually there is 1 team member on their own in each office.

Although I am surrounded by people, since you're not working with these other people, and/or there are desk moves every 3 months or so as teams are growing, you only ever end up with very superficial "friendships"/social interactions. "Hello" "How was your weekend" "Which team are you on?" "I am on this team" etc etc. You're just doing it out of politeness really, then in a month or two they'll move on to another team/office or there will be another desk move and you're back to square one, surrounded by strangers.

It is not unusual for me to go a whole day in an office surrounded by hundreds of coworkers without physically saying anything to anyone apart from "thanks" for holding open the door.

It is extremely isolating.

I've been working remote now for 5 years. All from home (sometimes from a car or a cabin). It takes discipline and limits. In my case - limiting my urges to finish out a project or get a bit further at 2am. It can be a blessing and a curse. I'm getting ready to 'venture out' - spend time at coffee shop or coworking. For the record, I've been 'remote' in many roles; employee and consultant. Overall, for me, I find routine an absolute necessecity to get work done. By routine, I mean 'get dressed as if going into the office' - it's about mindset.

I love working at home. Not going out of my house for weeks on end doesn't bother me at all, and I'm much more productive when I'm working on my own. I think I could be quite happy as a shut-in. I can see how the lack of a social life would bother some people though. I guess the success of working remotely depends a lot on your emotional needs and personality.

On another note, I do have to disagree with the author with regards to making the most money in either New York or the Bay Area. Perhaps the salary looks bigger on its own, but when you consider housing costs, food, gas, taxes, and other costs of living, you actually end up making a lot less than you do in other locations. I've received multiple offers from the Bay Area, and one or two from New York, but they just can't compete, all things considered. Plus, I don't have any desire to cram my family into a 1,000 square-foot cubbyhole, when we can enjoy seven times the space elsewhere for half the price.

Living abroad I've gone the remote road since 2009. I went through a lot of this same stuff but never associated it with my being remote/working from home, though now looking back I can see it most likely did. My health and mood increased once I started to force myself out to socialize more and once we had our children - the household is always busy and full of noise and life now, versus before when my wife went off to work and I sat alone in a quiet apartment all day long. Since the birth of our second I've been doing my first sprint in any nearby coffee shop each morning and that has improved my mood and productivity even further. I've been toying with the idea of a co-working space and this article has convinced me to give it a go.

We are social creatures, to varying degrees, and if we limit out interaction with others too severely, I think it makes it too easy to look exclusively and excessively inward. I'm all about self-analysis and looking inward but there comes a point when you go too far and it's no longer about reflection but a feedback loop of anxiety/fear/self-doubt... at least that has been the case in my experience! Also, regular exercise (running, lifting) has always helped me out of these emotional funks.

Great post. The spectrum stuff is very important and it's important to be honest to yourself and during the interview process about what you expect. I now tell every place I interview being on-site all week is not gonna work for me. I need to be remote at least 2 days out of the week to recharge. Otherwise I will burn out in less than 6 months. Most places seem to be ok with that and make concessions to letting me do that.

Working remotely for 7 months now. Three things I do not miss are - neon lights which used to trigger my migraine on a regular basis, - 45-60 minutes of public transport commute in the heat/cold, - the need to look busy when the work is already done.

While I did experience a bit of a breakdown at one point, it is something to overcome. I like the "lazy days" of regular work in coffee shops, libraries and sometimes even pubs (no alcohol during work hours though, that's bad on so many levels). When there is heavy need of cognitive abilities, I tend to stay in, start the day with a cold shower, breakfast and coffee, then work at my standing desk.

I find standing desks really something all offices should support for their workforce. It keeps you active during the day and allows for greater focus. Start small, go for what fits your physique. Use a rubber mat. I would suppose it also helps with what the author calls "off-days", since I do not encounter them. There is always something to improve upon. If no hard-work is available, I just work on documentation and learning new skills that advance my work/life/career. This allows me a good night's sleep.

This mirrors my experience going from product support to software engineering. I moved roles in a company that was primarily a sales organization, so I still had a lot of responsibilities to other people that required social interaction. When I switched companies to join a product development team all the social interaction went away. In fact, earlier this year I went for several months without any real interaction with my co-workers, and I work in a cubicle farm. This had a severe impact on my mental health, to the extent that I'm in therapy now. I've since started seeking more interaction with co-workers during the day because I actually need it to work effectively.

