A few days ago, I slept in my own bed for the first time in more than a month.
I’ve been on the road nearly nonstop for the past few months — including trips to Costa Rica and Ireland — and the last 30 days really took the cake: from San Diego to New Orleans to Austin, I traipsed all across the U.S.
These trips were half-work, half-play.
I made speeches and presentations at a couple of conferences, met with a various bloggers, and participated in a few face-to-face mastermind groups. But I also went camping with friends, read loads of books, hiked, kayaked, paddleboarded, and generally soaked up each new location with gusto.
I’m now home for a solid two-and-a-half weeks. Then I fly to San Diego again (third trip this year!) to hit up a 4-day arts and music festival in the mountains.
Ay caramba.
The two obvious questions at this juncture are:
- How can you afford this? (Answered many times on this blog, including here, here and here).
- How do you balance this with your day-to-day workload?
Let’s tackle the second question.
I’m a digital nomad, which means I can work from my laptop from anywhere on the planet (as long as I have internet). But this doesn’t necessarily mean I WANT to be working 40-hour weeks while I travel.
On the contrary: I want to work As. Little. As. Possible. while I’m traveling. And for the past month, that’s exactly what I did.
(This is also why there’s been radio silence from this blog for a month. I needed a break from staring at a computer screen. I hope you understand. You can always find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, where I whittle away far too much of my misspent youth.)
At any rate —
How did this one-month absence impact my income? Is my business ready for this level of passivity? And — most importantly — what lessons can I share that might benefit you?
Read on.
The Back Story
First, a bit of background:
As longtime Afford Anything Rebels already know, I quit my 9-to-5 job in 2008 and traveled for a couple of years, living on savings. When I came back to the U.S. in 2010, I began building an online business as a freelance writer and — later — as a content marketing consultant. (I also started investing in real estate, but that’s a different story for a different day).
Over the past four years, the digital business has grown from barely-eeking-out-an-existance to a healthy income. Like many stereotypical overworked solopreneurs, I initially handled everything myself. From operations to tech support to marketing to bookkeeping to design, I was a one-person machine.
I later woke up to the realization that if I want to build a lifestyle-centered enterprise, I needed to throw away the shackles of a “DIY” mentality. My goal is to have a business that works harder for me than I do for it. The most critical skill I can develop is hiring, training, promoting, and firing.
I started assembling a four-person, part-time team a little less than a year ago, with loads of trial, error, and mixed results. While I’m still a complete amateur at team leadership (seriously — I’m deep in the “still learning” phase), I’m light-years beyond my skill level from a mere 6 months ago.
(Moral of the story: Always be learning. “I don’t know how …” is never an excuse.)
This past month represented my first true test. Can I step away from my business for a month and leave it running as smoothly as it does when I’m behind-the-wheel?
The Experience
The test results are in. Here’s how it shook out:
Daily Operations:
This turned out to be 90 percent fine. My team was already in the habit of taking care of routine tasks, so my departure didn’t ruffle feathers in the least.
What about the problematic 10 percent? The core issue involved slow communication. When someone on my team emailed me a question, I would take about 3-4 days to respond — which would delay projects.
What triggered this problem? Their emails got buried in a sea of other unopened, unanswered email.
The solution? I began using a free Gmail feature called “Priority Inbox” that fixes this issue by automatically sending certain emails to the “priority” chain. (Note: This is different from Gmail’s “Primary” Inbox, which is automatically applied to all accounts.)
However, “Priority Inbox” wasn’t a complete cure. Some of their emails would still get swallowed by the general Inbox Monster. As a backup, I also instructed them to write the word “URGENT” (all-caps) in the subject line if they needed a response from me within the next 48 hours.
Meetings:
As a rule, I like to keep my calendar as clear as possible. Too many meetings are a waste of time. That said, on the rare occasions (maybe 1-2x/week) that I’d schedule a phone meeting, I found myself in ConfusionLand.
