- Have you ever considered becoming a digital nomad?
Well, we're going to talk about that today on The Journey.
- Do you ever catch yourself
just day-dreaming about what it would be like to,
I don't know, travel, explore the world
while also getting work done?
Being a digital nomad.
I saw, actually, 89%, so that's almost everyone
that's a digital nomad for six months or more
have zero plans of going back to office life,
and I will say, did you know that
I'm a digital nomad?
- Well, I don't think so.
- Yeah, I don't work in an office.
I actually have been doing it since 2015,
so for a while, and yeah, no plans of going back.
This is my vibe, digital nomad for life.
- Working from home however you want.
Maybe in your pajamas until four in the afternoon.
- You got that video call, just dress up.
- So a digital nomad, take Emma, for instance.
Someone that doesn't have an actually physical location
that they have to report in every day.
- Location independent.
- Exactly.
You can work where you want,
and it's so freeing and you're not tied down
to an office.
- Yeah, or office clothes.
Business wardrobe, I have zero.
Yeah, so definitely a digital nomad.
New term, and a lot of the reason why that is
is because of technology.
With technology today and so may careers
and job rely on it heavily, like mine,
you're able to travel the world, globe hop because of that,
and if I didn't do so much on my laptop,
I wouldn't be able to do that,
so I'm very fortunate.
A lot of my day in and day out, it's all computer,
which, you know, you get a little restless.
But imagine if I was actually globe trotting with this,
then I wouldn't get so restless,
but I'm gonna go into some best practices
in a little bit about remote working.
- All right, Emma, so you know
I'm considering going into the digital nomad lifestyle,
van life, it's a little scary
going from nine to five, having that structure,
but now having all that freedom.
So any tips, where do I start?
- Yeah, so to say bye to the desk,
my tip is to find remote work
that really highlights a skillset of yours.
So what's something that you would consider
as a good skillset you could take on the road?
- I know one, budgeting.
I take care of the budget for my household,
so I keep Excel spreadsheets with everything,
all the bills, what's coming in,
what's going out, I can even project two,
three months into advance.
- I could use your help, but yeah, that's great.
That's great.
You could do that, charge people, Excel, laptop,
take it on the road.
Yeah, so with that skillset you're gonna take on the road,
really key component is getting the word out
that you do this, marketing yourself,
so I definitely recommend having a personal website
that outlines maybe your experience
or share some examples of what you've done,
but yeah, you definitely wanna make sure you get that
word of mouth out there online.
- And is it good, also, to maybe think about social media?
- Absolutely.
Get that Instagram, Facebook, Twitter going.
You could do that on the road as well.
All right, so that leads me to tip number two.
Find a suitable working space and get to work.
So you mentioned the van.
- Yes.
- I gotta ask.
You're gonna be in a van,
you're gonna be traveling, sounds super rad,
but don't you need internet?
- True, we did do some research
and you do have some options.
You can get something from say,
your wireless carrier where you have a hotspot
that allows you to have the internet.
So we did do a little bit of research.
- But definitely, there's a lot of options out there.
This digital nomad, like I said, recent term,
but there's a lot of them already out there,
so what's become pretty popular are coworking spaces,
and I get asked all the time.
Emma, you've been working remote for years.
You're a digital nomad.
Why don't you go to a WeWork?
So finally, I was visiting my friend, Emily in New York.
This was last October,
and she's like, "Yeah, my company I work for
works out of a WeWork."
So I finally got to go check it out.
You guys, it is awesome.
They had free coffee,
they had trivia certain days of the week,
karaoke, and then you're in this environment
with all of these other people, focused,
just like you need to be while you're there.
Sometimes when you're at home,
maybe it's hard to stay focused, right?
Think about the space, get to work,
and from home, it might work really well for you
if you have a separate room,
like I have an office in my home,
so that's where I have conditioned that space.
When I'm in there, it's work time.
- So what you're saying, you have it separated,
like the work-life balance type thing?
- Yeah definitely.
- But at the same time,
I heard a saying a little different.
It's work-life focus.
When you're at work, it's work,
but when it's playtime,
you don't do any work.
You stay focused on which one
at the specific scheduled time.
- Yeah, and that's really important
because sometimes you get burnt out, right?
So for me, when I'm done for the day,
I'm done for the day.
I'm not checking my email,
I'm not on the instant messaging with my team,
I just close it out.
But yeah, it's a good thing.
I like that focus, work focus.
Now, it's always good, like in most scenarios,
to have a plan B.
If you don't have a coffee shop to hop into
or a coworking space,
just think about what else can you do,
where can you go where there's internet?
One of my favorites, just a few blocks down the road
from where I live is a library.
- In Austin, where I'm from,
I know that they allow you, at the downtown library,
to rent out a room and you can have that room,
you have wifi, however, one of the issues there
is maybe that room's not gonna be available
when you need it, or where you are,
maybe your library doesn't even have a room.
So that's something to keep in mind as well.
- That's true.
But, you know, plan ahead, have a plan B,
maybe even a plan C,
and when in doubt, I'll tell you what,
I've relied so much on my hotspot.
You can take it on the road,
you can do work from a boat.
So it's really important that when you are committing
to this remote work as a digital nomad
that you say focused
and one of my favorite ways to do that
is a Pomodoro Technique.
Short breaks, it's key.
I know one way I do it at home
is I'll be just reaching a point in my work
where I'm shifting gears,
it's the perfect time for a break,
so I'll do something like just go outside for a minute,
go walk, go the grocery,
get that one thing I forgot on my grocery list, you know?
It's just 20 minutes outside, in the air.
Sometimes I even plan my workout schedule
or I'll do my yoga right at one PM that day
just to give me that little break
so that I'm rejuvenated and therefore can stay focused.
- She's really making this digital nomad thing
sound so enticing.
- It's very appealing, yes.
- But if you do want more information
about that Pomodoro Technique, check out the video.
We did one before.
- Step three, super important.
Consider your requirements and your safety.
So wherever you're going,
think about the internet you're using.
Is there internet?
Also, I like to have a good jam bag
that's a go to, has everything I need
like my chargers.
That is the worst.
I was on a plane recently,
and I had so much work to do
and my computer was at 22%,
plus the battery's old so that was about 10 minutes
of juice, so have that jam bag, be organized,
know what requirements you need
so you don't hit a bump in the road
when it comes to getting your work done.
- Interesting, last night when we were doing karaoke,
we saw, they had a power bank distributor.
You could swipe your card,
and you could get one of those power banks
that you could charge devices
and that was pretty cool.
That's something that you might want to take with you
and you may not always find one of those depositories,
so to speak, that takes out those power banks.
- Yeah, actually, I do that a lot with my phone.
Well, I got a new phone, thankfully,
but my old phone, it would die on me, literally,
just randomly, and that really hurt my requirements
because I use my phone for work,
so I started to carry the portable chargers.
Highly recommend it.
- And when considering your digital security,
you wanna make sure that when you're online
and using some privacy
or inputting some private information, use a VPN.
- Ooh, virtual private network.
- Yes, so going back to me,
think about maybe doing budgets for people,
that's a lot of sensitive information.
- You need to keep that private.
- So that VPN's gonna come in handy.
So, with modern technology today
and the changes of the work environment,
you're no longer stuck in a cubicle,
so you can actually head to the beach
as a digital nomad and still get your work done.
Actually, come to think about it,
I have a meeting coming up.
All right, that's a wrap.
You just learned how to become a digital nomad,
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Thanks for watching.
This is The Journey.
See you next time.