What Is the Most Difficult Thing About Being a Digital Nomad?
How do they combine their job and free time? What tools do they use? And what do they gain from their lifestyle?
What is the life of some famous Czech digital nomads? How do they combine their job and free time? What tools do they use? And what do they gain from their lifestyle? Those are some questions that Martin Kavka asked few modern nomads for Czech online magazine about traveling. I happened to be one of the nomads.
What is the biggest challenge of digital nomadism for you?
To combine time for work and for family. I had to teach my brain to be constantly ready for a change. I found out that change is the only certainty on the road. So sometimes I can be lazy and sometimes I work hard and late at night. Often my family go to the beach while I have to sit behind the screen, or I work late when the whole caravan is asleep. But if I don't load up too much work, I can always manage.
Today we live by the vineyard, Portugal.
Standing office. Another option for a graphic workplace
So how does your schedule look like?
The basis was to tune up the process and not change it, only when some crisis come up. On the road I try to have 3 to 4 business days and 3 to 4 days for resting. When I'm in a time pressure, I have plenty of room to work on some of my free days. On the contrary, when everything goes as planned, “nomadism” can sometimes be considered a real vacation. What helps me to organize my time is Google Calendar and the Toggl time app.
My children don't accept much that I'm working even when I'm at home. You travel with your kids, how do they respond? How did they deal with the fact that the time for work and fun is separated?
That's also a challenge. Most of the time they understand that they can't disturb me when I'm working with my headset on. But since we started with the school attendance and occasional homeschooling, we have to teach the girls that not every time is ideal for studying. I also had to reset my working schedule for different triggers than usual – commuting, office, meetings, boss … My work is dictated by a calendar, and my motivation is philosophy of “completing and invoicing”.
You can live like a nomad even with your kids.
Our journey across Europe for work. Or more likely while working.
You live in one place with MacBook, family and Ikea furniture. It's same as in any small town, only you get much more from life.
The bills for the year 2016 were more colorful than usual.
Anything smaller than one-room flat? A caravan.
Is it convenient to travel by a caravan, all the time equipped by all your stuff?
Definitely yes. I've been searching for around one year for a way to get rid of the caravan and exchange it for a camper van or extension of our pickup. It would allow us to travel off the broad asphalt roads. But so far I haven't been able to find anything, that would give us as much comfort and at the same time we could easily go into the woods or something.
What did the nomadism teach you in your work and personal life?
Most of the stuff I gain from nomadism is about traveling and learning about new cultures. I don't care very much about our president, I stopped watching news, which only brings misinformation every day. I've started to appreciate every day and look more for what I enjoy. Since we started the nomad lifestyle, we also eat healthier and as a family, we spend more time together than if we lived in the usual everyday routine: „Earn money, pay high taxes, borrow money for a house, pay it off and die“. Also it helped me and my family to rearrange our priorities. Because when you add bunch of travel days into each year, it takes time from other activities. Me and my wife always discuss what to trade for what. What do we want the most and the least. And by that we shape our future.
Original article was published at Slava nazdar vyletu, a Czech website.