What triggered this problem? At home, I input everything into my calendar in Eastern Time. When I’m on the road, I’ll input it into my calendar in the local time of where ever I currently happen to be — which may or may not correspond to the time zone in which I’ll be located when I have the meeting. (Sometimes I don’t know have this information yet, since I’m not sure how long I’ll stay somewhere before moving onto the next spot.) And finally, sometimes the Google Calendar would automatically convert the meeting to the local time zone, but on occasion it wouldn’t, or something would get messed up, or perhaps I’d just get confused about the whole mess.
The solution? I began inputting every meeting in Eastern Time, so I would have a consistent “benchmark” for conversion. I also began manually writing the time — “4 p.m. Eastern” — in the event description. This way, if the scheduling auto-shifted on the calendar, I can still read the original benchmark. In the future, I’m contemplating using a more robust calendar program like ScheduleOnce, though I haven’t tried it yet. (That’s NOT an affiliate link; I don’t affiliate with anything unless I use it myself.)
New Business:
I’ll keep this one short: You can maintain your business while you step away … but you can’t grow it.
In one of my favorite books, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, author Stephen Covey outlines the difference between “urgent” and “important” in your work life —
When you’re on cruise-control, you tend what’s “urgent” … not what’s “important.” That’s fine for a month or two. Just don’t make a habit of it (if you want to grow). 🙂
One unexpected benefit: Removing yourself clarifies what’s actually important vs. what’s just busy-work. (It also clarifies the areas in which you’re the bottleneck). You know the cliche: “Necessity is the mother of invention?” Turns out, necessity is also the mother of clarity.
Income:
Unchanged! No upset clients. No missed projects or deadlines. Everything ran as it did when I was back at home, despite working significantly fewer hours. (This makes me realize how — ahem — “unnecessary” I truly am). 🙂
We maintained the status quo quite nicely. We just didn’t make any growth progress, or chase any long-term prospects. That’s totally fine by me. I’m in this for the lifestyle.
Real Estate:
Having throughly tested a variety of real estate management tactics, I’m more convinced than ever that traditional rental properties are one of the BEST sources of truly passive income. (The initial phase is a pain-in-the-rear, but the aftermath is awesomesauce-with-a-side-of-hell-yeah.)
Meanwhile, vacation rentals (like being an AirBnb host) and active businesses (like my laptop-based operation) are more lucrative but require MUCH more time, energy and attention. One is a passive business, while the others are ultra-active.
Take-Away Lessons:
If you’re wondering how to apply this to your own life — even if you just want a 1-week getaway without needing to stay tethered to your email — here are some chief takeaways:
- Preparation is key. Start getting your systems in place months ahead of time.
- Eliminate, then automate, then delegate. It’s cliche because it’s true.
- Don’t over-optimize. Understand when “good enough” is good enough.
- Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. And taller and better-looking. 🙂 Your team should pull you up, not tear you down. You’re a leader, not a babysitter.
- Make decisions based on simplicity. And let go of the details.
- Don’t live in your Inbox. Accept that sometimes, you’ll take weeks to answer non-critical emails. Your time and your mental bandwidth is limited, and you shouldn’t waste it wallowing in your Inbox. Finish your most critical work first, and indulge in email for dessert.
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Sounds like your time away from mostly successful and you have the digital nomad lifestyle on lock down!
I stepped away from the computer and all internet connectivity for 8 days in September when the whole family went on a cruise to Mexico, Honduras, and Belize.
I didn’t miss anything.
My site stayed up and running and seemed to make more money while I was away than it did while I’m sitting eagle-eyed watching over it. My friends and family kept living. My house didn’t fall apart.
Everything was fine.
I didn’t miss the internet at all, however I did have plenty of those “OMG I wish I could google that” moments. Which could all wait until I returned home.
