20 Essential Apps And Websites For Digital Nomads
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Living a life of perpetual travel is pretty heady – new destinations, new cultures and new incredible people to encounter and hang out with! Nevertheless, working on the road can get pretty hectic at times. Every bit a digital nomad I have found myself in rather awkward situations a lot – from missed deadlines due to incorrect fourth dimension zone conversion to a nearly missed aeroplane when I forgot to print out my booking and dislocated the time (I did catch that plane though!).
Beingness your own boss is every bit crawly and hellish. Juggling numerous tasks at once and getting things washed super-fast with a terrible wi-fi connection requirea killer organizational skills and zen-similar concentration. Try using the next 20 websites and apps to brand your life as a digital nomad easier, less stressful and fifty-fifty more exciting!
1. Trello
Trello is your go-to website to stay organized and work super-efficiently on the road. Information technology's a free service that allows you to create numerous boards for your ongoing projects and plans. Tired of having numerous notes scattered around different apps and lengthy e-mail threads with your clients or squad? Merely drag and drop them all to Trello, where yous can easily interact, quickly exchange ideas and notes in the form of cards, leave comments and track the overall progress of the project. Y'all tin create numerous boards and organize them the way you similar, upload files to each, set deadlines and notifications, plus hands share everything with one click.
My Trello contains two sets of boards – personal and business. I employ the first to continue all my travel plans neat and make certain I won't confuse the flight time or overstay my visa; the second to keep a visual account of my personal goals and various arrangements. The business board is where I accept a list of ongoing projects equanimous into unproblematic to-dos with their electric current statuses – forth with all the comments from my clients and a separate column for follow-ups.
Trello is an incredible free alternative to similar project management softwares I used earlier and it can be used for tackling whatever job – from firm renovation to multi-stage marketing campaign! Besides available equally an app for iOS and Android devices to become updates on the get.
2. f.lux
As a digital nomad you often notice yourself working late at nighttime or early morning to go along up with your clients' fourth dimension zones. Love checking your email or reading a few articles from your iPad before going to bed? (I practice!). Fifty-fifty if you don't feel information technology yet, your optics are seriously suffering from those habits and you can cease upward having troubles with sleeping equally the blue low-cal from your devices negatively impacts your sleeping patterns. Use f.lux – a handy software that will automatically adjust the colour of your computer'due south display to the fourth dimension of day – warm at night and like sunlight during the day. F.lux allowed me to be more productive in the mornings and fabricated information technology easier to wearisome downwards my activity in the evenings. As a digital nomad it is essential to stay refreshed every bit your income depends solely on your productivity. Also, haven't we escaped the cubicle to have a better work/life residual and more than rest in the showtime place?
3. Focus@Will
As nosotros often discover ourselves working at various places around the earth – from a crowded omnibus station to a jam-packed bar (the just place that has decent wi-fi in the area) – concentrating on your work gets extremely difficult. That's where Focus@Will comes to rescue. The service offers a wide selection of white noise and unproblematic tunes selected co-ordinate to a neuroscience-based approach. It seems to work pretty cracking every bit I stayed manner more concentrated on my work compared to the times when I only blasted my favorite tunes and murmured along. A 30-twenty-four hours costless trial has a limited option of tracks and will stop playing them in an 60 minutes (although information technology could be restarted immediately). The paid service will price you lot around $10 for three months. As well available as a gratis app for iOS and Android devices.
iv. Shopify
Permit's admit it, being a digital nomad and working solo gets challenging at times. There are days when you experience similar a Renaissance man trying to tackle all things at once and getting expertise in numerous areas. That's particularly true when you are just near to launch your business website, blog or an online store. If you are a artistic, you have only bones knowledge (if whatsoever) in CSS, HTML or integrated payment systems, so you spend countless hours figuring out how things work instead of doing what you are actually good at and earning money.
Endeavor Shopify – a service providing custom no-hassle ecommerce solutions. They offer everything from secure hosting and mobile-optimized websites to secure cheque-outs with some 70 payment getaways to choose from and assistance with running your online marketing campaign. The rates are incredibly affordable and start from just $29 per month for unlimited admission to all their services and features or opt for a fourteen day complimentary trial to test them out first!
v. Rescue Time
Proper time management is some other great struggle all digital workers face. How many times you lot take found yourself spending over 12 hours a day in front of your screen and non having all things washed? Yes, it happens to me quite in a while, so I've started using Rescue Time – to stay on top of my productivity while still having a normal work/life balance. Install it on your estimator and all devices to have an accurate movie of how much time y'all spend doing sure activities or browsing certain sites (khm..cat videos on YouTube). At the terminate of each week y'all'll receive an electronic mail with a fair statement on your (united nations)productivity.
