The digital nomad lifestyle is often characterized as one that offers a better balance between work and leisure. Many people assume that it will be better for their mental health than remaining trapped in the mousetrap of a corporate 9-5 existence.While the digital nomad lifestyle can certainly help you lift yourself out of some negative routines and situations, and put you in a position to make more of your life, it also presents a whole range of new issues that can be just as challenging to your mental health.

Digital Nomads And The Challenges Faced In Remote Work + Travelling

Unlike the problems of burnout, stress, and disconnection in the corporate world, which are now relatively well understood, the mental health crises of digital nomads are relatively unexplored territory.Digital nomad lifestyle is where you can escape the boring and pointless routine or commute, work, commute, sleep. No routine feels good, but but things get out of control easily.While you don’t want to fall into the trap of over-scheduling your life, introducing some routine can help you feel like you are more in control of your time. A <a href="https://andysto.com/10-proven-morning-routine-ways-to-boost-your-productivity-as-a-digital-nomad/">consistent morning ritual</a> can be a great place to start.

Mental Health Of Digital Nomads: Lack Of Routine

Self-care routines are notoriously difficult to maintain when you are on the road, and you are living in environments over which you have little control.Without steady access to a gym, your fitness routine might fall by the wayside. Same with your food intake and sleep.Digital nomads need to realize the importance of self-care and choose to make them a priority among the many things vying for their time and attention. We have written several articles focussed on the various areas of self-care that might be helpful including: <a href="https://andysto.com/staying-fit-on-the-road-exercise-solutions-for-digital-nomads/">staying fit on the road</a> and <a href="https://andysto.com/how-and-why-to-get-a-good-nights-sleep-as-a-digital-nomad/">how to get a good night’s sleep</a>.

Loss of Self-Care Routines

Living in “borrowed environments” in which many things are out of our control can leave us feeling like we don’t really have a safe haven when we need to escape from the world and be on our own. It can also work to rob us of a sense of agency within our own lives.Digital nomads often need to learn techniques for shutting out their environment and entering their own “mental” safe space, through practices such as meditation.It can also be a good idea to take more control over the things that are within your control, like the positioning of your laptop and bags.

Lack of Control

One of the biggest mistakes that digital nomads make is to try and squeeze in too much. Many will try and cover twelve cities in the space of a month, while maintaining a full workload.This exacerbates all the problems as you are never in one place long enough to establish new routines and start to feel comfortable.Many travellers suggest that this type of rapid travel also makes them feel disconnected from the world that they are moving through, as they are only ever in one place long enough to dip a toe in the water. They never get to dive deep and truly understand where they are.

Travel Burnout

One of the biggest causes of mental health issues in the modern world is constant, low-level anxiety caused by the pressures to “do it all”. These days we are all expected to excel professionally, to be perfect parents, and also play sports, be artistic, and much more.These pressures trigger our stress hormones. But we evolved to experience stress for short periods of time in response to immediate forms of danger. The stress hormones release into our body for a limited period of time to give us the energy and focus to do what needs to be done to avoid the danger.

Constant, Low-Level Anxiety

<ul><li>Digital nomads often work as freelancers. This means an insecure income and a lack of safety net which can be an extreme stressor.</li><li>Digital nomads are also under incredible pressure to do well both professionally and personally. </li><li>There are constant worries over things such as visas being denied, and not being able to access medical treatment when needed.</li><li>For digital nomads, even when you can afford to pay for it, good medical help is not always available.</li></ul>

All Kinds Of Pressure

There is no easy way to avoid these inevitable stressors that accompany the digital nomad lifestyle, but proper planning can make a big difference. Good health insurance, investing for the future, and creating a financial safety net in case something does go wrong can all help to lift some of this pressure.Self-care activities such as meditation and exercise can also help you to better manage the stress hormones that are flooding your body.

The Way Out Of Stress

One of the biggest challenges for digital nomads can be loneliness. While you make friends on the road, these ephemeral friendships don’t tend to “fill the void” in the same way as being physically close to your nearest and dearest.Moreover, depending on where you are in the world, you may just feel generally isolated. Language barriers and distance might mean that you lack some of the passing daily interactions which help make all of use feel connected.

Loneliness 

It is important that digital nomads put effort into maintaining their long-term relationships back home to continue accessing that support network, and that they become more open to speaking out when they are struggling, rather than waiting to be asked.Spending more time in individual places and letting yourself create deeper local friendships can also help significantly.

