I'm doing 9 things
This has been a long-time goal. For me that meant leaving the area I was in. Now I travel full time and can live anywhere I want. My wife and I are traveling around the west coast living in beautiful places for a few weeks at a time. Here’s the super condensed list of how to do it:
1. Pick an industry to work in that you can find a job in anywhere or one where telecommuting is commonplace. I chose a branch of computer programming where lots of people work remote. My wife does photography and writes a popular blog.
2. Get your skills to the point that your company doesn’t mind you working remote.
3. Once you are no longer bound to an office, set a deadline to leave your city. I chose 4 weeks. But prior to this point we had a few things in place:
4. Simplify everything. Buy all the Elaine StJames books and read them like scripture. By the time you’re done you will have gotten rid of many of the possessions and relationships that are holding you back and you will have identified the kinds of things that bring real joy and happiness in your life.
5. Sell all your stuff. Donate the stuff you can’t sell. We were surprised at how much stuff had accumulated in our place. Hours after getting rid of each car load, we usually forgot about it and never missed it.
6. For the stuff you can’t bear to part with, take pictures of it and give it away. Sometimes all you need is the memory. I have lots of pictures of old toys but I’m very relieved to not have to hold on to it all. Whatever is too sentimental to part with store it but only if storing it is affordable. We spend $100 a month on storage, but we probably could have done better.
7. Get out of debt and build a savings fund. Lots of good books on this. I recommend Ramit Sethi’s book. Take a second job if you need to. Make some changes if you have to: I have a friend who rarely went out drinking with the guys, owned a cheap pickup and no fancy gadgets. We found out why when he announced that he was going to spend a year traveling around the world. He knew what he wanted enough to not need to own the latest iPhone.
8. Line up some cities to live in. Use vrbo.com and chbo.com to find vacation rentals that match your current monthly rent. Pick beautiful places in the off-season and you’ll get more for your money.
9. Afraid of making the plunge? write down the worst-case scenarios and how you might recover from them if they were to happen. Going back to your old life isn’t as hard as it might seem. Chances are though, you’ll love your new life and will find ways to overcome any of the challenges you face.
10. Tell your friends and family. Brace yourself for the usual guilt trips and contempt. You’ll strain a few relationships for a bit, but once people know you’re still in their life it’ll get better. Most of the responses we got from friends and family were overwhelmingly positive. Some were negative and we lost a few friends. This is a normal part of life. Many of our friendships have deepened and we’ve met many new lifetime friends. Read the book Emotional Blackmail if you are dealing with massive amounts of fear, obligation or guilt in your relationships.
11. Leave. Go live each day as though you’re on vacation. Sure you’ll probably still be working a lot, but make use of your weeknights and weekends to go explore your new surroundings. Stay in touch with your friends and family but put the breaks on negative relationships. We talk a lot to the people from our old life that are positive and encouraging. For the negative people we contact just around holidays and birthdays. Make your new life about finding positive and wonderful new people and places.
The next step for us is to find a way to work less, replacing our income with jobs that don’t require us to sell our time. The 4 Hour Workweek has been a great book for learning how to do this as well as giving us the courage to even try going remote at all.
