Did you know you are quite possibly already a Digital Nomad? Maybe just without the nomadic part…yet! If that term is new to you, it probably won’t be for long. And by the end of this article you will know why it could be the best thing that ever happened to you!
The Digital Nomad Revolution
Less than a year ago, most people did not think much about working from home or traveling while working. Many employers didn’t think it would work to allow their employees to work from home. They felt they would lose productivity and control over their staff. A small percentage of people in the workforce were able to work from home at least a few days a week. However, the vast majority of people went to work every day like lemmings heading for the cliff!
Then along comes a pandemic and suddenly everyone’s world changed. In the blink of an eye, many of us found out we CAN work from home. Many companies discovered that it actually worked pretty well! The majority of people that can work from home are actually more productive than in an office. They commit more hours of their day and can save the time of commuting, have shorter lunch breaks and take fewer sick days.
The Advantages of Remote Work
One recent study showed that after dividing 1,000 employees into two groups for a year, one group working in the office as normal and the other group having just one day per week of working from home, the working from home group produced 13% more results over the course of a year! At the same time, the company saved a lot of money on utility costs with many employees in the office out just one day a week. In an earlier article I wrote, available at this link https://www.escapeartist.com/blog/how-to-go-from-fear-to-relaxation/ , there are further examples and even some personal data noticed by our own ECI Development’s increased productivity and decreased costs.
Discovering you can work from home, and maybe more importantly, your employer (even if you are self-employed!) discovering the advantages of you working from home is very powerful. But it’s only the first stage of the discovery.
If you are a “Knowledge Worker”, working from home is a real possibility. And not just during a pandemic. Knowledge workers are people who have jobs such as computer programmers, architects, engineers, scientists, designers, physicians, public accountants, lawyers, and academics. As well as a host of other occupations where you are mostly required to “think” for a living. If you fit into the knowledge worker category, you have an amazing advantage over others. In truth, you have a very enviable choice to make. Realizing you are already someone who can work from home is only the first step. The second step is realizing that your home can be anywhere in the world! Or even several places in the world! That’s a powerful realization!
You may already be a “Digital Nomad” – You just haven’t put the “nomad” part into practice yet
Once you make this realization and step outside your comfort zone, you can enjoy one of the most amazing lifestyles. Think about it. Why does your home have to be where you are now? In fact, if you can do your work from anywhere, why aren’t you? Imagine working from a tropical beach or from a monkey filled jungle? Or both at different times of the year. It’s not just about adding adventure to your work/play/life mix. In fact, it can also be very financially beneficial.
One of the things I see overlooked most by people contemplating relocation or a digital nomad lifestyle is the fact that you can maintain your earnings while lowering your cost of living dramatically. See yourself doing what you do today, working from home, but then going out to a tropical, open-air market and buy enough organic fruits and vegetables to last you two or three weeks for under $5. Or better yet, grow your own organic food in your tropical yard or in your community’s communal orchards and gardens. Imagine how much money you could save, while enjoying life so much more. The result of that is a much earlier retirement. But maybe, more importantly, not waiting until retirement to have an awesome lifestyle!
At ECI Development we create communities where you can create this kind of lifestyle for yourself. I know it’s very doable because it is how my wife and I live right now.
So what are the top five reasons to make the change in your life? Well, my top five reasons are below, but there are also many more reasons that I’m sure you can think of.
Reason #5: Freedom
Personally, I value freedom higher than most things in life. Not just work freedom, but freedom from governments that dictate whether an economy should be shut down, which businesses get to win big and which small shops close down forever. I’m definitely a libertarian, but that’s a whole other article!
Even if we focus on work freedom, as a digital nomad, I actually give my employer many more hours of my day. This is true whether it’s on weekdays or weekends, compared to a 9-to-5 office job. But I like the freedom of choosing which hours those are and what priority I set for each piece of work I have to get done. If I wake up and am inspired at 2am, that might be the best time for me to work on a project because I am giving the most creative time I can. Likewise, if I need to go get groceries at 10am on a Wednesday because I ran out of coffee, I can do that and I’m not going to feel guilty about it!
The freedom to choose where we work from is the most important part of my wife and my digital nomad lives. As a doctor, my wife consults with patients online. Both of us are able to work from anywhere in the world. We choose to make several countries in Central and South America our home bases. And we try to spend several months over the course of a year in each. Several of our friends do the same thing. Actually, we see the popularity of this kind of lifestyle increasing every day. The reason many have adopted this lifestyle is not only for the adventure, but for the next reason in the list.
Reason #4: Save Money!
