How To Become A
Digital Nomad

A digital nomad is someone who can work online from anywhere.

Typical careers can be limiting when it comes to time off and flexible schedules. For the free spirited among us, this makes it difficult for us to foster our creativity and fulfill our travel dreams. Today, more people are leaving their desks behind to become digital nomads with freedom to work from anywhere.

If you would rather spend less time dreaming and more time living your ideal lifestyle, you need a location independent job or business you can run from the road.

Don’t settle for a 9-5 job that only gives you a few weeks of vacation a year. These resources will help you get started on your journey.

The Only 5 Things You Need

If you’re committed to making money online, the hardest part will be mastering your mindset, being persistent and never giving up.  Treat every new project or strategy as an experiment and give yourself permission to fail, pivot or rest. Beyond that, there’s really only a few other things you need.

You need to be comfortable using online tools, and technology while working from a laptop or smartphone.

You need to be confident in offering products or services based around your knowledge and skills.

You need to have systems in place to automate your business to save you time and money.

You need to be good at managing your own time and being productive without a routine.

You need a network of peers, mentors and coaches to surround yourself with.

It sounds simple, and it can be, but it probably won’t feel that way.  Remember that there are countless people all over the world who are making a living from their laptops and there’s room for you too.  You just need to find the right formula that works for you.

The Steps (just start)

To figure out what to do or offer, think about the how to combine a variety of your interests into something marketable. For example, if you love travel photography and helping people maybe you could teach travel photography courses.

Another option is to find a sweet spot that combines things you like to do, things you’re good at and things people will pay you for.

If you’ve always been interested in entering a new industry, working as a virtual assistant could be a great way to gain experience in a field you’ve always wanted to try.

Once you’ve defined your product or service, you can move forward by eliminating your expenses, automating your work processes and leveraging your newfound location independence.

Aquire skills

Cut expenses

Minimize leases, loans, mortgages, debt.

Save & invest 3-6 months of expenses

Eliminate extra belongings

Conquer fears

Generate Revenue

Earn a full time income

Travel or relocate

Automate and outsource

Tips For Working Online

To be your own boss you will need discipline to stay on track of your goals and add structure back in to your work schedule. These are some of may favorite tools for staying productive.

Pomodoro timer: Break work down into 25 minute blocks of time with 5 minute breaks

Unroll.me: Un-subscribe from junk emails and keep your inbox empty

Batch activities: Schedule activities into batches like checking email only once per day

Create a trigger: Start work with the same song every day to get into a work mindset

Coffitivity: Recreate the ambient sounds of a cafe to boost your creativity and help you work better

option 1. Freelance

Offer a service to your own clients.

One way to work from anywhere is to start freelancing. These days, there are marketplaces like Upwork and Freelancer that will even connect you with potential clients who are looking for your services. The opportunities for freelancing are endless and inlcude options like bookeeping, writing, web design, branding, social media marketing, virtual assiting, video editing, transcribing and more. To get started, think about what skills you already have or take a course to learn something new and marketable. Then start applying to jobs or contacting potential clients!

Where to look

Upwork

Freelancer

Facebook Groups

Thumbtack

Fiverr

Word of mouth

People per Hour

option 2. Get A Remote Job

Find a new job that hires remotely or negotiate remote work at your current job.

Freelancing isn’t for everyone, and sometimes it’s easier to apply for a job at a company that already allows remote work arrangements. Many companies are starting to embrace at-home workers as a key portion of their workforce.

Where to look

AngelList

Remoteok.io

Remote.co

Flexjobs

Indeed (turn on telecommute filter)

Craiglist (turn on telecommute filter)

option 3. start A Business

Starting a business can be the hardest but also the most lucrative way to work online, but you don’t have to rule out the other options. Some people freelance, work online or even stay at their current job while building a business on the side.

The fastest way to start making money through a business is by offering a service, but the best way to make long-term passive income is usually through offering a product. One popular option is selling digital information like online courses, downloads or ebooks. By selling digital products your profit margins will remain high, you will never have to worry about inventory or shipping and you can make money while you sleep.

Tips for service-based businesses

Offer something business-to-business such as marketing, avertising, accounting, branding or legal services. Businesses usually always have money to spend on anything related to marketing, legal or banking needs.

For business-to-consumer services, focus on the 4 primary needs people are always paying to solve: anything that helps them improve their health, wealth, happiness or relationships.

Tips for product-based businesses

Consider offering a digital product so you don’t need to worry about inventory, manufacturing, production costs or shipping.

Also consider offering something passive, meaning something you can create once and sell over and over again. Examples include drop-shipping, Google adsense, affiliate marketing, stock photography and ebooks.

Bonus: Think about products or services that are recurring

It takes work to find clients and customers. Instead of selling something they will only need once, think about creating something that people will buy over and over again. Examples are memberships and subscription boxes.

Where to learn more

To learn marketable freelancing skills, business tips and more there are many great online courses to choose from. The list below will give you some great places to start.

Lynda.com

Udemy

Skillshare

Creative Live

The Shortcut

My secret tip for freelancing or starting a business is to start with an online marketplace or platform. These websites already have tons of traffic from visitors looking for your products and services. Once you’ve proven your idea through an online marketplace, you can start the journey to building your own website and driving your own traffic through ads, seo and marketing.

Online platforms to start with

Youtube: Think of Youtube as a search engine. Since they’re owned by Google, many internet searches begin or end with Youtube Videos and can be a great way to earn money through Adsense, link to affiliate products or drive traffic to another website

Skillshare: A platform for teaching and selling your online courses

Etsy: A marketplace to sell your handmade goods

Envato: A marketplace to sell digital assets like website templates, code, plugins, stock music, graphics, vectors, illustrations and photography

Creative Market: An online marketplace for design assets including website templates, fonts and graphics

Amazon: The largest marketplace for physical goods

Ebay: A large marketplace for new and used physical goods

Red Bubble: An online market place for selling print-on-demand designs like clothing, stickers and wall art

Society 6: A print-on-demand marketplace for selling designs on home goods, framed prints and more

Kindle: Owned by Amazon and the largest seller of ebooks.

Utilize co-living and co-working spaces

Working remotely doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your social life. Networking with other digital nomads can help you kick-start your remote career and keep you from feeling lonely, bored or stagnant.

Co-living spaces are similar to condos or apartment complexes, but they usually incorporate more communal living spaces like a group kitchen and work areas.

Co-working spaces are shared office spaces where you pay a daily, weekly or monthly fee for access to group workspace and ammenities like desks, conference rooms and mailboxes.

Coliving spaces

Roam.co

Coworking spaces

WeWork

For more ideas on where to live, work and play check out Nomadlist. This website inventories the best destinations for digital nomads based on cost of living, weather, internet accessibility and more.