As a digital nomad, I’ve been working online while visiting various cities around the world for a long time. Many people are talking about work-life balance these days, but most people are not aware of work-life integration. I’d like to talk about these topics in detail here today.
- Find work-life balance by following your instincts.
When I was younger, I hired a business coach and a mentor to help me with my online business. The business coach told me to start a YouTube channel because that was where traffic was at that time, so I did that, but I didn’t focus on YouTube. In fact, my instinct told me that YouTube doesn’t work for me. Truthfully, my instinct wanted me to write content for a high-traffic website so that a better client will discover me on the Internet.
Luckily, I met someone that has a high-traffic website online and that person hired me to write content for the website. Because I charged a relatively low fee, this website’s owner (my first client online) allowed me to include my pen name while publishing my articles on the high-traffic site – it was just like running ads while getting paid. Two years later, I received an email from a wildly successful business in the same industry – they hired me to be their content writer. Because they can pay me a significantly higher fee, I’m able to be a happy digital nomad.
If I didn’t follow my instinct, I wouldn’t have work-life balance because I would spend a lot of time and energy doing less effective work on YouTube.
- Achieve work-life integration through creativity.
I visit different countries and write content about my travel experiences for my clients on the Internet, so I’ve already achieved work-life integration through my creative writing as a digital nomad.
My friend Jake isn’t an online content writer. He is a retailer with a side hustle. His day job is selling shoes at a footwear store; meanwhile, he works as a graphic designer at home on his day off. He told me that working at the shoe shop is just like going to the gym while getting paid. Because of his active work at the shoe shop, he feels really balanced and calm when he works as a graphic designer at home in the evening and on weekends. Indeed, retail work is a really good workout for him, and he has achieved work-life integration successfully.
I sincerely hope that my experience and Jake’s experience have given you something interesting to think about.
