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When we hear the term digital nomad, the first thing that comes to mind is freedom, fun, and quick money! We believe it’s an easygoing lifestyle, working from the beaches of Bali today and traveling to Bangkok tomorrow. But to successfully live the digital nomad lifestyle, it takes a great amount of commitment, discipline, and most importantly, a resourceful set of tools to keep work flowing regularly.
Being productive with exotic beaches or historical landmarks nearby isn’t easy but technology has made remote work possible and so with some restraint from your side, you would be able to lead this lifestyle the best way possible.
What to have in your Survival Kit?
This lifestyle isn’t all fun and games, in order to keep it in effect, you need to get work done and be productive so I put together a survival kit with all the essential tools you’ll need to happily live as a digital nomad and get work done.
Your Basic Tools:
- Your laptop/ tablet: This is the number one item you should never travel without. Whichever device you choose, all your work and tasks will get done through it so having a good operating laptop with you is key to this lifestyle.
- Laptop Accessories: These are the small items but necessities that come with your laptop like your portable mouse, touchpad, USB, or anything else that you might need while working in a café or workspace.
- Chargers: The worst thing that could happen is having your phone battery or laptop battery die and forgetting your charger at home or losing it altogether. This will not only slow your progress but can possibly ruin your whole day. Keeping your charges nearby is very important, in fact, look into buying a portable charger for your phone so it’ll always be fully charged.
- Internet Connection: It’s no surprise that having internet is the main core behind all your tools and apps working and since you are, after all, a “digital nomad” all your work is online so no internet can definitely be a problem.
- Headphones: This may seem unimportant to you now but when you’re stuck in a noisy airport or jammed café, you’re going to wish you had your headphones! Listening to music, a radio station, or your favorite podcast will eliminate any distracting noises around you while working and will help you stay focused.
Essential Work Tools:
- Communication: When you start traveling internationally, staying connected isn’t easy, whether it’s with your team, clients, or friends and family. But thank God for the internet! You can use a popular app like Skype to do phone or video calls or something like Telegram for more secure messaging or sharing files with your team. And lastly, we have Google Hangouts, one of Google’s many cool apps to do phone and video calls or chat.
- Project Management: Getting sidetracked when surrounded by the new culture and fun things to do is likely to happen. With a project management tool, you can easily keep track of your tasks, follow-up on pending tasks, delegate tasks to your team, and create separate projects. The most well-known app, Trello gets the job done. You can also check out a simpler app like Buckets where you can track tasks in color-coded boxes or Asana.
- Scheduling: If you have an important meeting or an event to attend, you’re most likely need a reminder. Every nomad should have an organized calendar of upcoming tasks and events so nothing will slip through your busy days. This is where Google Calendar comes in handy; however, Google Calendar isn’t the nicest scheduling app out there. Calendly took things a step further and checks your availability and sets your meetings for you!
- Virtual Mailbox: Being a digital nomad means you’re away from home for long periods but that doesn’t mean your postal mail will just disappear. You need to be sure all your postal mail is addressed and taken care of and that’s where PostScan Mail comes in! Offering an online mailbox, you’ll be able to view and control all your postal mail online. With just a few clicks you can scan, shred, forward, or archive any mail piece. It’ll be just like handling your email.
- Data Sharing: For better collaboration with your team, you need to be able to share documents and sheets with them and nothing does this better and safer than Google Drive. However, for more storage space, 18 GB, you can look into Dropbox with a starter package at $12.50.
Conclusion:
The road to freedom isn’t too far away! By using the right tools and having a strong internet connection, achieving location independence and working according to your schedule is doable. Check out WorkHardAnywhere to find the best workspaces and cafes near you, in whichever country you’re in with great Wi-Fi speed, availability, and parking.
Photo by samer daboul from Pexels
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