Rescue Fourth dimension enables you to give more than accurate deadlines to your clients; create accurate hourly invoices as you know exactly how much fourth dimension you've spent doing a certain task and adjusting your rates accordingly and eliminate random activity during your working hours. Y'all can use Light Rescue Time version for gratis or opt for the premium plan at $6 per month.
half-dozen. Every Time Zone
Equally you probably work with people based anywhere from New Zealand to the Due west Coast keeping an middle on the borderline or updating them on your progress at 9 am each 24-hour interval may become tricky. Just as sending follow-ups, project proposals and invoices at the right time of the 24-hour interval. Every Time Zone is some other great solution for keeping proper track of the time – your client's time. Add all time zones you need, add together your fourth dimension in the marking at the top and come across where this lands in anybody else's 24-hour interval. No more crazy maths with figuring out when practice yous need to ring upward Joe on Skype if he asked to practise that at xi am EST.
7. XE Currency
How many currencies exercise y'all accept in your wallet? My guess is more than than two. As a digital nomad and perpetual traveler you have to keep rails on the conversion rates and different currencies all the time. To make certain yous are charging an equally fair price in USD/EU/GBP or whatever other currency out there use XE Currency. Go live conversion rates instantly or add together up a list of your preferred and sync ahead of time to have instant offline access from whatsoever device. XE Currency is bachelor every bit a web service, iOS, Android, Windows Phone apps and more than.
8. Trail Wallet
My second essential money app for digital nomads is Trail Wallet (currently iOS just). It's a beautifully crafted and easy-to-utilise app for tracking your expenses across multiple countries and currencies. You can organize your spendings by land or my month, ready max daily budgets and add each dollar you've spent on the become. At the end of the month the app will tell you if y'all gone over your budget or where exactly did the cash flow. It's perfect for analyzing the toll of living and working at different cities and countries, thus finding the optimal home-base for you lot when you get tired of being on the road and need to settle down for a while.
9. Xero
And to keep amend track of your business organization-related expenses try Xero. Arguably, the best online bookkeeping and bookkeeping service out there for all the non-accountants. It'southward perfect for sending invoices, keeping track of the cash-menses and setting payment notifications on credit cards and recruiting payments. Information technology neatly categorizes all your banking concern transactions and reconciles them with the transactions yous have fabricated in Xero to go on things fifty-fifty more simple. Bachelor for numerous iOS and Android devices, so you lot can always have admission to your information at no time.
10. Tripit
Tripit is one of the all-time travel planners out there! It's free, fast and most importantly – works off-line. Only say no more to papers and lost emails. Forward all your booking confirmations – hotels, flights, motorcar rental etc and permit the app exercise all the magic for you by turning it into an easy-to-follow itinerary. You tin can ready up notifications and go access to your information from whatsoever device without internet connexion. Tripit reduced my frustration of arriving to the wrong terminal or roaming around the new urban center with my baggage as I haven't written down the hotel accost correctly. It's a great app I seriously recommend using it to basically anyone who travels.
11. 1Password
Sharing sensitive data, especially passwords with your clients or squad and keeping rail of them can get challenging. That'due south why I've started using 1Password – a super secure password-sharing service that allows you to create special vaults with a set of passwords to tools and services only accessible to the people you've shared it with. Bachelor for numerous devices, the service gives y'all peace of mind when sharing anything sensitive via unprotected networks. Speaking of which…
12. Individual Internet Admission
Go along all your data and computer protected by opting for Private Cyberspace Access. Oft we need to make those final minute payments or credit bill of fare purchases and the only cyberspace available is a suspicious unprotected network your device somehow institute. By using an anonymous encrypted VPN and a private IP you can be 100% certain none of your payment data will exist fished or passwords stolen.
13. Workfrom
Observe the best coffee shops and cafes in your area with this service. Workfrom has a bully pool of venues in major US cities – New York, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle – and more destinations worldwide to exist added before long! The service is costless to join and you lot'll become access to numerous cool spots with unbiased opinions of wi-fi connectedness and cappuccino quality from digital nomads just similar yous. Reviews also include toll range, meals available, general atmosphere and noise range, along with some pro-tips on where to find sockets and which table is the almost secluded. I have discovered some of my all fourth dimension favorites this way like Mr Bean in Amsterdam.
