While being a digital nomad is often portrayed as having a laidback lifestyle by the beach and in coffee shops, the reality is that as a nomad working remotely, one still has to put in hard working hours. Being a freelancer or managing a remote company from abroad is challenging in its own right.
In fact, digital nomads generally need higher levels of self-discipline as managing the relationship between work and leisure is often problematic when you find yourself in places like Deia in Mallorca, Chiang Mai in Thailand or Bali.
As a freelancer, balancing this relationship is slightly easier as there are only two variables that need to be managed: you and the client. However, when it comes to managing a company remotely, things can easily get out of control with so many variables such as employees, clients, regulations or taxes.
You will most likely need a project management tool like Asana, Monday or Trello to create tasks and assign them to your team members. All the above tools will help you with time management as it will display when a deadline is due soon. A project management tool will help you stay on top of your work and delegate stuff easily.
Taxes are another issue, especially if your team members are scattered all around the world themselves. While you can register a company anywhere in the world, if you stay too long in a given country, you are expected to file taxes in your country of residence too for the profits made. In order to avoid paying too much, you have to plan moving around and not staying too much in one place.
When signing a contract with a new client, you will have to do remotely as well. As any digital nomad will tell you, gaining trust remotely is more complicated, although the pandemic has been a blessing in disguise in this sense as even physical companies based in the USA are facing the same challenges currently. Signing contracts with new clients using electronic notarization adds another layer of protection as a notary provides an acknowledgement that the signature that appears on the contract is that of the person it is supposed to be.
Lastly, an often overlooked issue with managing remote teams is mental health. Being a digital nomad is an act of balancing between work and leisure and it requires great discipline. It is easy to fall into an extreme and work yourself to death managing everything remotely. On the other hand, it is also easy to fall into the other extreme and focus too much on the leisure part and disregard tasks that need to be completed and lose oversight of your employees and partners. It is also challenging to build a support network when moving constantly, thus speaking to a therapist about your struggles is advised. Don’t discount building support networks and relationships anywhere you go, especially with like-minded nomads too as that can also ease the pressure on you.
Thanks for reading!
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