Travelling is among the more enjoyable things in life. You get to see new places, experience new cultures, and make new friends. However, such a lifestyle can sometimes get very exhausting. Digital nomads face a lot of challenges and often find themselves in some undesired situations. They often mess up some activities because of faulty time conversion. To avoid missed deadlines and missed flights, digital nomads need to keep themselves organized.
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Being a digital nomad has its pros and cons. You experience a high level of mobility. You can see different places as and when it is convenient. However, you also need to be organized to live life constantly on the road. Here are some online tools that will help you get organized as a digital nomad.
Trello
Trello is a very useful tool for digital nomads. It helps to get you organized and maintain efficiency while working. The website can be used without paying a fee. You can create boards for projects you are currently working on and for those you will be working on in the future. Instead of making notes on multiple apps and reading long email threads, drag and drop these notes on Trello. Trello allows users to seamlessly collaborate and exchange notes and ideas through comment cards. It is a good way to track the progression of your projects. You can create numerous boards on Trello and organize them as you wish. You can upload files, create notifications and deadlines, and easily share information with your team with just a single click.
As an example, you may mark two of your boards business and personal. The business board can be used to compile a list of all work projects. You can list all the things you need to do to finish those projects. The personal board can be used for a variety of non-business tasks, like managing your travel schedules and visa applications.
The best part about Trello is that it is free to use. It is a good alternative for other similar paid project management software. You can use it for a variety of jobs. It is available on both Android as well as iOS devices.
F.Lux
One of the drawbacks of working as a digital nomad is that you don’t have regular working hours. You often work late at night or in the early morning hours. This can seriously affect your eyesight. You can protect your eyes from strain by installing F.Lux on your devices. It is another very useful tool. It will automatically adjust the brightness of your screen according to the time of the day or night. During the day, your screen will be bright. As it becomes dark, F.Lux will automatically adjust your screen to dim lighting.
This tool will not only protect your eyesight but will also help raise your productivity. It will help you get more work done in the morning and slow down your pace of work in the evening. This will ensure you don’t overburden yourself with work and will result in a better work-life balance.
Focus@Will
Digital nomads don’t have a typical office space. They will find themselves working in various kinds of environments wherever they travel. Sometimes these places may be crowded, like railway stations or airports. It is no doubt difficult to concentrate when working in such places. Focus@Will provides a solution to this problem. It offers a selection of white noise tracks. It also has some simple tunes that allow people to drown out ambient noise in their environment and concentrate on their work.
It is better to listen to these tracks rather than your favorite music tunes. When you are listening to music, there is a good chance you will start singing along and break your concentration span. The computer version comes with a 30 day free trial period. It has a limited selection of tracks and can only be played for a maximum of just one hour. However, you can restart the app after the first hour is complete. The paid version costs $10 for three months. It is available for free on Android and iOS devices.
Shopify
Working solo as a digital nomad can get challenging. Since you are a one-man army, you need to have expertise in numerous skills, especially when you have just launched your online venture. As a creative, you may only have very rudimentary technical knowledge. You may not know a lot about HTML, coding, or online payment mechanisms. So you will spend a lot of time working out these details, rather than working on your core skills.
This is where Shopify comes in handy. It provides customized hassle-free solutions for e-commerce enterprises. They offer a variety of services. They include secure web-hosting, cellphone-optimized websites, and secure check-out mechanisms. You can choose from about 70 different payment gateways. Shopify will also assist you in managing your online marketing campaigns. It is a relatively affordable service. A monthly fee of about $30 gets you unlimited access to their entire set of offerings. If you are unsure about investing in Shopify, you can opt for a free trial run for two weeks.
Rescue Time
While we all struggle with time management, digital nomads struggle with it more than others. Unlike in a conventional office setting, there is no supervisor to help you manage your time. Poor time management can lead to people wasting countless hours on non-productive activities. Rescue Time is an app that will help you solve this problem. It helps track how much time was spent doing different offline and online activities on your computer. As a digital nomad, this is a must-have application for all your devices. The app will send you an email every week detailing how much time was spent doing productive and non-productive activities on your devices.
The app will also help you get better organized. You will know exactly how much time you spent doing multiple work activities. So you will know how much you need to charge your clients. It will also help eliminate time-wasting activities. The basic version can be used for free. The premium version will cost you less the $10 a month.
Every Time Zone
As a digital nomad, you will most likely be dealing with people in multiple locations across the world. Simultaneously dealing with a client in Australia and a vendor in Poland when working in Thailand must be a logistical nightmare. With Every Time Zone, you can keep track of time with all the people you interact with, no matter where they may be located. All you have to do is add the time zone in which you work on the application’s dashboard, along with those of your clients and vendors. This simple app will ensure you don’t miss any work deadlines due to time-zone differences. It will also allow you to easily communicate with your professional partners.
XE Currency
If you travel frequently for work, you probably have multiple currencies in your wallet at any given time. As a digital nomad, you will need to regularly keep track of various currency exchange rates. The XE Currency App will help you keep track of the exchange rates of currencies you deal in. You will get live exchange rates. Whether you are negotiating with a client or vendor, you will get a fair idea of how much to charge or pay in their local currency. You can even add a list of currencies, as per your requirement, and get the exchange rates ahead of time. This way, you will get offline access to XE currency on your device as well. The tool is available as a browser-based service and can also be used on Android, iOS, and Windows devices (if you are still using a Windows phone).
Trail Wallet
Trail Wallet is another useful finance tool for digital nomads. It is fairly easy to use. It will help track your expenditures across various currencies and countries. The app will allow you to organize your spending according to a periodic schedule or the number of countries you visit. You can set up daily budgets, so the app will let you know whenever you breach your budget. You will receive a monthly cash flow statement to keep track of where and how you spend your income. It is the perfect tool for evaluating the living cost across multiple countries and cities. By using it for a few months, you will know what the most economical place for you to live is.
Xero
Xero is similar to trail wallet, except it is meant to track business expenses. This is a great tool for people who do not have professional accounting skills. You can use this app to send bills to clients. It also manages the cash-flow statements for your business. You can also create notifications for credit card payments and other recurring expenses. The app links with your bank account, so all your financial transactions can be reconciled. It is available on Android and iOS devices, so you can check your business finances no matter where you are.
Tripit
Digital nomads travel frequently across the world. So it only makes sense to have an application that will manage their travel. Tripit is one such app that can help plan your travel. It is free to use. It works fast, and it also works offline. This tool helps to organize all travel itineraries. It will compile all your confirmed bookings for hotels, flights, and car rentals in one place. This way, you can easily follow your travel schedules. Notifications can be set up offline on your device so you can keep track of your travel schedule even without internet access. With Tripit on your device, you will never need to worry about going to the wrong airport terminal or the wrong hotel when you are in an unfamiliar city. It is a must-have app for all frequent travelers.
1Password
We should all be careful in dealing with sensitive data, particularly passwords. Sometimes, as a part of your work, you need to use some password-protected tools and accounts with your clients and, team members. This is where 1Password comes in handy. It is a secure service that is meant for sharing passwords for shared accounts. This tool will allow you to create secure vaults that will contain a bunch of passwords for online service accounts and tools. It will be accessible only to people who need to know those passwords. It is available for both Android and iOS devices. It is surely something that will give you peace of mind.
Summing Up
Working as a digital nomad appears to be something attractive for many people. However, you need to be very organized to ensure you make it work. Using the tools mentioned here will help you in getting organized while you work on your own time.
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