My boss is gone for most of the summer every year and is able to make that happen by hiring top notch people that he can trust to make decisions when he’s thousands of miles away. The only big hiccups occur when there are issues where he insists on being the final decision maker (despite hiring experts to make those decisions already!) but he is unreachable. Sometimes I’m not sure he wants to be completely unnecessary, though. =)
Paula,
You write that you “began building an online business as a freelance writer and later as a content marketing consultant.”
Do you have specific tips for someone starting out?
For example I have saved enough to live overseas but I don’t have an online business.
Hi DJ — Here’s a super-long article that I wrote a few years ago about pricing your work: http://affordanything.com/2011/11/18/give-me-money-finding-freelance-work/
The resources listed at the bottom of that article are specifically for people looking for work as a writer (as opposed to, say, graphic design or some other skill).
My single biggest piece of advice, though, is to specialize at the intersection of two or more fields. For example: Plenty of people write. Plenty of people understand the realms of personal finance and real estate. And plenty of people are well-versed in internet marketing (analytics, email automation, social, etc.)
But very few people possess the intersection of those three skills. And that makes me valuable to an ultra-specific niche: Businesses in the personal finance / real estate space that want to increase their online presence through content marketing.
Specializing in an uber-specific niche is probably the single best business decision I’ve ever made. In the beginning, I was a “general writer” and struggled to find well-paid work. The more I niched down, the more I grew.
You are an inspiration time and again, Paula! Of all the blogs I read I consistently find yours the one that fires me up the most – thank you!
Awww, thank you!!
Welcome back! And, it’s awesome that your business was able to hum along just fine while you traveled. I really like this “Always be learning. “I don’t know how …” is never an excuse.” So true. I’m trying to assimilate that outlook and recognize that anything I need to learn, I can.
Being able to step away and not see a big decline in revenue or productivity shows that you have done things exactly right. Way to go.
Paula –
your URGENT Idea can be taken one step further. Have your team put that in the subject line, then go to gmail and set up a filter (do this in the settings tab) and have it filter all messages with URGENT: in the subject line. You can add a label to this (if it were me, I’d make it red), and when you open up your email after long periods away, you can click on that label and gmail will display all messages (read & Unread) with that label.
that way, you wont even have to look for the subject line, gmail does it for you.
Jeff.
@Jeff — That is AWESOME!! Great idea. I “filter” some of my messages (though not the “urgent” ones), but I haven’t played with colored labels yet …. that’s a damn good idea. Thanks!!
I was really happy to have met you at FinCon. Your lifestyle is something I am striving for and working very hard to achieve. Thanks for being willing to show the path Paula.
Hello Paula,
Welcome back! Glad you had fun, learned and lived as you chose.
Hungry and desperate scaredy-cat!
That’s what I am – paralyzed by fear of the unknown.
And so I thank you for once again providing down-to-earth, real, and applicable advice.
On my own way of starting a business and ditching the J.O.B., I am inspired by reading about the path you took. I am very analytical, love crunching data, organizing, preparing but when it comes to managing/hiring/interacting with people, I’m less skilled or comfortable. Therefore, if you should ever write or expand on this, I would gobble up that blog article too.
“The most critical skill I can develop is hiring, training, promoting, and firing.”
Welcome back, Paula!
This post was so inspiring. Reading stories like this reinforces how the type of life I want is available to me if I work hard enough and play my cards right. Life doesn’t have to be a rat race for 40 years!
I don’t run my own business (yet!) but if/when I do, I’ll definitely outsource as needed so that I can enjoy as much time off as possible. Just curious about what type of employees you have? Are they local or do they work remotely?
@Charlotte — They all work-from-home: One from Tennessee, one from New York, and two (coincidentally) from Georgia. I also get (very occasional) back-end technical website help from a guy in Utah, though (fortunately) I don’t need his help too much.
I’ve tried hiring overseas, but I didn’t have much success with it — I found myself re-doing a lot of work (though that may have been my own fault as a manager). I prefer working with people in the U.S., mostly because I want people who can exercise judgment, make decisions and self-manage.
