Being a digital nomad isn’t as easy as packing your bags and your laptop and moving to a new country. There are tons of ways in which you need to be quick on your feet, good at searching for new information, decent at planning, and more. So we put together these important digital nomad skills that you should practice if you want to start the lifestyle or if you want to make your life easier.
Planning
Some people think that the ability to plan is somehow innate in people, like a good memory. But good planning only takes practice. It might seem that, as a digital nomad, you simply wake up one day and move to a new country, but it’s a bit more complicated than that. Your travel arrangements need tickets for transport, visas, and balancing transportation with work.
Speaking of work, you need to organize it into clear tasks you can complete every day while keeping all the deadlines set by your boss or your clients. And on top of that, you must make sure you have enough days off work and free time each day. Without a good plan, you’ll be home and broke before you even land.
Routines
To many people, routines sound like a mundane and boring necessity but for digital nomads, it can be one of the best ways to feel anchored in their journey. A solid routine will keep you both happy and hard-working but setting one up can be a skill of its own. Make sure you listen to your needs and adjust your routine. Also, talk to other digital nomads about their schedules and see how they structure their day. Lastly, make sure you change up your routine once in a while to keep it fresh.
Communication
Talking to people clearly and without conflict is a massively important skill for digital nomads. Firstly, you need to be able to talk to your clients or your boss about the progress of your work and about the upcoming deadlines or changes. Since you’re not in the same office as them, you have to make sure they see the amount of work you have done and feel like they can talk to you easily. On top of that, being good at communicating also helps with networking.
Secondly, communication is important in your personal life as well. Meeting new people and finding friends is as important a skill as anything else. Put yourself out there, give people the benefit of the doubt, learn how to find good groups of people (around a hobby or an interest), and engage with them. And this is not even mentioning the importance of communication in romantic relationships. Overall, being able to communicate is going to help you out a lot.
Soft skills
The above-mentioned skills are all part of the soft skills together with critical thinking, public speaking, problem-solving, teamwork, leadership, and more. Since the job market is shifting away from long-held job positions with the possibility of climbing the corporate ladder and instead is moving towards a more modular approach where employees are not expected to stay with the company for decades, soft skills are becoming much more important. The ability to quickly learn new skills (like coding, editing, teaching, etc.) is becoming a crucial part of the digital nomad skillset. Practicing your soft skills is just as important as any other skill.
