Digital Nomads: Best Tips to Work Smarter, Not Harder
Having a fulfilling life as a digital nomad is attractive. You’ll be able to travel and see the world while spending your time learning new hobbies wherever you are and get inspired every day.
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As digital nomads you'll be able to work anywhere worldwide as long as you have a laptop and an internet connection. But it's not all guaranteed to be fun and games. You'll need to find ways to stay motivated and productive while working remotely. That's why we've put together this list of our favorite tips to help you work smarter, not harder, for anyone considering living this lifestyle.
Let's take a look at some general tips for working smarter. These include the benefits and disadvantages of being a digital nomad, organizing your time, and finding the right balance. You'll need to find ways to stay motivated and productive while working remotely.
What is a Digital Nomad?
According to Marisa Megan, a digital nomad is a person “who works remotely to support a specific lifestyle, often involving frequent travel.” Typically, digital nomads attribute a higher value to new experiences, cultural exchange, and flexible careers.
Megan asserts that becoming a digital nomad can take planning, patience, and persistence, as different job opportunities are available for this lifestyle.
Likewise, Megan suggests these tips to start an exciting lifestyle as a digital nomad from now on:
Find your rhythm: Even though becoming a digital nomad can be liberating, sometimes, this experience can be overwhelming. Therefore, it would be vital for you to develop excellent time management skills and have an inspiring location to work.
Discipline is everything: You can enjoy a fantastic lifestyle while being a digital nomad. Nevertheless, you must keep track and exhibit your discipline to enjoy the best locations globally.
Self-care: remote working requires excellent time-management skills and other qualities, such as flexibility and agility. These skills and qualities will allow you to have time for proper self-care. Self-care is not only pampering but prioritizing your health and well-being by exercising, taking yoga classes, and sleeping well. Also, remember that avoiding overworking is a sign of self-care and love.
Always stay in contact: if you travel, remember to be reachable by your supervisors at work and your loved ones. So, invest in a good cellphone and a local SIM card.
Save time for you: know how to unplug from your remote work to find happiness in new hobbies, visits, and experiences.
Benefits of Digital Nomadism
Undoubtedly, thinking about leading a life as a digital nomad can be promising. Planning several trips a year, balancing personal and work life well, and enjoying perfect mental and physical health is a definitive milestone for anyone to achieve, but there's more.
Have a Flexible Career
One of the primary advantages of developing a lifestyle as a digital nomad is flexibility.
By introducing flexibility in your life, you can plan how to adjust your own work schedule to achieve your personal and professional goals.
Have Excellent Health
A flexible career and an excellent work-life balance will allow you to enjoy optimal physical and mental health. In addition, your health can be considerably improved if you try to have an exercise routine, a balanced diet, and good rest.
Work on Your Own Terms
If you become a digital nomad, you will notice that you can work on your own terms. Consequently, you can start your workdays when you want and carry out your assignments without feeling overwhelmed.
More Motivation and Energy to Pursue Your Dreams
You will have more motivation to pursue your dreams when becoming a digital nomad.
Likewise, seeing different locations and having new experiences will give you the energy to enjoy life.
Get Inspired by New Locations
While you travel, you can get inspiration from engaging and exciting locations. For example, do you want to enjoy paradisiac beaches in Hawaii? Or, maybe, you prefer a more cultural destination, such as Madrid or Salamanca in Spain. You can take the best of your favorite places to get inspired.
Being Part of Global Communities of Digital Nomads
We recommend checking digital nomads’ groups on social media, coworking spaces, meetings, and joining online communities, such as Nomad List or Remoto Workforce. You will find other digital nomad groups in Bali, Mexico City, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, and the United States.
You will gain insights and ideas about how to live in each city and have a wonderful life as a digital nomad.
Challenges of a Nomad Life
Not everything in the life of a digital nomad is easy. There are not always advantages, and there are struggles that digital nomads have to face in their daily lives. Jan Peter describes the emotional challenges experienced by digital nomads:
Growing Apart from Friends
Digital nomads usually have a difficult time making real friends. This is due to one of the primary aspects that shape the digital nomad lifestyle: constant movement. Since you’re constantly traveling and changing residences, it can be complicated to have friends. As a result, you feel alone and isolated in your work and a country where you do not know much of its cultural dynamics. Hence, it is essential not to lose contact with your support network; to do this, you can count on technology.
Being Alone Amidst a Crowd of People
The feeling of being alone amidst crowds of people can be intense. Sometimes, you will want to meet lots of people. However, getting to know someone well and establishing lasting bonds can be tough. At other times, you’ll be surrounded by many travelers and digital nomads like yourself, but you will want to spend your time alone. Building solid bonds with people requires support, trust, and time. Consequently, Peter advises you to stay in certain countries or places for long periods to make as many friends as possible.
Work-life balance is not always easy to achieve
Work-life balance is one of the great promises of remote working and digital nomadism. By working from different locations, in the comfort of a home or a beautiful place, remote workers are expected to have more motivation and energy to carry out their daily tasks while protecting their well-being. However, this is not always possible for a digital nomad since detaching personal life from work cannot be attainable.
Establishing the border between work and personal life in physical workplaces is easier since waking up, having breakfast, going to an office, and returning home to rest have been established and culturally accepted in some societies. For this reason, whether you work remotely or live as a digital nomad, you may want space and time to work and have fun or rest.
The lack of routine can be stressful
Moving from one location to another can be a blessing or a curse for a digital nomad since you will never get used to a place. Indeed, people look for this when they have a life as a digital nomad. However, moving and settling in different areas at specific times can be mentally and physically exhausting.
Infrastructure
You will not always have adequate infrastructure in all the places you decide to live. For this reason, getting an Internet connection will almost always be a real challenge. To avoid problems with the Internet connection, you can work in cafes and hostels.
We also highlight other challenges of a digital nomad lifestyle:
Medical services
Access to medical services varies considerably from country to city and even city to city. You can access particular health services in some destinations, while in others, you will not. Therefore, we recommend you continuously invest in good travel insurance. Although paying for travel insurance every time you move will be difficult, you can do it if you plan your budget thoroughly.
Maintaining a Constant Flow of Income
Maintaining a continuous flow of money will always be a challenge. First, differences in currencies can affect your income. Also, if you do not have a remote job in a company and get your income from freelance work, your income will go up and down frequently. Hence, your budget must be defined with flexibility. Using a bank account like Marcus that can help track your spending on all accounts is beneficial.
Final Tips to Succeed as a Digital Nomad
Finally, we share our best ten tips to succeed as a digital nomad:
Choose a city with digital nomad communities.
Manage your bank account, cards, and credits properly.
Choose a location compatible with your working hours.
Invest in the best cellphone and laptops and get a SIM card for each part you plan to live and work.
Get the best travel insurance possible
Save time in your schedule to work, travel, and have proper rest.
Unplug: be offline sometimes to not get saturated by changes in routines, emotional issues, and overworking.
Keep your support network: you can rely on your loved ones when you feel tired or sad the most. The primary purpose of having a support network is to feel loved while you’re abroad.
Conclusion
Although being a digital nomad can be tough, it's worth it to have the freedom and flexibility to work from anywhere in the world. By following these tips, you'll be on your way to becoming a successful digital nomad.
Author Bio
Jamie Wilson is a Freelance SEO content marketing professional living and working in CA. She loves sharing her HR business expertise and hopes to inspire other women to start their own businesses and seek career growth in the workplace.
This is a guest article provided by Remoto Workforce. Full-time remote employees and virtual assistants in Mexico. For more info: remotoworkforce.com
