Nomads have routines

The most evident example of this is attending gyms in different cities

“As a digital nomad, what is your routine?”

This has been among the most frequently asked questions during my seven months as a digital nomad.

The answer is complex. Firstly, there are various types of nomadism. Some nomads travel all the time, always to new destinations, without a home base. They spend months or even years away from family and friends. On the other hand, some nomads spend months or years in the same place.

Some nomads like me have a base but are always on the move (I've been in Porto Alegre, Budapest, London, Rio de Janeiro, Avaré, Guarujá, Bauru). My base is São Paulo, where I lived for 14 years. I don't have a fixed rental, so I stay in different places each time. I've been to São Paulo eight times this year, ranging from just one day to up to 37 consecutive days.

Additionally, there are different ways to work as a nomad. Some have their own companies and work on their own schedules. Others are freelancers and usually have flexibility in their work hours. Then there are those, like me, who work remotely for a fixed company and have set working hours.

Therefore, there are several combinations, and each nomad will find their own way. So, I'll share my routine.

Monday to Friday:

9 am - 10 am: Wake up time. Constantly feeling very sleepy. I get up, have a coffee, and turn on my laptop.

10 am - 6 pm: Work time. Although I love working from cafes, I have primarily worked from home. I realized that for fixed remote work, with constant meetings and urgent tasks, it's better to be in a place with reliable internet, which cafes don't always provide.

6 pm - onwards: This varies a lot. On days when I publish No Direction Home or have some text to deliver for a freelance job, I work on that from 6 pm to 8 pm. Then, I go to the gym until 9 pm and have dinner. After that, I read something, watch a documentary, and do things I love.

On days when I don't have any extra writing to do, I go to the gym from 6 pm to 7 pm. These days I try to meet up with friends, go to the cinema, or a bar, or enjoy the city I'm in.

1 am - 3 am: I go to bed late, which is one of the reasons I always wake up feeling very tired. But I'm a night person. We need to be honest with who we are.

Weekends:

My routine on weekends is to have a complete lack of routine. The only rule is to wake up as late as possible.

Traveling:

The routine described above seems similar to a non-nomad. And it's true. In each place, I try to live like a local. The most evident example of this is attending gyms in different cities.

What changes the routine is the constant trips. I've lost count of how many planes or buses I've taken this year. And that disrupts the routine.

As I have fixed working hours, I must book tickets for early or after office hours. It doesn't always work out due to the prices, so I negotiate with my boss to start earlier or later or use some hours from my compensatory time off.

I prefer to travel by bus or plane on Saturday afternoons. It doesn't disturb the routine from Monday to Friday, I can sleep well on Saturday morning, and still have time to enjoy Saturday night, if it's not a long flight. And then I have the whole Sunday ahead. But again, it all depends on the ticket prices.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

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Notes of a Nomad

I asked the attendant of the subscription house where I am what happened to the coffee machine in the reception area that I loved.

I wonder if it broke or if they will replace it with a new one. But it will be back next week, don't worry.

Next week, madam, I won't be back.

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Who is This Remote Worker

Photo: Laila Braghero

Name: Diego Moura

Place of birth: São Paulo, Brazil. 

Age: 31

Profession: journalist. Currently, I work as a senior writer at Banco BS2 and also do freelance writing for Editora Unesp.

Since when have you been working remotely? I started working remotely in March 2020 during the pandemic. I worked at a theme park. I left there four months later and returned to Editora Unesp and later to Banco BS2, both remote. The significant change was the trust gained by managers and employees regarding productivity. People saw that it was possible to be productive even from a distance.

Was working remotely something you always wanted, or did it happen naturally? Did you need to adapt? When the pandemic hit, I lived on a farm in Vinhedo, with rural internet. Working from home was not a feasible goal, so before Hopi Hari theme park, I used to work in São Paulo (traveling there at the beginning of the week and returning on weekends). It was nice, on the one hand, to spend the isolation surrounded by nature (a possibility that many people didn't have), but over the months, we realized the need to improve our connectivity due to the amount of downloads and video calls (my wife was also working remotely). This led us to move to another place since fiber optics couldn't reach the rural area.

