Being a digital nomad is all about freedom. You have the freedom to choose where you want to work and when you want to work. You get to choose what you do after you’re done working too: if you prefer to watch TV in bed or explore a deserted island. That’s all up to you.
A lot of people out there are going to tell you how you should live your life, whether you’re a digital nomad or not, and you shouldn’t listen to them. Yes, being a digital nomad is hard sometimes, and you have to sit down and work, but it doesn’t have to be that hard.
I want to show you how I spend most of my days, not because I want you to do the same thing, but because I want you to know you have the option to live your life this way if that’s what you want.
San Juan Del Sur is this awesome beach town on the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua and even though there is a lot to see and experience, it’s not what I’m after. I don’t tour around the country every weekend. Otherwise, I’d burn out physically and financially. Instead, I stay put in San Juan and live slowly.
9:00 AM
It’s time to wake-up. I’ve never really been a morning person, and I love to stay in bed for a while before getting up. To be honest, it’s actually surprising that I get out of bed around 9 AM, considering that when we were in Europe, we were never up before 11. That’s the freedom, baby!
A morning person could definitely start their day a lot earlier than us, but we chose not too.
10:00 AM
It’s time to start working. I turn on my computer and head on our patio upstairs. It isn’t a perfect place to work from, but I’m outside, and I’ve got the best view of the bay, so that’s where I sit down! But, to be honest, I don’t always get this lucky! Most of the time I have to work inside, at a tiny kitchen table.
12:00 PM
It’s time for lunch, so we take a quick break. We might have to head into town to get some food, or if we’re lucky we have some left-overs that we can warm up. Because Chris works downstairs in the dark, we share about what we were doing and maybe get some awesome ideas from the other person.
1:00 PM
It’s time to get back to work! I know that I don’t have that much time left sitting upstairs, as the sun can get pretty hot during that time of the day, so I do as much as I can. What do I work on, you ask? A lot of different things! If I’m not writing a blog post for FarmBoy & CityGirl, I might be writing one for CityGirl’s Design (my new business), creating a WordPress theme to sell or working on a client’s website. I’ve always got something waiting for me, so it’s not that hard to get back to work. It’s actually much harder to make me stop than to get me going!
4:00 PM
If I haven’t stopped working already, it’s time to do it. By then, Chris and I get tired of staring at our computers and decide to head to the beach for a half hour of swimming. If it keeps us relatively in shape, it does wonders for our brains! We might have been mentally exhausted before going in the water, but when we come out, we’re fresh again!
4:30 PM
The sun is already going down, and it’s time to go back home. If we have to buy something quick from the grocery store, we do it before heading home. Once we’re there, we take quick showers and head upstairs to relax. Chris sits in his hammock for the rest of the day, and I relax in my beach chair (as hammocks make me dizzy).
6:00 PM
If we haven’t started already, it’s time to cook dinner. We’ve been here for two months already, and we still have problems knowing what to cook at night, so we go to restaurants more often than we’d like to admit, but we do cook at home most of the time!
7:00 PM
For the rest of the day, we just relax. We can either sit upstairs and talk, or I’ll watch some TV on my computer while Chris plays on his computer. I might work a bit more in the evening, but it doesn’t happen very often.
10:00 PM
Time to head to bed, even if that doesn’t mean sleeping yet. Chris and I have a tendency to talk for a while and share cat videos before we can sleep! So that’s what we do, before eventually falling asleep and hoping loud music or fireworks aren’t going to keep us awake for the whole night…
That’s it! How does that sound to you? To be able to work from abroad, we needed a routine, and this one implemented itself rather quickly. Some days, we might also ditch everything and go on a boat cruise or chill at home the whole day, while keeping our computers off. That’s what freedom is all about!
But if someone ever tells you that you have to work for 12 hours in a creepy hotel room to be a digital nomad, don’t listen to them. There are as many different ways to be a digital nomad as people doing it. Only you know what you want your day to look like, but you’ll need to work for a part of it, and enjoy the rest.
I work for 4-6 hours on average, 4-5 days a week. I work smart so that I don’t have to work hard. That’s my trick! 🙂
Pin this Post!