Loss of Support Network

Many digital nomads don’t talk about what is challenging them and assume that they are the only ones facing this challenge. It is not uncommon to think that there is something wrong with you that you can’t just be happy with your amazing life.There is a bit of a stigma against digital nomads talking about the challenges of their lifestyle. When you are jet setting from one beautiful location to the next and sharing photos in some of the most beautiful and inspiring places in the world, few people want to hear you complain.

We Don’t Talk About Mental Health

If anything, mental health can be even more challenging for digital nomads because it is not an area that is yet well understood, and there is also a stigma against digital nomads complaining about their mental health when they have such an apparently charmed lifestyle.This is a challenge that we need to tackle as a community. All digital nomads need to be more open to talking about mental health challenges and normalizing the discussion within the community.

The Challenge That We Need To Tackle

Dreaming of working from anywhere? Here are the key things you need to know about starting your digital nomad journey

books

Books

remotework

Remote Work

career

Career

mentalhealth

Mental Health

travel

Travel

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

How To Become A Digital Nomad

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

The Mental Health Challenges of Digital Nomadism

The digital nomad lifestyle is often one characterized by freedom. We have the freedom to manage our time in the way that we wish, and we have the freedom to build our lives wherever we wish.The digital nomad lifestyle is often characterized by throwing off the time and place restrictions associated with most typical jobs until recent years.There is no need to commute in to work to arrive at a certain hour and stay until the end of the day watching the clock run down even if there is nothing to do.

The Digital Nomad Lifestyle

The digital nomad lifestyle is often characterized by freedom. It offers some freedoms that are virtually impossible in traditional 9-5, location-based jobs.  No need to struggle to find decent and affordable housing within reasonable commute distance of where you want to work or be subject to the high cost of living.However, for digital nomads, the lines between work and leisure disappear, as they tend to work hard, play hard and earn more.This combination can lead to burnout.

The Allure Of Freedom

Digital nomads are people who attempt to gain freedom by travelling while working. This clearly distinguishes between them from business travellers who travel for work and tourists.Many digital nomads work for clients or companies in a way that is very similar to other more sedentary workers. However, digital nomads are more likely to have an entrepreneurial attitude.Digital nomads tend to think that they need to be “switched on” to work opportunities all the time.

Defining A Digital Nomad

To make a success of a digital nomad lifestyle, and not fall into this trap, digital nomads have to develop a variety of disciplines.It takes a minimum of three days to find healthy routines again when relocating to a new place.The most successful digital nomads have practices in place that help them to kickstart their preferred routine when they arrive at a new location, and rituals to help them delineate their new space and time.

With Great Freedom Comes Die-Hard Discipline: Mobile Adaptability

A vast majority of digital nomads rely on two devices, a laptop and a smartphone.But many digital nomads choose to differentiate between these devices, using their laptop for work, and their smartphone for leisure.Most digital nomads say that they do this because their smartphone has too many social apps on it which can be a major distraction from their work.This choice of device also helps delineate work and leisure space, much like remote workers do with a home office.

Discipline: Device Choice

A space that is set up for work, with ergonomic chairs and power sockets in the right place, plus being surrounded by others who at least appear to be working can be essential for getting into the working headspace.Being able to draw a line under work and walk away also helps digital nomads avoid letting work eat up too much of their leisure time.

Discipline: Co-Working

<ul><li>In the absence of line management accountability in traditional workplaces, many digital nomads become interested in self-imposed deadlines and performance tracking.</li><li>Digital nomads tend to do better when they choose to impose their own, self-defined deadlines.</li><li>When these don't make sense, they can often be replaced with performance tracking approaches.</li><li>When your work schedule is your own, choosing the best working hours in terms of productivity can be challenging.</li></ul>

Discipline: Self-Imposed Deadlines

digital nomad couples tend to have an easier time maintaining the lines between work and leisure than singles. This is because their commitment to spend time together and focus on one another makes it easier for them to allocate time as either work or leisure. They can also hold one another accountable.The most successful digital nomads will often create social commitments, whether they be calls with loved ones, catching up on Netflix, or taking themselves out to explore the local area, to try and bring that rhythm and accountability to their life from day-one of arriving in a new place.

