If you’ve been working from home for a while, you may have heard of online co-working. But if you’re new to this or you’re working from home way more than you used to due to Covid, then let me introduce you to the world of online co-working.

Online co-working has been around for years!

Whether you’re a freelancer, contractor, or employee, virtual co-working can benefit you. Working from home can get lonely so these online spaces were designed so that people can still have that “office” atmosphere. Virtual co-working allows you to connect with others no matter where you are in the world or what time it is.

There are tons of spaces online, you can find them in Facebook groups or through a Google search. With virtual co-working becoming even more popular than ever before there are often way more options and different types of co-working spaces for whatever you need.

Some offer collaboration with others in similar industries, so you have someone to bounce ideas off of and learn from. However, some offer mostly silence and allow people to have a quiet time where they can focus on their work while having others around. There are even some that provide events. Some groups also use tools like Slack to build a further sense of community and connection. We, for example, have an awesome coworking group there, as a part of our ever-growing Resource Library at Rebel Office, which, by the way, if you haven’t checked it out yet, I strongly recommend you to do so. It is a lifesaver!

If you can’t decide on just one way that you want to work, some platforms offer all these options in one service. These types of platforms use “rooms” so there could be a quiet room, a private chat room, a break room, and a collaboration room. I suggest you test out a few different ones and see what’s best for you and keep in mind that your needs can change from day to day.

Some people even use online co-working spaces as a social break, like a snack break or “water cooler chat”. With so many options these days you can have these spaces be whatever you need them to be for you to do the best work that you can do.

You can choose to do morning motivation, mid-day focus sessions, evening wrap-ups, every day, once a week, whatever. Honestly, it’s whatever works for you! You can even create your own virtual space if you have a team or a group of friends who all work online.

Ultimately these spaces are designed to build community and connect with other like-minded people. These spaces are great at increasing efficiency and productivity while lowering anxiety, depression, and isolation.

Another great benefit of online co-working is the accountability it provides. Everyone that works from home has had times where it’s hard to focus on the tasks on your to-do list. Whether you’re feeling unmotivated, distracted, tired, or just plain lazy, you have to find a way to refocus and get the work done.

Something about having strangers watching you work makes you want to stay focused and get your work done. Instead of procrastinating and falling into a YouTube rabbit hole or binge-watching a Netflix show, online co-working can be great for this!