May 12, 2023
Fast Company
Laya Neelakandan
May 9, 2023
Most weekday mornings, Cate Scott Campbell, who runs her own communications company, logs onto a coworking session from the comfort of her home to kick start her day. The 50-minute sessions, on a platform called Groove, create a virtual space for her to get her tasks done alongside up to three strangers. The work is bookended by check-ins with the other participants to talk about goals and then report back on how much was accomplished.
In her daily Groove session, Campbell typically completes tasks like organizing her to-do lists and replying to emails, helped by the fact that there are other people in the session to hold her accountable in a low-stakes way, which she says was the impetus for her to join the platform. Otherwise, she says, working from home often lacked the structure she needed to get things done.
“When I first started Groove I was like, ‘Oh, I’m going to write a novel,’ and of course, I’m exaggerating, but it’s been really helpful to go, ‘Okay, if I’m taking this dedicated 50 minutes to do something; what really can I do during that time?’” Campbell says.
Foenix says while people worked from home before 2020, the pandemic undoubtedly accelerated the shift toward remote work. “More people are finding themselves in these situations where they like to work from home, or even study from home, but it’s distracting and it’s also lonely sometimes,” says Foenix. “Cofocus brings it all together: You have the community . . . and at the same time, you get stuff done.”
According to Groove CEO Josh Greene, virtual coworking spaces can do more than just help remote workers increase their productivity: It’s also about creating a sense of community—something that many people say they’ve been missing since the onset of the pandemic. That could mean getting matched with strangers or setting up a space to get work done with friends.
“We really are committed to building the dream coworking space for people [who] don’t have a team,” Greene says.
Larry English, a future of work expert, says that while the virtual coworking space concept is relatively new, it makes sense, given the general trend toward embracing virtual, hybrid, and asynchronous work.
“Hybrid and remote work are very much here to stay,” English says. “The better you get at remote work and hybrid and asynchronous work, the less you go into the office. So, I think over time, we’re going to see people start with hybrid, and increasingly move to remote.”
Like Cofocus and Groove, LifeAt allows users to come together for a 50-minute session with the scenes and sounds of cafés. However, the platform also offers an option for solo work. “We’re creating these spaces where people can find this deep work flow state,” says LifeAt CEO Devin Ajimine.
Ajimine says the company’s seen students naturally gravitate toward virtual platforms since the pandemic, with companies and employees increasingly mimicking that trend. Ultimately, the root of the concept comes down to people’s desire to communicate with others, Ajimine says. And it’s that connection, coupled with the need to get things done, that keeps people coming back.