Discipline: Social Commitments

Digital professions of digital nomads, combined with the pressure on them to manage their time and wellbeing, makes digital nomads very likely to be interested in applications and tools that help them better maintain their schedules and processes.Almost all the digital nomads that he interviewed were significant users of applications for time management and task tracking within their work, but also for things such as monitoring habits, evaluating their sleep, meditating, and so forth.

Discipline: Time-Management & Process Strategies

We choose the digital nomad lifestyle because we are looking for freedom. We want to be able to control our own lifestyle without the restrictions imposed on us by needing to be in a certain place at a certain time in order to work.Traditional jobs often provide the structure necessary both to promote productivity, and to clearly delineate between time spent working, and time spent on leisure.When we remove ourselves from that structure, we must rely on our own self-discipline both to be productive, and to ensure that our self-directed workload does not hinder our work-life balance.

The Bottom Line

With great freedom comes die-hard discipline.

Freedom & Discipline: The Digital Nomad Conundrum

Leaders should be aware of a counterintuitive risk of trust: A strong emphasis on trust can lead to inertia, as employees might prioritize appearing trustworthy over behavior necessary for good, collaborative decision making. For example, in order to maintain a perception of being competent and trustworthy, an individual might withhold information or share inaccurate information when things aren’t going well.

Building Trust vs. Proving Trustworthiness

Trust is not a prerequisite for teamwork and collaboration. Research on teaming and collective intelligence suggests that if we focus on getting a few things right, new constellations of people can collaborate effectively before they’ve had time to build trust.Successful transformation depends on the organization’s ability to bring people with diverse competencies together to make high-quality decisions. Shifting attention away from creating trust toward information sharing, perspective taking, and effective turn taking can help organizations make progress.

Collaboration With Or Without Trust

Two things stand out as critical to collaborative decision making on complex challenges.<ol><li>In a fast-changing environment, you need access to accurate and updated data in order to make good decisions. </li><li>Being able to include new individuals and their information into teams and decision-making processes.</li></ol>

How Trust and Distrust Interfere with Decision Making

Trust is a vague term and has a vast number of definitions. To understand trust in regard to collective decision making, keep these two definitions in mind:<ol><li>In the organizational context, trust is most often defined as an interpersonal relationship that forms when a person shows consistent proof of competence, benevolence, and integrity. This kind of trust takes a long time to build and is easily broken.</li><li>Trust describes the intuitive and immediate feeling we get when we interact with another person, especially new individuals.</li></ol>

Understanding The Meaning Of Trust

Our intuitive feeling of distrust makes us more doubtful of the information brought by new individuals who haven’t had time to prove their trustworthiness. This puts us at risk of undervaluing important information that’s communicated by someone new and overvaluing other information.Feelings of distrust cause established individuals to challenge a new person in ways that they don’t challenge other established collaborators. Organizations that overemphasize trust risk triggering this kind of unproductive behavior.

Blind Trust And Distrust

Individuals naturally want to establish themselves as competent and trustworthy in the eyes of their peers and leaders. But it’s much harder for people to work together on high-impact, complex transformation challenges if they’re more concerned with appearing trustworthy than with effective exchange of information and ideas.

How Our Focus on Trust Drives Inertia and Poor Decision Making

<ul><li>New individuals hold back information, challenging questions, and out-of-the-box ideas in order to establish themselves as competent, benevolent, and trustworthy.</li><li>Individuals representing the old norm who are not experts in the area of transformation hold back questions and hide ignorance and knowledge gaps because they’re afraid to appear less competent and trustworthy.</li></ul>

The Unexpected Behaviours Of Employees

To maximize productive behavior and strategic progress when gathering diverse groups to solve important, complex challenges, leaders are wise to communicate that interpersonal trust is not a prerequisite for collaboration. This is important, as the inaccurate notion that “collaboration is all about trust” is deeply rooted.

How to Keep Trust from Getting in The Way

<ul><li>It’s vital to get the most accurate data on the table, even when that data is unpleasant to share. Everyone involved is responsible for creating an atmosphere where others can act with both candor and vulnerability when sharing their perspective.</li><li>Our individual willingness to explore and take each other’s perspectives is key to progress and effective decision making on complex challenges.</li></ul>

Data To Back The Trust

When leaders focus on getting the conversations right, groups often improve decisions and progress quite quickly. The experience of shared progress often strengthens trust between collaborators. It might sound counterintuitive, but shifting attention away from trust might be one effective way to quickly build trust in new constellations.

