I went from working remotely 3 time zones away on legacy code to working remotely within the same time zone on a new project, and I love it. Before that I was w

I went from working remotely 3 time zones away on legacy code to working remotely within the same time zone on a new project, and I love it. Before that I was working in an open-plan office near my home, for a different company. I work at home but go into the main office once a week — it's an hour away. It's a small office — IT department is under 20 people, team is 6 — and I'm the only remote person. The bigger difference, though, is that I'm doing contract work instead of working as an employee — it was the only way to get around my current client's rules about remote work. And it turns out that hourly contracting is really good for my mental well-being and productivity. ADHD micro-deadlines FTW! Since I see people once a week in person, it's not entirely remote. But I don't do any real work there. Overall it's the most productive I've been. Partly because I can control my home office environment, and partly no commute, and partly the hourly thing (see above). We have screen-sharing 1:1 meetings multiple times a week to collaborate on technical things. It's not quite as good as walking over to someone, but it works fine. You mentioned loneliness. I have a family that prevents that, and I get out a lot.