Hi friends, I know I promised Monday markets but my whole family is suffering from a stomach virus. We’ll have Monday Markets up in the next day or two.
- Deb
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Jodee
Please help keep us going.Probably the most glamorous aspect of the web freelance lifestyle — aside from working when you want, how you want — is the ability to work from anywhere in the world.
Theoretically, all you need is a computer and some kind of internet connection. As you know, these key ingredients are available everywhere from Romania to Peru (especially if you BYO a laptop).
Achieving the kind of flexibility that will allow you to take a working holiday anywhere in the world does take some time and effort, though it’s certainly worth the pay-off. In this final part of the Becoming a Freelance Web Worker series I’ll be explaining how you can achieve ultimate flexibility as a freelancer by working when you want, how you want, where you want.
The essence of building a mobile office is to eliminate externalities. Lugging around books, paperwork, a PDA, calendars, ledgers and diaries isn’t exactly conducive to breezy, light-weight travel.
Ultimately, your office should exist on your laptop and spill out as little as possible.
While every home office is different, you can begin the transformation with a two question process:
1. Will I really need this when working remotely?
If no, don’t take it with you. If yes, proceed to question two.
2. Can I put this on my laptop, or achieve the same effect using a laptop?
These days you can replicate almost any aspect of a home office using technology (and mostly free technology).
To find more digital equivalents for your home office, Google is your friend.
Paperwork is another aspect of working from home that will tie you to one location. The second half of building a mobile office is to eliminate paperwork, or deal with it online.
This will be most difficult when you’re just getting started with web freelancing. This is because fully-fledged web freelancers will, more often than not, invoice and get paid online. In some ways, becoming paperless is easier for us than for others. Correspondence and payment from clients is primarily carried out online.
If you still expect to receive work-related mail, a service like Earth Class Mail (currently US only and starting at $9.95 p/month) will send you scans of your sealed mail via email. You can then have the contents securely scanned and emailed to you in .pdf format, shredded, forwarded, and so on.
Alternately, you can enlist a friend, family member or virtual assistant to open your mail and either summarize by email what you need to know, or scan and send you copies — possibly in exchange for a nice bottle of wine upon your return ;-).
You’ll also want to enable online banking and, if possible, online bill-pay to manage expenses online. The kind of services you can use will depend on where you’re based internationally.
You can use a secure web app like Mint to keep track of your finances, debt, income, expenses and anything else involving dollars and cents.
Remember: while the computer crash that destroyed your last big project was heart-breaking, the loss of essential paperwork can have serious implications. Make sure than every aspect of your paperless office is regularly backed up and stored in multiple locations.
International mobile broadband and equivalents are expensive and probably out of reach for most of us, so I won’t go into much detail about those options here. Ideally, you’ll want to locate yourself near free wireless locations or pick accommodation that provides internet connectivity for lodgers.
Wi-Fi Free Spot is a comprehensive directory listing of free wireless locations across the US and elsewhere. For countries with few listings, a simple Google search for ‘free wireless’ + ‘location’ will likely yield some results you can use to help plan your trip.
If you want to go somewhere particularly remote or not so wealthy, internet cafes become another workable option. You’ll want to do as much as possible offline and use them only when necessary (they tend to be chaotic working environments, particularly in places where not many people have home internet access).
You can use a USB thumb drive to transfer your work to an internet cafe computer and send it to clients, or to download files you may need while offline.
Once you’ve built a mobile office and have found a place to connect, you’re in the enviable position of being able to earn an income anywhere. If you’re in a place where the exchange rate is favorable, you may be able to earn just as much as you would at home, while spending much less.
If you’re doing some work as you travel (how much is up to you), the trip will, at least partially, pay for itself.
If you’re single, or if you have an adventurous spouse/family, you could relocate overseas for an extended period and run your freelance business from a dream location. The Caribbean? Hawaii? Brazil? France? The choice is yours.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this series on becoming a web freelancer. While I don’t expect everyone who reads this to drop everything, build a digital office and relocate to the Bahamas, I do hope it will at least get you thinking about the kind of freedom offered by working online.
Getting there is not as hard as you think. You just have to allow yourself the freedom to do it.
This concludes this four part series of posts. You can read more from Skellie at her brand new blog Anywired