Leaders should be aware of a counterintuitive risk of trust: A strong emphasis on trust can lead to inertia, as employees might prioritize appearing trustworthy over behavior necessary for good, collaborative decision making. For example, in order to maintain a perception of being competent and trustworthy, an individual might withhold information or share inaccurate information when things aren’t going well. The author has spent over a decade making research on collaboration useable for organizations ranging from scaleups becoming unicorns to incumbents embracing transformation. He explains how overemphasizing trust can hinder collaborative decision making and cause inertia — and how leaders can strike the right balance between trust and progress.

teamwork

Teamwork

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

When Trust Takes Away from Effective Collaboration

<ul><li>Compound Effect: reaping huge rewards from a series of small, smart choices. Steps feel insignificant, results are massive.</li><li>Doesn’t matter how smart you are. Just work harder, work smarter.</li><li>Be the guy who says no. It’s no achievement to go along with the crowd.</li><li>Ripple effect: Even one small change can have a significant impact.</li><li>The Secret: hard work, discipline, good habits.</li></ul>

Short Summary 

……. is “the principle of reaping huge rewards from a series of small, smart choices, made consistently, over a long period of time.”Compounding requires enormous amounts of patience and faith.

The Compound Effect

Would you rather have (A) $3 million upfront or (B) one penny that doubles in value every day for 31 days? Choose any one!! To maximise your gains, the correct answer is (B). But it doesn’t happen quickly. After 19 days you’d still only have $5,243 and you might feel pretty foolish next to a friend who chose option (A).It’s not until day 29 that the compounding gains of option (B) net you $3 million. And by day 30 your patience would have tripled option (A). (See figure)

The Power Of Compounding 

<ul><li>We all come into the world the same, the life we end up with is an accumulation of our choices.</li><li>Everything in your life exists because of a choice you made.</li><li>Every choice has an impact on your life’s Compound Effect.</li><li>You are sleepwalking through your choices.</li><li>You make choices, then choices make you.</li></ul>

Choices

“ You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”

<ul><li>Making positive choices in one area of your life has a ripple effect that spreads out to other areas of your life. </li><li>Start making one small positive choice and it will ripple out to make you far better overall.</li></ul>

Ripple Effect

Luck = Preparation + Attitude + Opportunity + ActionPreparation: Personal growthAttitude: Beliefs and MindsetOpportunity: Things coming your wayAction: Doing Something

Luck

“You can only control two things in life: Your attitude and your actions.”

<ul><li>Write out your excuses, decide to make up for them with hard work and personal development.</li><li>Write out a half-dozen small, seemingly insignificant steps you can do every day to go a different direction.</li><li>Write the small seemingly insignificant things you can stop doing to stop your downward spiral.</li><li>List a few areas/skills/outcomes where you’ve succeeded in the past. Are you taking those for granted and not improving?</li></ul>

Put The Compound Effect To Work For You

<ol><li>Pick an area you want to be successful in. Picture where you are now, where you want to be.</li><li>1st step toward change: Awareness.</li><li>Be aware of the choices that lead you away from your desired destination.</li><li>Track every action that relates to the area of life you want to improve.</li></ol>Magic: do simple things repeatedly for long enough that the Compound Effect kicks in.

Success Formula

<ul><li>The sooner you start making small changes, the more powerfully the Compound Effect works for you.</li><li>Procrastination on behaviors, habits, disciplines is dangerous!</li><li>The key is to start now.</li></ul>

Time Matters

<ol><li>Find your motivation.</li><li>Choose one new habit, get hooked, the other behaviors will fall in line.</li><li>Start with an easy task.</li><li>Why-power will fuel your new health habits.</li></ol>

Success Is A Marathon

<ul><li>Successful people aren’t more intelligent/talented, they just have habits that help them be more informed, knowledgeable, skilled, prepared, competent. </li><li>With enough practice/repetition, any behavior becomes automatic over time.</li><li>Life is a product of moment-to-moment choices.</li><li>Every choice is getting you closer to that ultimate goal.</li><li>The instant gratification trap: Immediate gratification turns us into reactive, nonthinking animals.</li><li>Slight adjustments to daily routines can alter life outcomes.</li></ul>

Habits

“If you want to sail your life in a new direction, you have to first pick up the anchors of bad habits that have been weighing you down.”

