When I was working in an office, my Mondays to Fridays would basically start the same: wake up at six, get a shower and some breakfast, go to the office at 7, start working at 7.30. Swimming and lunch between 12 and 1. Work until 4.30. Go home and have an evening.
Since I quit the office job almost two years ago, that routine has changed a bit. But, that does not mean I do not have a routine. Sometimes it gets a little shaken up by travels and changes of environment of course, but somehow I really try to stick to some things. To bring peace in my otherwise quite turbulent life.
Now that I am at my own little house in Cali, Colombia for a couple of months, this routine is pretty easy to follow. So, let me tell you a bit what a day in the life of a digital nomad looks like, both from the viewpoint of being at home in Cali, compared to a random day on the road.
At home in Cali
Life tends to start nice and early in Cali. Mostly because otherwise it gets too hot. So I tend to wake up between 6 and 7am. My little kittycats love to jump on the bed in the morning and ask for some snuggle, which they definitely get. Then we´ll make some breakfast, some coffee and enjoy the fact that it´s fresh enough to sit outside on the terrace. I never really knew I enjoyed taking a nice time to wake up and get going in the morning. I usually just rushed of to work, eating my bread somehow on the way and definitely thought that it was not a valid reason to wake up even 30 minutes earlier than I already had to. But now I am really enjoying it!
After breakfast I quickly read through my emails and the news (I tend to compare the Dutch to the Colombian news.. they both have quite different takes on things and definitely think different things are worth mentioning). After this I take my agenda and my computer and it´s time to get going. I do so until probably 11.30, and then I get ready for my daily training.
I love doing sports, it makes me feel energised, gives a nice break from everything and it´s a great way to meet new people. When I first moved to Cali, five years ago, I quickly met a lot of people mostly through my work, and though those same people are still very important to me, after some time I wanted to meet some people that I did not work with. Joining all kinds of sports clubs was the way to go. This way I ended up with TriCali (the Triathlon club of Cali). What a fun bunch of hardworking sportspeople. Unfortunately I have actually not been able to run an actual triathlon because I am always travelling, but at least I get to train with them as if I would.
So yes, from 12 – 1pm you can find me in the pool, after which I come home and have some lunch. Or sometimes I am very lazy and get some lunch on my way. I know all the vegetarian places by now, of which my favourite one is Frutos del Sol.
After this, again time for some more work. Sometimes I stay at home, sometimes I move to our neighbours ´Corinne Cafe´, that has a great coffee place (great coffee, nice vibe and quiet enough to work, yet not feel lonely). Thing is, both me and Thomas work from home and though we do not need a lot of space, living and working with two people on 50m2 drives us a little crazy sometimes.
I tend to work until more or less 6pm. From here on I go to yoga twice a week, or I just spend a quiet night with Thomas, with friends, go find a salsa bar to dance a little, go to the park to have a beer, watch a cultural movie. Many ways to spend a night in Cali 🙂
So yes, that is about a normal working day for me. How many hours in total I end of working a day? I would say around 6 or 7. Very little? Well, first of all, I also work some hours on the weekend, so in the end it definitely adds up. Secondly, think about how much time you spend in our office, watching Facebook 😉
No, without jokes, I am the working type that can work very intensively for a bunch of hours and get a lot done, but once I´m at my limit of concentration, usually around 6 hours a day, it´s done and I am not productive anymore. And exactly this is one of the main advantages for me to work on my own time. I can plan this way that I can really work and be productive, but the hours I don´t work I am not ´forced´ to sit in an office, but can spend them some other way.
Now, this is what my day looks like when I´m at home in Cali. Of course when I am on my way, traveling or working remotely somewhere that is not in my house, that reality is just a bit different. This is why most of the times, even though I am not home, I try to stay some time at the same place, to make it feel like home, and re-find my routine.
A ´normal´ working day on the road
But, let´s take the example of when I was in Indonesia last year and I travelled to Yogyakarta for some days. First of all, where you stay and sleep is of pretty high importance because most likely you´ll want to wake up and get some work going before most of the coffeeplaces are open (if there are any to start of with). So I try to do some research and find a hostel that does nót promote itself as a party hostel, that is nót located in the most touristy zone or an area with a lot of bars and that does nót have pictures with lots of young people on it. No offense, but I´m on a working mission here and our time schedules and noise tolerance just tend to be a bit different.
I think that staying in an AirBnB would be great as well, but it just tends to be a bit costly when travelling alone. We did stay in a wonderful Airbnb on Lamu Island, when we were in Kenya (I´ll write more about Lamu Island in a different blog), which was a great NonMad working spot, but usually I still in a hostel.
So, I still try to wake up between 6 and 7am. Great, no one that stays in a hostel actually wakes up that early so I have the first 2 hours for myself. Then I´ll get some breakfast and work some more. By the time its 11 I want to do something and explore something. This depends on where I am though, when I find myself at the beach I tend to spend the first couple of hours in the waves and then do some work afterwards. So it really depends on where I am. But back to the Yogyakarta example.
I explore, take photos, have lunch, do stuff, see stuff and by 4 or 5pm I am back. Back to do some more work, and get some dinner afterwards. I´ll probably work until 9 or 9.30pm and by then the temptation to go join other people in a beer somewhere is too big. However, since I will wake up early next morning again, I don´t usually stay out late (I´m 30 people, I need my 8 hours of sleep!).
However, of course there are also days that I just find myself a nice coffee place and get a lot of work done, and then there are other days in which I want to explore the whole day and do something a bit further away and only do about two hours of work. Again, the wonders of flexibility!!
Is it always great?! NO!
Wifi´s are not very stable (though I usually tend to have a sim-card with data connection on my phone so I can always use that as a hotspot. I´ll also write another blog entry on the ´yeays´ and ´heys´ of crappy wifi situations), sometimes there are just too many temptations; you just found yourself a nice and quiet spot and then it gets very loud; you have an important Skype call and both the wifi and the loudness situation take off just when you thought you had everything set up in order to take the call; you ate something from a street stall and despite the fact that my belly is very trained and I hardly get sick, it can happen, and then your whole working plan does down the toilet; your car breaks down and you end up sitting day after day with a mechanic, making sure he does not make the car in even a worse state than it already is, instead of me doing the work I have to do. So yes, it comes with challenges. That´s why every once in a while I need to stay at one place, it can be 1 or 2 weeks, or just as now, having a 3 months rest at my own little house.
But in general, do I love this way of working?! Of course I do!! I feel continuously inspired, meeting new people that somehow trigger new things in me, being in new environments, and finding some challenges.