Working from home saves you money. It eliminates commuting and other expenses, such as buying lunches at restaurants. More impactful is the fact that where you choose to work from may have a dramatically lower cost of living than where you live today.
Many people overlook this very important fact of saving money when thinking of becoming a digital nomad or relocating to another country. It is likely much less expensive to live in a Central American country than in your current home. The price of real estate is usually much lower. Besides, the cost of living to have an equal or higher standard of living is often less than half of in North America.
Reason #3: Simplify your life!
One of the things you’ll find, and ultimately appreciate, if you choose to move to either a smaller footprint home such as one in one of our tiny eco home communities, or be adventurous and spread your time over multiple communities, is that you’ll become a minimalist! It’s pretty hard to drag a lot of paraphernalia along with you if you have a nomadic lifestyle or live in a smaller space. Thus, you’ll quickly discover what things are important to you. You’ll be able to free yourself from the clutter you may have built up over the years. I used to have a large home full of stuff in Canada. Currently, I find that having very few material things now makes me much happier. Having fewer things to fix, maintain, care for and just generally worry about makes life a lot more enjoyable. When we are young we think we should amass material things. But, once we are older and wiser, we realize that the fewer things we have to complicate our lives, the more we can enjoy the ones that mean something.
Reason #2: Self Sufficiency
Although you can be a digital nomad and not be more self-sufficient, working from home generally tends to remove the shackles of a typical workaholic lifestyle. It allows you to lead a more self-sufficient lifestyle. The digital nomad communities we develop at ECI Development all come with some form of self-sufficiency. We combine that with a definite push for the community members to be good earth citizens. Whether it’s using solar and wind power to eliminate your power bill or growing your own produce, self-sufficiency is liberating. It is also enjoyable, providing freedom from reliance on government infrastructure.
Self-sufficiency also links very closely with reason number #4, saving money! Whether you achieve full self-sufficiency or just improve, it is empowering to manage your needs and save considerably. It allows you to potentially add significant funds to your bottom line at the same time. You can choose a work/life balance whereby you work fewer hours because your cost of living is so much lower. Or it allows you to take a risk and try a new work-from-home career, even later in life. This is only feasible when the cost of living is low enough to afford building your business without worrying about the high costs of a typical North American lifestyle. So whether you want to sock away money for a rainy day or retirement, you want to work less because you have much fewer expenses, or you want to venture out on a new business idea, you will have created a lifestyle which lets you make any of those choices.
Reason #1: A healthier, less stressful lifestyle
This is closely tied into reason #3 but goes beyond the minimalist concept. It’s also about spending more time outdoors, more time with loved ones, and more time on the things you like to do. Even though you may spend more hours on work when you work from home, you’ll find that the flexible schedule allows for more pockets of time throughout the day. This extra time can be used to have meaningful discussions with family and friends, engage in hobbies you previously didn’t have time for, or go outside and enjoy a hike in the jungle around your home.
As I mentioned earlier, I tend to work more hours than if I had a typical 9-5 office job. However, I accomplish many more things for myself because of the freedom to do things when I want to. Sometimes, my wife and I will find ourselves having a deep philosophical debate in the middle of the day. We just allow ourselves the time to do so. Or I’ll walk over to the guitar and write a song in the middle of the day when a melody hits me. The song will likely never be heard by a public audience, but that’s not the point. I wrote it for my personal enjoyment. If I didn’t have the lifestyle I currently have, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to just stop what I’m doing and pick up a guitar. Sometimes I’ll walk out our door in Belize or Nicaragua, sit down and watch iguanas or tropical birds for half an hour. It might seem unimportant, but watching nature’s fascinating creatures is relaxing and can help recharge my brain to go back to work on some complex topic.
So there you have it. My Top 5 Reasons to Become a Digital Nomad.
I’m sure you can think of many more reaons. For example, the opportunity to see and live in new parts of the world. If you have the ability to work from home, I encourage you to step back and ask yourself; “Why wouldn’t I want to work from home and choose to have my home in a beautiful climate where the quality of life is very high but the cost of living is very low?”. And If you can’t work from home now, think about what it would take to make it happen. Many people are shifting from location-dependent careers to being knowledge workers who can live anywhere they like. With a dramatically lower cost of living, you will find that taking the risk, letting go of what makes you comfortable, and venturing into a new dream is possible.
There are several inexpensive consultants that can help you discover what opportunities are out there that would allow you to make the move. I’d be happy to put you in touch with them.
Is it time for a change? The lifestyle you dream of is not that hard to attain. If you’re ready to make the change, we’re ready to help you do it!
Mike Cobb