<ul><li>To fight bad habits, you need something stronger than willpower - THE WHY POWER.</li><li>What’s your reason to make significant improvements in your life?</li><li>Your WHY must be fantastically motivating to you, inspiring you to GO…for years.</li><li>Decision making is easier when you know your core values.</li></ul>

Find Your Why Power

“When the reason is big enough, you will be willing to perform almost any how.”

<ul><li>Law of Inertia: Objects at rest tend to stay at rest; in motion stay in motion.</li><li>Rockets use more fuel during the first few minutes of flight than the rest of the trip. The hard part is getting off the ground.</li><li>Pumping water requires many pumps before the water comes out, but once it’s up, it stays flowing. But if you let go of the lever too long, the water goes down and it takes effort to get it back up.</li><li>Starting step is always hard but once started we gain momentum.</li></ul>

Momentum

“Step by step, day by day, your choices will shape your actions until they become habits, where practice makes them permanent.”

<ul><li>Brains aren’t designed to make you happy, but to survive. It likes to seek out negatives.</li><li>Flush your mind by filling it with good stuff which will eventually clean out the bad/negative ideas.</li><li>Put yourself on a media diet — Media gives you a perverted view of the world.</li><li>99% news has nothing to do with you.</li></ul>

Media Diet

<ul><li>The extra effort after you’ve done your best is the difference maker.</li><li>See yourself as your own toughest competitor to multiply your results.</li><li>Push past what others expect of you. Do more than enough.</li><li>It takes very little extra to be EXTRAordinary.</li></ul>

EXTRAordinary

You make choices, then choices make you !

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, based on the principle that little, everyday decisions will either take you to the life you desire or to disaster by default. No gimmicks. No Hyperbole. No Magic Bullet. The Compound Effect is a distillation of the fundamental principles that have guided the most phenomenal achievements in business, relationships, and beyond. This easy-to-use, step-by-step operating system allows you to multiply your success, chart your progress, and achieve any desire. If you're serious about living an extraordinary life, use the power of The Compound Effect to create the success you want. You will find strategies including: How to win--every time! The No. 1 strategy to achieve any goal and triumph over any competitor, even if they're smarter, more talented or more experienced. Eradicating your bad habits (some you might be unaware of!) that are derailing your progress. The real, lasting keys to motivation--how to get yourself to do things you don't feel like doing. Capturing the elusive, awesome force of momentum. Catch this, and you'll be unstoppable. The acceleration secrets of superachievers. Do they have an unfair advantage? Yes they do, and now you can too!

productivity

Productivity

habits

The New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, based on the principle that little, everyday decisions will either take you to the life you desire or to disaster by default. No gimmicks. No Hyperbole. No Magic Bullet. The Compound Effect is a distillation of the fundamental principles that have guided the most phenomenal achievements in business, relationships, and beyond. This easy-to-use, step-by-step operating system allows you to multiply your success, chart your progress, and achieve any desire. If you're serious about living an extraordinary life, use the power of The Compound Effect to create the success you want. You will find strategies including: <ul><li>How to win--every time! The No. 1 strategy to achieve any goal and triumph over any competitor, even if they're smarter, more talented or more experienced.</li><li>Eradicating your bad habits (some you might be unaware of!) that are derailing your progress.</li><li>The real, lasting keys to motivation--how to get yourself to do things you don't feel like doing.</li><li>Capturing the elusive, awesome force of momentum. Catch this, and you'll be unstoppable.</li><li>The acceleration secrets of superachievers. Do they have an unfair advantage? Yes they do, and now you can too! </li></ul>

Darren Hardy is an American author, keynote speaker, advisor, and former publisher of SUCCESS magazine. Hardy is a New York Times best-selling author, who wrote The Entrepreneur Roller Coaster, Living Your Best Year Ever and The Compound Effect. 

Darren Hardy

Use these three criteria to evaluate an idea:<ol><li>Longevity — Will it stay relevant for a long time?</li><li>The monetization sweet spot — Can you make a living?</li><li>Limited but extensible scope — Can you pull it off?</li></ol>

The Golden Trio

Riding the hype train can get your project trending quickly, but you'll have nothing left when the hype is over. So find something that has longevity instead. What's something people will keep searching for in the coming decades? Email, DNS, online meetings, and timezone conversions are all examples of things that have a high and steady search volume.

Longevity

If your project can't attract any users, then it's obviously not going to generate any meaningful revenue, let alone allow you to eventually build a business around it.Too much monetization potential, on the other hand, can attract regular businesses, or venture-backed businesses. So ideally, we'd be somewhere in between.

