Sinead Macmanus on Living & Working a Location Independent Lifestyle
- 11 years ago
Sinead Macmanus outlines her journey from reading the 4 hour work week ( 4HWW) to becoming a digital nomad, through to leading a location independent lifestyle. What is the difference between digital nomad & location independence?
http://www.careerbreak360.com/
My name is Sinead Mac Manus, I run a digital coaching and training company. So basically back in 2007 I was in a really really boring job, we all know what those are like, and had a lot of time on my hands, so I spent most of my day in my office on the internet.
I got really inspired by watching and reading about a lot of people around the world who seemed to be doing really interesting things. And I read the book that you guys have probably all read Tim Ferris ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ and I think there’s a lot of stuff in there that’s, (you know you can take it or leave it), but I think the essence of it is very very interesting. It’s like why do useless work when we can actually do something that frees up our time, more meaningful work so we can get out in the world and do more interesting things, and I think that’s something that has resonated with me since I read the book in 2008. So, inspired by Tim Ferris and Lea Woodward, who for me is the Queen, she’s great, of location independence, I thought well, I want to do this, other people are doing it; I can do it too. So I was working at the time; as I said; in this boring job; but I was also working freelance as an Arts Consultant. So the majority of my work I could do online, so I thought well; what if I take my computer and go work somewhere in the world? So I thought Asia and I thought umm, what if I need to get back for meetings and things like that so I thought well lets go somewhere in Europe and I wanted to go somewhere warm. So this is a story on how not to pick somewhere to live, so basically I read a story in the Guardian about ten nice beach places in Europe. I literally packed up and went to live for a year in a small beach town in the south of Spain. Please do not do what I do. It was very very cool; like everything is for the first few months, and then it gets really boring. So now I live what I call a part time location independent life so I have definitely a base here in the UK but I try to spend every winter and other longer periods during the year abroad, so for me this is a more sustainable thing and something that suits my lifestyle so that’s why I wanted to share five lessons.
So the first one is about the difference between location independence and digital nomadism [ digital nomad ] . So if you think of a digital nomad, for me I have the picture, can you have that picture in your head of the person on the beach in a bikini, the laptop and the sun is shining, maybe there’s a cocktail beside them. As somebody who lived in a beach town, if you’ve ever taken your laptop to the beach, it’s a really bad idea,
http://www.careerbreak360.com/
My name is Sinead Mac Manus, I run a digital coaching and training company. So basically back in 2007 I was in a really really boring job, we all know what those are like, and had a lot of time on my hands, so I spent most of my day in my office on the internet.
I got really inspired by watching and reading about a lot of people around the world who seemed to be doing really interesting things. And I read the book that you guys have probably all read Tim Ferris ‘The 4-Hour Workweek’ and I think there’s a lot of stuff in there that’s, (you know you can take it or leave it), but I think the essence of it is very very interesting. It’s like why do useless work when we can actually do something that frees up our time, more meaningful work so we can get out in the world and do more interesting things, and I think that’s something that has resonated with me since I read the book in 2008. So, inspired by Tim Ferris and Lea Woodward, who for me is the Queen, she’s great, of location independence, I thought well, I want to do this, other people are doing it; I can do it too. So I was working at the time; as I said; in this boring job; but I was also working freelance as an Arts Consultant. So the majority of my work I could do online, so I thought well; what if I take my computer and go work somewhere in the world? So I thought Asia and I thought umm, what if I need to get back for meetings and things like that so I thought well lets go somewhere in Europe and I wanted to go somewhere warm. So this is a story on how not to pick somewhere to live, so basically I read a story in the Guardian about ten nice beach places in Europe. I literally packed up and went to live for a year in a small beach town in the south of Spain. Please do not do what I do. It was very very cool; like everything is for the first few months, and then it gets really boring. So now I live what I call a part time location independent life so I have definitely a base here in the UK but I try to spend every winter and other longer periods during the year abroad, so for me this is a more sustainable thing and something that suits my lifestyle so that’s why I wanted to share five lessons.
So the first one is about the difference between location independence and digital nomadism [ digital nomad ] . So if you think of a digital nomad, for me I have the picture, can you have that picture in your head of the person on the beach in a bikini, the laptop and the sun is shining, maybe there’s a cocktail beside them. As somebody who lived in a beach town, if you’ve ever taken your laptop to the beach, it’s a really bad idea,