Working Remotely

Hello. Welcome to Daily(ish) for Monday, March 2018. It is currently 25 degrees in the Celsius, in the positives, which is nice to see, nice to feel, nice to hear. And, this is my, what, second episode recorded south of the two borders that I normally am north of back home. Now it's episode two thirty nine of Daily ish.

If you're listening later, I recorded a bunch while I was on vacation, on for the Patreon folks, and then the rest of y'all get to hear it after the fact, I guess. A bit for, like I said, for some safety concerns, but also just sort of to try out the, Patreon model of Patreon first in public or whatever you wanna call it second. So if you're curious about how Patreon works, can visit patreon.com/ichris and check out an old video that I need to update of my son and I explaining Patreon. So we're now, we're into, close to closing in on two weeks down here, and, we're spending a few days in Mazelan, so in the city with my wife Sue's parents who are also down here. Both our parents come down here for a good portion of the winter, and so that's why we're able to sort of take advantage of that getting down here every few years anyways with the kids and stuff and and hanging out and having, well, in a sense better babysitting than we, would back home.

So we save on babysitting, but we pay for flights. So that's the trade off, I guess. I thought for this episode, I would, talk a bit about just the whole idea of working from anywhere, which can sometimes be, I think it's just like anything else where the grass is always greener and on the other side or can often be when it's something you don't experience. And so the idea of, like, your taking your family down to Mexico for a month and being able to work there a bit, but also, you know, vacation and getting out of winter and all that kind stuff. And, just a bit about what the what that how that works and how well it works or doesn't.

And so that's what I thought I'd touch on this episode. For anybody who's been paying attention for a long time to Daily(ish) and or my tweets or whatever is well, you'd know that I'm a bit of a homebody, but that doesn't actually mean I need to be in my home in Saskatoon. I just like to have a home that is where I'll be for more than a day or two or, or longer. And so, generally longer, like a week knowing or month even, like this case. And it's not necessarily even just the same city location, but just like the actual physical location where I'm gonna be sleeping and working and knowing where those two things sort of line up and then everything else falls into place from that.

Just to be able to set up and relax and also having a safe, reliable place to get the work done is kind of what helps me mentally. And when things like Internet speeds or power connectivity get in the way, then it kinda throws off that whole life work balance that's, that's kinda needed for this to actually function okay. So as great as it it is to be able to come to Mexico for a month in the middle of a Canadian winter, which it is pretty great and is very we're very thankful and and blessed and appreciate not having to shovel snow. And, although it's been a little bit warmer anyways, I'm sure it's not 25, it's, you know, five. And so it's not, not by no means, beach weather down there, but up there.

But, if I'm stressed, frustrated with things, you know, because of whatever connectivity issues or work struggles, we probably would be just better off coming for a week or two of strict vacation, you know, where we turn off work, I turn off work instead of trying to stay longer and combining work with vacation. So working from anywhere, I think, requires this the the ability to switch mindsets pretty quickly. And it's something I know that I struggle with, and it can be hard, especially with kids and family who, obviously, you know, they have different motives maybe for being here. Well, kids especially, but even family members that come down and visit or are here or whatever, you're kinda like here and, you you know, you want to be in vacation mode, it's hard not to sort of fall into that and enjoy that because as you should. And as I I do, I try to do.

For the parts of my work that aren't, you know, based locally back home that, you know, particularly the podcast editing, it's pretty easy to flip into that that mindset. It's that's why I really enjoy it. It's I can start listening to a podcast that I'm editing. I was editing the transistor.fm, show earlier this morning, and it's easy just to fall into the conversation, editing it, doing the audio tweaks, and and having a bit of fun with it or whatever that it needs. And, there isn't a lot of, like, deep mental work required there, but, but just having paying attention obviously to what I'm doing.

But if I'm working on on a website or marketing efforts for, say, a local business back home, it's a bit harder not to start thinking with the, like, the sun, beach, and waves on my brain instead of snow, slush, and prairie winds that are back home. So and again, just having, like, a dedicated space, office, etcetera, for me is important. And so I can get by on random work locations for a while, but I've realized more and more that I need focus space to get into the the sort of deep work deep mental work required for for a lot of projects, some projects anyways. I like to think, and and it obviously happens more as I when we're down here or when we're just having come back from being down here that we could come down and live for, you know, five or six months, keep our in order to stay on free Canadian health care, you have to be home in Canada for at least six months in a twelve month span, I think is the the rule that I've heard anyways. So come down for five to six months straight and and maybe maybe we will one year, but it's interesting how Mazdalen and possibly, or gather Mexican architecture and design is is tends to be very harsh and probably, you know, in order to withstand the heat and ocean air, salt air, incorporate being built by manual labor predominantly.

When they build buildings, it's a lot of stone, tile, cement, and and because of the humidity, there's not a lot of softness even to the interior of buildings, so in in houses and things that that we've seen anyways. I don't see obviously every single house, and we we see, with friends and family that's sort of the Canadianized version of of of homes down here. But even when we visited other people and, my brother-in-law is from Mazelin, and it's just because of either price, cost, efficiency, and, like I said, the environment, it tends to be a lot of harsh, materials that everything's built out of. So whereas back home, the exteriors of our buildings obviously have to be able to withstand the cold and keep that out. But once you're inside, there's there's a softness or there can be to homes and and gathering places.

And, we don't have termites and things to worry about that'll eat away at the wood in our walls and stuff like that in the same way that they do down here. And so they're able to build with just softer materials. And so there's something as simple as, you know, just having tile everywhere as I look around the room that I'm in with glass windows and tile floors and plaster slash stone, walls. And, yeah, everything is just kinda like harsh. It's very easy for our kids to break stuff.

That's maybe the main stress point is just how easy it is for kids to drop something, break something. And so it has its own sort of odd mental exhaustion at times, and you're kinda just like wanting to just like lay down on the floor somewhere or whatever, play with the kids or something, and everything's just kinda like hurts and lots of stubbed toes and stuff like that. Kinda like summer, you know, when you're playing in the in the street or whatever and that kind of stuff back home. But anyways, it's it's just interesting to sort of analyze and think about what some of the stresses and, mental struggles that would happen in the longer term as you're down here for periods of time. Alright.

That's enough of my rambling on, Mexico for today. I'm working remotely and that kind of stuff. Got questions, feel free to throw it in Patreon or tweet at me at I on Twitter later if you hear this later. Thank you for your support to Patreon folks. Patreon.com/ichris is where you can check that out.

And, like I said, go check out, the podcast I'm editing for Justin Jackson and those folks at transistor.fm. Him and John are building a new podcast hosting platform and, in the process of building it, and they're documenting their process on their podcast called Build Your SaaS. SaaS stands for software as a service. So things like their website, their web app, and other services like that where it's software based on the web that that they charge money for and is a service. Alright.

Thanks for listening. Hope you have a great day wherever you are in the world, and we'll see you again next time. Bye.