The monetization sweet spot

You can't undertake a massive project on the side, so the scope needs to be minimal. Once an initial version is live, it should be extensible incrementally. Adding many small features that add up to a great product. Since side projects are primarily done in the evenings and weekends, the available time is usually chunked into sessions of a couple of hours.That's another reason to find something that can be built iteratively. Try to ship something every other session.

Limited but extensible scope

Three important criteria for picking a side project are longevity, the monetization sweet spot, and the scope.

business

Business

computerscience

Computer Science

How to pick a side project strategically

According to a report by Bridge, that surveyed more than 1000 office employees:<ul><li>78% of respondents believe working more hours is at least moderately important in getting promoted</li><li>53% of employees believe engaging in workplace politics is an important factor in receiving a promotion</li><li>43% said that acting interested in their “boss’s dumb story” is at least moderately important</li></ul>Despite being aware of dirty politics in workplaces, we are not able to stop it completely.However, there are ways we can cope with it and in this article, we are going to talk about just that.

Office Politics

1. The One With EgoThis person reckons that s/he is always right. S/he has the habit of not letting others have their say. S/he talks a lot about motivation and teamwork, but when it actually comes to walking the talk, they take a completely different turn. Also, these folks tend to be nice to those who always agree with them and flatter their ego.2. The BullyThese folks are always on the go to use their authority and power to get their work done by others. They even tend to play the power game to get their personal work done.

Types of office politicians 

3. The ClimbersThese folks climb the corporate ladder to achieve a higher position even by backstabbing colleagues and flattering the senior and important folks of the organization. 4. The GossiperGossipers can someone who praises others and also someone who talks negatively about others. They basically can’t keep anything in their stomach, they gladly talk it out.5. The Bus DriversThese are the ones who are really good at using someone else’s credibility to take their career ahead. They basically stand behind your back and wait for the right moment to shove you under the bus and go ahead.

1. Be True To Your WorkWork is worship! One must respect his/her work — it’s the source of your bread and butter. You don’t have to stay back and work extra hours, all you have to do is make sure you are always on time to work, you dedicate yourself to your work for those 8-9 hours, and leave when your shift is done.You all must have noticed that people who preach less and work more are always successful and are less into controversies.

How to deal with office politics?

2. Be Friendly With Everyone At All LevelsAlways carry a genuine smile, always greet people, be friendly, and be the one who helps and supports others.By being likable, you get a lot of advantages — when you are good to others (whether to your colleagues or boss or even the office boys), you tend to form a genuine support system.And people with that kind of support don’t tend to fall victim to office politics.

3. Make It Clear — You Are Not Open To GossipIf you ever happen to bump into one, and s/he start some gossip, communicate strictly on a need-to-know basis that you don’t want to talk about others at all. If there’s something else s/he wants to talk about then continue or else leave it there itself.4. Communication Is The KeyEvery time you find yourself in a political cold war, be open to having a conversation. Talk to the person directly and put your point.If you're a manager or someone who leads a team and has been seeing politics, make sure you get the parties together and talk about it.

5. Do Not ToleratePolitics in workplaces don’t do any good to anyone and being silent about it and tolerating it is no good either.There are people who fear that if they raise their voices against the wrongdoers of the office, they will be kicked out of the office.But I want all of them to know one thing that a 9-5 job cannot be bigger than your self-respect.If you feel there’s something wrong happening to you, talk to the higher folks of the organization directly, and if they also don’t take any action, you don’t have to stay in that place anymore.

Most of us working professionals have experienced or seen in our offices. We all have that one colleague or boss who has made it really tough for us to survive in our workplaces. And the most frustrating fact about it is that you can’t escape it — it’s everywhere!

Juggling between professional and personal life is already a tough gig. And office politics makes it even more difficult for employes.

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

Effective Ways For Employees To Deal With Office Politics

While some people understandably got tired of working from home during the pandemic, my time as a digital nomad has given me the opposite experience. There’s nothing like time spent trying to be productive from hotels and cafés to make you appreciate the benefits of a home office.If you’re thinking about taking off for far-flung locations so you can keep your job while seeing the world, think of this as a checklist of things to prepare for—and a warning that it won’t be as glamorous as you may imagine.

