# Working from home alone: how to feel less isolated By Gulagha Gozalov, 2026-10-21 Canonical: https://roomie.cafe/blog/working-from-home-alone If working from home alone feels lonely or makes it hard to focus, a few concrete changes help most: give the day a fixed start and finish, work somewhere else at least one day a week, plan regular contact with people you like, and work alongside other people even when they are not in the room. None of these needs a new job or a big budget. It is 15:20 on a Wednesday. You have not said a word out loud since the delivery driver at 10:00, the laptop has been open for seven hours, and the task you planned for the morning is still open in a tab. That afternoon is very common, and there is research on why it happens and what helps. We make [Roomie Cafe](/), so one of the suggestions below is our own product. Roomie Cafe is a free focus timer you share with friends. It is one option among several, and most of this post works without it. ## Is it normal to feel lonely working from home? Yes. Buffer's State of Remote Work report for 2023 surveyed 3,000 remote workers around the world. One in three said their biggest struggle was staying home too often because they had no reason to leave, and 23 percent picked loneliness. When people had to choose one single biggest struggle, staying home too often came first at 21 percent and loneliness second at 15 percent [1]. Researchers have studied the same problem for years. In 2008, Timothy Golden, John Veiga and Richard Dino surveyed 261 professional teleworkers and their managers. Workers who felt more professionally isolated performed worse, and the effect was stronger the more time they spent teleworking. More face to face contact made the effect smaller [2]. During the first months of the pandemic, a team led by Bin Wang and Sharon Parker interviewed people working from home in China and then surveyed 522 more. They found four main challenges: work bleeding into home life, poor communication, procrastination and loneliness. Social support was linked to lower levels of all four [3]. If you feel flat and scattered at home, nothing is wrong with you. You are missing things an office used to supply without anyone planning them. ## Why is it so hard to focus when you work alone at home? Part of it is structure. At home nothing tells you when the day starts, and nothing tells you when it ends, so work spreads thin across all of it. Part of it is company. People tend to work differently when others are nearby, which we explained in [why focusing alone is harder](/blog/why-focusing-alone-is-harder). An empty flat gives you neither. ## How to make working from home less lonely Pick two or three of these and try them for two weeks. You do not need all of them. ### Give the day a shape Decide when work starts and when it ends, and write both down. A short routine at each end helps: a walk around the block before you open the laptop, the same at the end, so your body knows the day has edges. Inside the day, work in blocks with a timer, for example 50 minutes on and 10 off, and get up during the breaks. If you need a starting point, our guide to a [Pomodoro timer with friends](/blog/pomodoro-timer-with-friends) covers lengths that work for different tasks. ### Leave the house some days Book a day or two a week somewhere else: a public library, a café you like, a friend's kitchen table, or a coworking space. Many coworking spaces sell day passes, so you can try one first. The research on coworking is mostly small and qualitative, but it points in a useful direction. Lyndon Garrett, Gretchen Spreitzer and Peter Bacevice studied one coworking space closely and describe it as a place where people do their own work in the presence of others, partly to feel part of a community. That feeling grew from small daily acts such as saying hello, running into the same people and joining in now and then [4]. ### Plan contact with people you choose Loneliness at home often comes from contact that only happens by accident, and at home accidents do not happen. Put it in the calendar instead. A standing call with a friend on Monday morning. Lunch with a former colleague once a month. A walk with a neighbour after work. Wang and colleagues found social support linked to lower levels of all four remote work challenges they studied [3], and support usually comes from a handful of people who know you, not from a crowded group chat. ### Work alongside other people You can get some of the office feeling without the office. Body doubling means working while someone else is present, in person or online, each on your own task. A study with neurodivergent participants describes it as a range, from quiet background company to active accountability, with people choosing the point that suits them [5]. Good research on how well it works is still thin, and there are no randomized trials yet, so treat it as something to try and judge for yourself. Ways to try it: * Ask a friend who also works from home to sit on a silent call or in the same room for a morning. * Join a virtual coworking session; we compared options in [free virtual coworking](/blog/virtual-coworking-free). * Use [Roomie Cafe](/), where you press start, pick what you are working on and a length from 5 to 90 minutes, and see who else is focusing right now. On Roomie there is no webcam, no microphone and nothing