From which city do you work? And from which cities have you worked remotely? So far, I have worked remotely primarily from Vinhedo and São Paulo. The big test will be in August when I'll spend three months in Florence, Italy, for an Italian course.

What was the best place you worked remotely? And the worst? Best place: my house. The worst place: inside the car, using the mobile hotspot.

Who are your remote work companions? My wife and our six dogs (we had four before the pandemic, but we fell into the trap of foster homes. Don't fall for it, haha).

What do you like the most about working remotely? And what do you dislike the most? I like the ability to make an espresso and stretch my legs in the garden of our farmhouse, to have a leisurely lunch and not have to deal with traffic to get to the office. Nowadays, with the return to in-person work that's been happening, I've felt a certain anxiety about being physically distant from where decisions are made. People have unconsciously started to prefer including those who are present over those who are remote.

You have worked remotely in various forms: as a freelancer, ghostwriter, and as a regular employee. What are the differences between them? The three have very distinct differences. Working as a ghostwriter means dealing directly with the author and their content. At the same time, it's a more solitary job that depends much more on you, your reflections, and your possibilities. As a freelancer, you work for other people and rely more on colleagues; you're like a cog in the middle of the clock. And, of course, you have more flexibility with delivery times. As a regular employee, you lose some freedom (you must clock in, breathe the company's culture, etc.), but you gain financial benefits like bonuses, thirteenth salary, meal and food vouchers, etc. And who doesn't like paid vacations, right? And the possibility of doing any of these things from home is priceless.

How do you avoid distractions while working remotely? For me, the key is to create a well-defined routine. Here, going to the gym has been sacred since January, to start the day with energy (we wake up at 4:45 am) and stick to our work schedule until 6 pm, 7 pm at the latest. A good pair of headphones helps me focus a lot. But distractions are part of remote work – they must assist and inspire you. Sometimes, a few good minutes of distraction, looking into the woods, will deliver productive hours later on.

How do you manage working with other people remotely? The internet has been magical in this regard. Well-directed video calls help me in my daily interactions. But at the same time, I feel overwhelmed when there's an excess of video meetings. Often, a good text conversation can solve the problem. That's why I always contact my colleagues via Microsoft Teams or WhatsApp.

Do you miss anything from working in person? Is there anything from in person work that you don't miss at all? I miss the connection that the coffee break with people provides. But I absolutely don't miss the traffic and the hustle and bustle of the office.

Can you see yourself working in person again? I believe only in case of extreme financial need. But I wouldn't be happy about it at all.

Has working remotely improved your quality of life? How do you feel? What do you do in your free time now that you didn't do before? I have gained a lot of quality of life! Nowadays, I can do things in the morning and start work on time without being stuck in traffic or squeezed on public transport. But what I find most important are the small things we can "insert" into our routine: taking a nap after lunch, or playing with the dogs between meetings. These small things may seem insignificant from a broader perspective, but they make all the difference at the end of the day. There's something else that remote work allowed me, which in-person work could never have, and I will never forget it: spending my grandmother's last day with her (without knowing it would be her last, of course). 

Working remotely for you is...? Trust. In the team and the processes.

How do you view this massive return to in-person work after the pandemic? Beyond the frustration I see in most people I talk to, it's pretty sad. It shows how our ability to forget is often greater than our ability to remember. I feel a little bit pessimistic about humanity at these moments. Some people seem to have learned nothing. At the height of Covid-19, I read once that it's pointless to put carrots and potatoes in a pressure cooker and expect them to turn into something else by the end of the process. Those with a flexible mindset will continue to have it, regardless of the pandemic; those who don't, won't. Professionals will make their choices, and the companies will lose out.