Work From Home Is Way Better Than A Digital Nomad

When you hit the road, you’re not bringing an ergonomic chair or standing desk with you. The chances that you’ll be able to set up a workstation that’s comfortable are slim, so prepare for <a href="https://ehs.unc.edu/workplace-safety/ergonomics/office/">back and neck pain</a> and carpal tunnel syndrome. That’s just for starters. You can’t do much to control the lighting, so you’re likely to experience eye strain as well. And temperature control can be evasive—during my months in Mexico and South America, I was almost never able to get a room to a comfortable temperature. This damages sleep as well.

Physical Discomforts And Time Spent Adjusting For Working

There’s a good chance that you need faster internet and more bandwidth than you realize. And an even better chance that you’ll have difficulty finding it when you travel. Most coffee shops and hotels that offer Wi-Fi often can’t match what you’re used to in an office or at home. This is especially true if you’re like the millions of people who keep <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/570709/yes-you-have-too-many-tabs-open-your-computer-and-your-brain-probably-blame">lots of tabs</a> open at once.

Wi-Fi Strength And Reliability

There’s also the crucial matter of security. Using public Wi-Fi can expose your information, and that of your employer, to hackers. It’s important to use technology like a VPN to protect your data. But there’s also the matter of “<a href="https://www.aura.com/learn/how-to-protect-your-personal-information-on-social-media">shoulder surfing</a>,” in which people nearby see what you’re typing. Hackers prey on digital nomads, and some have gotten very good at disguising what they’re up to.

Unsecure And Unsafe

In most American offices and restaurants, workers can count on a basic level of sanitation to be kept up—partly due to health codes. But in some other places, it’s just not the same. Unclean restrooms, unavailability of certain diet choices and food poisoning from water are quite possible. Be careful, and beware.

The Adventurous Outdoors: Sanitation Issues

Mosquitoes and spiders are a big nuisance while travelling and working across the world.The clamour of traffic, crowds, construction, nearby airports, and more can make it especially difficult to take calls or do Zoom meetings. Sound can also dramatically <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4844473/">decrease productivity</a> when you’re trying to concentrate, and noise-cancelling headphones can’t get rid of everything. Continuous <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/noise-pollution-health-effects#mental-health">noise pollution</a> can also make you more irritable and stressed.

Bugs And Noise

Some other digital nomads we encountered on our travels are the definition of lonely. Many people working remotely, even from home, have <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90544975/4-major-long-term-psychological-effects-of-continued-remote-work">wrestled with</a> loneliness in recent years. But in tourist sites, such as coastal cities and towns, where people are working remotely, they run into a tricky situation. Vacationers show up looking for a quick fling, but the digital nomads are looking for deeper connections and real conversation. It can lead to frustration.

Loneliness and Hookup Culture

Most people are likely to be most productive and have the best work experience when they’re stationary and within the comforts of a home office.A digital nomad sounds cool, and has the perks of going to new places and meeting new people. But when work is supposed to be done, nothing beats home!

The Verdict

Sometimes, there’s no place like home for the best remote work experience, says a tech professional after working abroad in Mexico and South America.


The digital nomad life is not all it’s cracked up to be. Here’s why

Now that millions of employees have enjoyed the ability to work remotely and shape their schedules, workers are increasingly reticent to give up flexibility – and would consider making sacrifices to have accommodating jobs. Earlier in the pandemic, large swaths of workers reported willingness to take a pay cut if they secured the benefits they wanted. But in recent months, a shift has occurred: while flexibility is still high on the list, pay is moving centre stage as a priority for job-seekers.

Back To The Green Dough

Both knowledge- and blue-collar workers with particularly in-demand skillsets are enjoying sharp salary rises, as labour shortages impact some industries. These hikes are coming as workers of all stripes are facing rising living costs – and wondering if they, too, could find a better-paying role elsewhere.