to book. People see your name, what you are working on and your timer. When the timer ends you write one line about what you got done, and friends can cheer you on. It runs on the web and as an [iPhone, iPad and Mac app](/app). It is free with no limit on sessions; an optional Supporter plan is described on the [pricing page](/pricing). If cameras put you off, we wrote about [body doubling without a camera](/blog/body-doubling-without-a-camera). ### Close the day on purpose When you live and work in the same rooms, the end of work is easy to skip. Shut the laptop, put it out of sight if you can, and do something that marks the change, such as cooking, a phone call or going outside. There is evidence that switching off matters. Sabine Sonnentag and colleagues followed 309 employees for a year. Those who mentally switched off less after work showed more emotional exhaustion, and switching off softened the link between heavy demands and later health complaints and lower engagement [6]. Buffer's 2023 survey found that 71 percent of remote workers say boundaries are very important, while only managing them moderately well [1]. ## Working from home and living alone If you also live alone, the house can go quiet for days. Make the plans above more fixed: a set day out of the house, a set call, a set place you go. Small daily contact counts too, like a chat at the bakery. Seeing people working at the same moment, on a screen, can make a long afternoon feel less empty, and it adds to human contact without replacing it. ## Can working from home alone lead to depression? Loneliness and low mood can go together, and a long stretch of isolation can make both harder to shake. We cannot tell you whether what you feel is depression, and a blog post is no substitute for someone who can. The NHS says a low mood that lasts two weeks or more could be a sign of depression, and suggests talking about your feelings with a friend, family member, healthcare professional or counsellor [7]. If low mood stays with you, talk to a doctor or a mental health professional. If you feel in crisis or have thoughts of harming yourself, contact local emergency services or a crisis line straight away. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans answer on 116 123 [7]. In the US, you can call or text 988. ## FAQ ### How do I stop feeling lonely working from home? Plan contact instead of waiting for it: a standing call with a friend, a day each week in a library or café, and working alongside others online. Give the day a clear start and end so work does not fill every hour. ### Is it bad to work from home alone? Many people like it and do it well. Surveys and studies do link remote work to loneliness and professional isolation for some people, so it helps to build in contact and time outside the house on purpose. ### How do I stay focused working from home alone? Set a start and finish time, work in timed blocks with breaks away from the desk, and keep one clear task per block. Working while other people are also working, in person or online, helps many people start and keep going. ### Can working from home cause depression? Nobody can say from a blog post what is behind your low mood, but isolation and low mood can feed each other. If low mood lasts two weeks or more, talk to a doctor or a mental health professional. ### What can I do if I work from home and live alone? Fix a few things in your week: a day out of the house, a call with someone you like, and regular small contact such as a walk or a class. Online coworking or a shared focus timer can add company during the work hours. ## References 1. Buffer. [State of Remote Work 2023](https://buffer.com/state-of-remote-work/2023). Survey of 3,000 remote workers, with Nomad List and Remote OK. Retrieved 21 October 2026. 2. Golden, T. D., Veiga, J. F., & Dino, R. N. (2008). [The impact of professional isolation on teleworker job performance and turnover intentions: Does time spent teleworking, interacting face-to-face, or having access to communication-enhancing technology matter?](https://doi.org/10.1037/a0012722) *Journal of Applied Psychology, 93*(6), 1412 to 1421. 3. Wang, B., Liu, Y., Qian, J., & Parker, S. K. (2021). [Achieving effective remote working during the COVID-19 pandemic: A work design perspective](https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12290). *Applied Psychology, 70*(1), 16 to 59. 4. Garrett, L. E., Spreitzer, G. M., & Bacevice, P. A. (2017). [Co-constructing a sense of community at work: The emergence of community in coworking spaces](https://doi.org/10.1177/0170840616685354). *Organization Studies, 38*(6), 821 to 842. 5. Eagle, T., Baltaxe-Admony, L. B., & Ringland, K. E. (2023). [Proposing body doubling as a continuum of space/time and mutuality: An investigation with neurodivergent participants](https://doi.org/10.1145/3597638.3614486). *ASSETS 2023, ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility.* 6. Sonnentag, S., Binnewies, C., & Mojza, E. J. (2010). [Staying well and engaged when demands are high: The role of psychological detachment](https://doi.org/10.1037/a0020032). *Journal of Applied Psychology, 95*(5), 965 to 976. 7. NHS. [Low mood, sadness and depression](https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/feelings-symptoms-behaviours/feelings-and-symptoms/low-mood-sadness-depression/). Retrieved 21 October 2026.