Having heard you on Stacking Benjamins so much, I now hear your voice when reading the posts. That’s not weird, right?
Our only side hustle right now are our rentals, with the hope that they remain mostly passive as we get to FI. We were kicking around the idea of buying a single family in Atlanta. The turnkey companies we’ve seen have been underwhelming. Any interest in helping us find one and/or being a property manager?
I can hook you up with the people you need (agents, property manager, contractors) — I’ve got a solid team here. Shoot me an email and we’ll get it rolling. 🙂
I hope you had a good time away from your business. Sometimes we all need a break, and if things were able to run smoothly without many hiccups, but without growth, for a month that seems pretty good. I know growth is important, but sometimes just maintenace during a break is a lofty goal. Good job!
Great article,
One of the things that you mentioned was you having a 4 person part time team. I was wondering if you can give a breakdown of your team i.e what part of the business the take care of and what they do.
I am planning on doing a airbnb vacation rental close to where I live. I want to set up systems to make it as passive so it does not interfere with location independence goals. I would be interested to here how you accomplish this for your airbnb rental.
@Lou — I absolutely don’t recommend setting up an Airbnb business if you want location-independence. Owning a vacation rental is a very location-dependent enterprise, as I mentioned in this article above. If you want location independence, put the unit on a traditional long-term lease.
My team does handles my freelance/consulting practice: Tech support, SEO, site optimization, editing, copywriting, formatting, layout, photo editing, content management. It’s nothing related to the Airbnb rental. I also have a property manager for many of my traditional long-term-lease rentals.
What Paula said is so absolutely true. We’ve just stayed in three Airbnb apartments in a row and seriously the main reason we love Airbnb is the host. They meet us and they know the area and everything to do in the area, best places to shop, eat, catch the metro etc. They can also tell us the little knacks that every place has, things like ‘you have to turn the key this way, then jiggle it a little’. That stuff just can’t be replicated, nor automated.
That said, I’m going to try out one of my rentals as an Airbnb when I’m back in my hometown (In New Zealand) next year – because i’ll be living around the corner if a guest needs me. It’s currently being managed by a property manager on a traditional long term lease while I travel around Europe. Traditional rentals are great for location-independence but I’m pretty sure your Airbnb business would suffer were you not a key part of it.
I would love to hear more about the individual tasks you outsource to your team. I find myself growing to a point where I can no longer do it all. It drives me crazy when I’m on vacation. I was on the beach in Mexico this summer worrying about getting wi-fi!
In 2013 I did something similar. I took 5 weeks off. I will admit that it was a very slow time of year. Staff was not allowed to phone, text or email me. I wanted to see it if when pushed to would pull the trigger and make difficult decisions. Historically staff would turn to me. I wanted to see if it was because they were not capable or whether they just did not want to make hard decisions.
The office worked fine without me and it really elevated the game of a couple of staff. Even when I returned they continued to make decision on issues in the past they relied on me for.
Thanks
Jeff
Paula,
I just returned from a month away travelling (like you, except we went to Nepal and Indonesia), and also like you, left my work for most of the time (unless I got through on Wifi, which didn’t happen often).
My business is not nearly as big nor as developed as yours, but I was surprised as to how small the impact my travelling and being away actually was.
As of January, my work contract will end and I am very excited about becoming location independent and becoming exclusively self employed, but it’s nerve wracking too.
Thanks for sharing.
I would love to be able to do this. I think I’ll be there financially before I will actually be able to do it. Once my military commitment is up, I should be able to work as a Digital Nomad and travel. My wife and I have many travel plans! Great article! I’m glad you enjoyed the time away!
“Digital Nomad” Love it
Jeff
First of all I want to say awesome blog! I had a quick question which I’d
like to ask if you do not mind. I was interested to find out
how you center yourself and clear your mind before writing.
I’ve had difficulty clearing my thoughts in getting my thoughts out there.
I do enjoy writing but it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes are usually lost just trying to figure
out how to begin. Any ideas or hints? Cheers!