If you have dreamed of traveling extensively without compromising on your work, you may be in the right mindset to be a digital nomad. This lifestyle is an excellent combination of work and play/travel that lets professionals explore the world as they navigate their work responsibilities in tandem.
Digital nomads are known to travel extensively with their offices in a backpack, meeting deadlines working out of a campsite in the mountains or attending video conferences from a beach. However, humans crave rest and stability in life – and being a digital nomad can quickly lead to burnout if not practiced mindfully.
Let’s discuss some great strategies you can use in your digital nomad lifestyle to keep burnouts at bay and make the most of your workstation.
8 Tips to Avoid Burnout To Live A Digital Nomad Life
You have no idea how popular the concept of digital nomads has become, especially after the pandemic.
The popularity doesn’t end here. Of all the digital nomads in 2021, 85% were happy with their lifestyle, according to the same report. What kept them going? How did they avoid burnout? Let’s take a detailed look at that.
1. Join a Community of Nomads
The digital nomad lifestyle can get a bit solitary. Since humans are social creatures, keeping it up for a long time may become overwhelming. However, quite a few professionals actively live in the digital nomad culture.
To prevent burnout from aloneness, you can seek out digital nomad communities or local communities everywhere you travel for opportunities to socialize and make new friends. Look these up on the internet before you go and get in touch with them while you’re there.
Socialization also helps with networking, which is a bonus for your work. You can join the Facebook communities in various countries you plan to stay in for a while. Learning the culture upfront makes it easy to adapt to local people and their culture.
2. Play Games to destress
All work and no play make Jack a dull boy!
While traveling is a good break to take from work, it isn’t enough. To prevent burnout, you need to keep yourself motivated, and your mind scintillated to keep the pace going. Traveling to new places is a good way to get inspired.
Augmenting the experience with brainstorming and physical activity through playing games is an excellent way to stay motivated. Ensure that you make time for playing some games like jigsaw puzzles – whether on your devices or with the locals.
3. Structure Your Work
It is easy to get lost in traveling as your work slowly slips into the background, making you miss important dates and deadlines. In the haste to catch up with the backlog, you may feel like you have begun to burn out.
To ensure this doesn’t happen, you can leverage the power of digital tools (for example, Microsoft To Do or Evernote) to help you structure your work. Plan your workdays and chill days and determine the number of work hours and periods daily.
If your job involves working with others, ensure you’re communicating with your team and trying to connect with them. One way to enhance those connections is by practicing collaborative learning together - which involves actively sharing your knowledge and expertise. Most importantly, stick to the structure you have created.
4. Pace Yourself
Much like you would pace your work while working off a desk. You must lay down a dual-pacing plan for traveling and working together. You would need to cover miles in addition to stamping your timesheets for the digital nomad experience to be complete.
You will also need to keep track of the time zones you will be scaling. The easiest way to avoid burnout is to install digital tools like Every Time Zone that let you see what time it is in various parts of the world that you select.
5. Check-in on Yourself
Most digital nomads travel alone, work, and stay alone. In the excitement of traveling and getting work done simultaneously, losing track of your mental status and energy levels is easy. Plan a break of a day or two and check in on yourself.
Are you doing okay? Do you feel stressed, or do you feel like taking it slower? Respond to these questions honestly and modify your plans to make time for your mental health. Digital nomadism is supposed to take you away from work pressures, not enhance them.
6. Carry The Right Equipment
Frustration is the quickest way to burn out. The primary frustration you could face during your digital nomadism is equipment failures or malfunctions. Before taking on this lifestyle full-time, invest in good remote working equipment and peripherals.
Plan to carry power backups, network enhancers, and other devices based on the needs of your destination. You don’t want to compromise on your travels or your work.
7. Track Your Budget
Most digital nomads say they are satisfied with their earnings from this lifestyle. However, that doesn’t mean you don’t need to plan your finances.
Constantly worrying about monetary status while traveling can cause you to feel avoidable stress and lead to burnout. You can use finance software to help you keep track of where your money is going.
Along with tracking your expenses, you should invest in online account software to manage your client's billing. This will help you streamline your contacts and the bills you pay to your vendors. It’s also important to budget for worst-case scenarios and makes sure that you’re covered. Look into getting travel, health, and life insurance — especially if you have dependents.
8. Learn, Adapt, and Improve
Digital nomadism isn’t a one-size-fits-all deal. The first few tries would be challenging as you need to finetune your lifestyle and establish habits that work best for you. You can always upskill yourself by learning additional skills
Don’t be afraid to experiment to create best practices for yourself. You would need to explore many methodologies before finding a mix that works best for your travel and development goals.
Wrapping Up
Digital nomadism has become an exceedingly popular concept of working, traveling, living life, and gathering experiences in the same timeframe. It has allowed people to become more productive and satisfied with their work. In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, more professionals across the globe are coming face-to-face with the versatility and gifts that remote work gives them.
In quintessence, when done right, digital nomadism helps working professionals improve the quality of their lives while gathering new experiences without risking their jobs.
On the other hand, digital nomadism has helped organizations create a versatile, resilient workforce ready to face harder challenges and succeed. It has enabled them to become more resilient. However, everything has a trick. Everything needs balance. Use the eight strategies above to make the most of your digital nomad lifestyle.