14. Spotted past Locals
Another awesome service to discover proficient meals and thrilling events at your electric current base. Spotted by Locals is not that typical city guide with dull touristy routes, but an amazing resources with crawly recommendations from the locals on things to do and places to check out. Later all, y'all've called a location independent lifestyle to explore the globe more, not merely spend hours tapping on the keywords in a different environment.
Currently, the website has numerous recommendations for all major European cities – Paris, Madrid, Vienna, Warsaw and many more than, plus information technology gradually expands into Due north America with Boston, LA, Toronto and Montreal guides recently added. You can scan around the free categorized option of activities at the website or pay$ 2.99 for a PDF guide with all tips and places neatly listed on the map. Or opt for iOS or Android app ($three.99 each) to proceeds offline admission to one of the city guides along with a detailed map.
15. Jawbone Upwards
Now when y'all know where to go and what to come across, here's a handy app that will help you get unstuck from your laptop. Jawbone Up volition gently nag you when information technology's time to get up and unwind a flake. Install the app and connect it to all your hardware, than let the Upwards Activity Tracker (a lovely bracelet) analyze your sleeping and activity patterns to help you creating a improve lifestyle. The app will monitor and analyze all your deportment and suggest you lot a healthier schedule, help you sleep amend and keep up with the exercise routine (which gets erratic when you are on the motility). Why practise we need more than time if we don't spend it wise, correct? The app is free for iOS and Android, even so you lot'll take to pay 129$ for the bracelet tracker or 49.99$ for the prune.
16. SugarSync
Some like DropBox, others opt for Google Drive, still my go-to cloud storage service is SugarSync. It'south simpler, more powerful and has a really slick blueprint. Later you install it, you just demand to right-click the file/folder to instantly dorsum them up at the cloud. Too, any farther alter you brand to that data will be automatically synchronized. Large files get uploaded extra fast and you can get 250 GB storage space for just $99.99 per year. Besides you tin access, share and edit all your files via free iOS or Android app supported on numerous devices. Now, I've finally stopped worrying what should I do if my laptop gets broken/stolen.
17. Contactually
If you don't similar to get broke and return habitation, y'all have to invest a off-white share of your time in edifice ongoing relationships with your clients, vendors or customers depending on what do you do for a living. To avert this whole thing becoming a huge pain try using Contactually – a simple, yet powerful service that will tell you when and whom you should keep in impact with and how you could maximize your ROI by connecting with the right people at the right fourth dimension. It volition send you notifications when y'all've fallen out of touch on with certain contacts (which can hateful missed opportunities in the perspective) and prompt when you should reconnect with the most important contacts from your network by providing helpful context clues similar social updates and recent conversations to make the whole thing look more genuine. The service boasts that their users get up to 40% more than referrals after using their service (backed by case studies) which is kind of essential for you if y'all'd like to live the nomadic life and work for yourself!
18. Schedule In one case
If you are working on multiple projects with multiple clients at a time – Schedule Once is your kick-donkey service to schedule online meetings and conferences. Create a sleek pre-set calendar when y'all are available and ship people a unique link that allows them to select a suitable time for both of you to connect. The service is fantastic for anyone offer consulting services or coaching sessions and costs but five$ per calendar month!
19. Spaxtel
Sometimes the internet gets then crappy that calling by Skype is impossible. Or you accept a very-very of import conversation scheduled and you lot don't desire whatever possible glitches to interrupt you. That's when it's worth using Spaxtel – a absurd service that enables you lot to brand land-line quality phone calls via callback. You don't need to install any software or have internet access. The rates depends on the quality of call you choose (the lowest disbelieve is pretty swell) and the countries from/to you are calling. And so far, the cost proved to exist virtually Skype-affordable for a improve overall quality of connectedness.
twenty. Globe Grade Postal service
Snail mail isn't that popular these days, but y'all withal go some important stuff via it. Say bills and some paychecks. If you lot don't want to issues your parents or friends' to deal with your mail while you are out, attempt using World Postal service Class – an affordable postal service forwarding service that scans and forwards your postal service to the e-mail service address of your selection, deposits your checks (for a fee), saves PDFs of your postal post online and offers in-person pickup and bundle signing.
Featured photo credit: Avi Richards via unsplash.com
Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/20-essential-apps-and-websites-for-digital-nomads.html