Looking For Better Paying Roles

<ul><li>Flexibility and company values are still important factors for workers, but they're only the difference-maker when the salaries are comparable.</li><li>The companies "winning the race" for staff will be those who can offer both the work-life balance policies workers say they want and competitive pay.</li><li>With inflation causing workers' pay to drop in real terms, we'll see almost a re-evaluation of those top-five reasons why people move jobs.</li></ul>

Asking Both Work-Life Balance And Competitive Pay

<ul><li>More than half (56%) of executive managers in a recent survey said they were starting to be faced with pay compression, where existing staff end up on lower salaries than new recruits</li><li>Petrol prices are at an all-time high; transport fares have increased, and food and other essentials are on an upwards trajectory</li><li>Some companies are offering financial and other incentives to tempt unhappy commuters back</li></ul>

Talent Shortage Across All Sectors

<ul><li>Rising costs mean that workers who can do their jobs from home are understandably reluctant to head to the office unless they absolutely need to.</li><li>Some companies are cognisant of employees' concerns and are offering practical solutions aimed at alleviating costs related to office days.</li><li>For example, media company Bloomberg is offering its US staff a $75 daily commuting stipend, which they can spend however they want.</li></ul>

The Extra Perks And Subsidies

<ul><li>Graduates are being handed six-figure salaries as a recruitment tool amid the current labour market conditions.</li><li>In some cases, these workers may find themselves trapped in jobs they hate, especially if workers have built lifestyles around earning big pay-outs.</li><li>Such wages can also skew young employees' perception of pay, blocking them from pursuing more meaningful career paths.</li><li>Huge salaries can also weigh on young employees with a psychological burden.</li><li>Companies themselves may not necessarily get what they pay for.</li></ul>

Skewing The Career Perception For Youngsters

<ul><li>Six-figure starting salaries will probably continue to be the norm in certain high-paying industries like Big Tech and Big Pharma.</li><li>It's unlikely there'll be much of a trickle-down effect for entry-level workers in less elite sectors in other sectors.</li></ul>

Not For Labour Jobs In McD Or Amazon

Flexibility has long been touted as the ‘it’ perk. But as pay packets swell, workers are increasingly prioritising bigger salaries over other benefits.

startup

Startups

Why workers are choosing big pay packets over flexibility

Project management is the application of strategies, skills, and tools to achieve a specific goal.
Every project starts as an idea that needs to be planned, organised, executed, managed, tracked, completed, and measured. A project manager will oversee all these aspects.
Knowing the terms project managers use can help you in an acronym-heavy board room banter.

Project Management Terms

<ul><li>Agile. A method of working quickly to adapt to rapid changes.</li><li>Backlog. A complete list of tasks that make up a whole project scope.</li><li>Baseline. An original plan or estimate for a project's timeline, budget, scope and goals.</li><li>Blocker. A block that slows the way forward, such as technology complications or budget constraints.</li><li>Bottleneck. A narrow or constricted flow, pace, and capacity of a project.</li><li>Brainstorming. A tool for creative ideation and solutions.</li><li>Budget. The estimated total cost to complete a project.</li></ul>

Project Management Terms (A - B)

<ul><li>Case study. Research-based studies that dive into use-cases and various approaches to project management.</li><li>Change management. How to manage and control changes within a project or team.</li><li>Contingency plan. A detailed emergency backup plan for how to effectively manage any problems.</li><li>Critical path method (CPM). A modelling technique for scheduling out a project step-by-step, considering how long each task will take.</li><li>Dashboards. Digital tools that are a centralised hub of organised information.</li><li>Deliverables. Outputs delivered throughout or at the end of a project.</li></ul>

Project Management Terms (C - D)

You already walk the walk of a project manager, but you need to talk the talk. Consider this your go-to guide of project management terms. 

New To Project Management? Here Are 50 Terms You Should Know

Find 100+ Career Tips & Insights - Curated from inspiring sources like Books, Podcasts & Articles - Genuine Insights from like-minded Users like You!

The Mental Health Challenges of Digital Nomadism

Freedom & Discipline: The Digital Nomad Conundrum

When Trust Takes Away from Effective Collaboration

The Compound Effect

How to pick a side project strategically

Effective Ways For Employees To Deal With Office Politics

The digital nomad life is not all it’s cracked up to be. Here’s why

Why workers are choosing big pay packets over flexibility

New To Project Management? Here Are 50 Terms You Should Know

What to Do If Your Job Compromises Your Morals

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

The Mental Health Challenges of Digital Nomadism

Freedom & Discipline: The Digital Nomad Conundrum

When Trust Takes Away from Effective Collaboration

The Compound Effect

How to pick a side project strategically

Effective Ways For Employees To Deal With Office Politics

The digital nomad life is not all it’s cracked up to be. Here’s why

Why workers are choosing big pay packets over flexibility

New To Project Management? Here Are 50 Terms You Should Know

What to Do If Your Job Compromises Your Morals

It's time to Read like a Pro.

It's time to
Read like a Pro.