People often write about software development as if it's a solitary activity, but I can only do my best work for other people. Having personal relationships with my co-workers makes me a stronger developer, and I can't do it remotely.

As a remote worker myself, I can definitely resonate with the dark sides of working remotely as described in this article. The lifestyle is mostly portrayed as living the dream, however the lack of social interaction and finding a proper work-life balance where you also set time aside for friends, exercise, or meditation for example, is pretty difficult. That's actually what gave me the idea to bring together a community of remote workers to work, live, and travel the world together where the hassle of accommodation, flights, work spaces, gym passes, and social activities are taken care of so remote workers can enjoy the remote lifestyle to the fullest. If anyone's interested you can find more info here http://www.theremotetrip.com

How many found new project ideas and partners in coworking spaces ?

For my job(s) the last 8 years or so, I've had a mix of on-site (10%), travel (40%) and work-from-home (the remainder). There have been very long stretches when I'm neither in the office, nor travelling to meet with customers, however -- sometimes, months. From my standpoint, I can commiserate with the author here. I live out in the hinterlands with my wife and 6 kids, so there's no shortage of social interaction -- however if I've been stuck here for 6 weeks, I begin to get a little stir crazy. I "recharge" by going to trade shows/events/meetups in NYC (which is about an hour and a half away) -- the energy of the city is refreshing, but I wouldn't want to put up with it every day. Just once in a while...

I have tried coworking in both co-rented offices and "office hotels" as well as work from home. For a long while I had a (pretty expensive) seat at a coworking space that I didn't use, but just knowing that I could leave my isolation at home and go there meant it felt less isolated.

I wish I could work in cafes, at friends etc, but I just can not bring myself to work without a proper big screen and keyboard, which means most nomadic coffee shop setups are off limits. One day working off my laoptop and my neck, eyes and and back hurts. I need a proper desk, which makes it a lot harder to move around.

>But for me, it was the opposite: I’d gone from management (high social interaction) to software development (lower social interaction), and from working in an office (hundreds of people) to working from home (two cats), and expected that this would all be fine.

Could be the change from bossing people around (being a manager) to being bossed around (being a dev)? Because all the rest (interaction with friends, walks, going to the gym etc) one could still have from working remotely -- like the author says they did for the first months anyway.

What I like about working from home with regards to socializing is that I get to choose when, where and with whom I socialize. I didn't have that control in an office setting. While most of my clients and colleagues are in other cities, I make sure that I have several local if for no other reason than to have some professional socialization opportunities. And of course there are a dozen groups that I could choose to participate in - actually more than I'd ever have time to do.

It's great to see a lot of agreement on this.

I agree with most of it.

Short commutes + some privacy at work would probably entice most people in.

Having 1-2 days a week at the office would be grand.

Being able to focus for long periods without interruption is quite important, frankly, I have no idea how software gets written in those cramped open workspaces with all the noise etc..

Granted, different types of software for different types of things.

I can imagine a deeply technical problem requiring more thought than say a lot of dev-ops, scripting, code reviews, bug fixing, etc. etc..

feeling isolated is not a good thing most of the people, that's why libraries, coworking spaces and meetups exist. After all, the human being is a social animal. But what we can do to prevent this is planning where to work from, where to go, analyzing if working remotely is good or not for us. I found this piece of content really helpful as I'm tired to read how nice is to be a digital nomad, well... it is if you're an outgoing person, or if you're the type of guy who likes to feel pushed to always go the extra mile. But we have to prevent people from just going to the middle of nowhere expecting amazing things will happen as you have to be the one who moves first. Loved this!

Does anyone know of a valid study of how workgroup size, the ratio of meetings to individual working time, etc. compared to well-organized remote work? By well organized, I mean designed to mitigate the problems cited in this article and otherwise.

I feel like an alien for my lack of social needs.

"Off days"

https://youtu.be/co_DNpTMKXk

I like my coworking spaces like I like my haircuts; effective with nobody talking to me.