Becoming a Digital Nomad at an AI-Company
By: Haley Min
Tags: Zoom, Digital Nomads, Slack, Kono, Remote Working

Illustration by Haley Min

I used to think of work only in a conventional way. The meaning of work was to show up at a brick-and-mortar building and sit down in front of a computer from 9 to 5. Working for Konolabs has changed my perception of both work and workspace. Now work could be done in a cafe in Paris, or in a library in Berkeley as long as I am with my laptop. One of my co-worker travels from Seoul to San Francisco for user interviews with Facebook and Google. Another colleague, Cyrielle, who is French and speaks Korean fluently used to work at the Seoul office, but is now back to her country and can work from there. The flexibility of working remotely allows her to travel back and forth as she needs to between her home and the Seoul Office. As members of Konolabs, our physical selves could be in Paris, San Francisco, Seoul, and what not. Our team’s virtual office is on Slack, which connects and enables co-workers from all around the world to collaborate. The tech giants like Slack, Atlassians, and Zoom made it possible for us to collaborate even across the globe. So, I call myself and our team, digital nomads who can work from place to place taking advantage of digital tools that allows us to cooperate.

For the first few months of my experience working remotely, I felt a bit agitated. I even felt guilty for working with the freedom of not being physically locked up in the office. However, as I got used to this work routine, I accepted the mindset of digital nomad as it gave me more freedom and ownership of work, not to mention that I became more time efficient with strong self-control. But it took me some time to settle down with my routine, and there were some difficulties as always when changes take place.

Before discussing further about my transformation as a digital nomad, I am going to share my teammate, Cyrielle’s experience.

“My experience working remotely was overall great. I work remotely about once or twice a year, when I go back to my home country. Last time was for a month, for my brother’s wedding. I like working remotely, as it involves a lot of personal preferences that can be difficult in an office. In my case, our company encourages freedom of choice so we work in a great environment and as such, the accompanied freedom that comes with working remotely wasn’t that unusual. It still is a pretty good feeling There are some cons though, including having to be disciplined every day which can actually be quite challenging when there isn’t a manager assigning tasks and checking up on our work. Also, the time difference implies that you won’t always hear from your team right away, so there’s need to take that into account for important matters. Apart from that, I personally think it’s really great, and I recommend it. Even for a short time it can have great benefits individually and as a team.”

From Chaos to Order

The hardest part of becoming a competent digital nomad was that I had to overcome some struggles such as procrastination and lack of motivation when I work alone. The difficulties may differ from person to person whilst working as digital nomads, depending on one’s personalities, but here I share some useful tips that guided me through the way.

Time management

So, I figured to prevent or get out of the bad habit of procrastination, time management is the key. There are a bunch of time-management books and such, but the one that worked for me is easy to follow. I just did one thing — write down what I did and how I did it every hour. It shows how I spend my time, and believe me or not, could be quite shocking.Tracking down your flow of work or flow of the day, hour by hour, is the most simple but effective time-management skills that worked for me.

Motivation

Assigning tasks to myself is critical in keeping me motivated and moving forward. Writing a daily log of my goals or objectives for the next day, the night before I go to sleep helped me to stay on top of my goals. However, I try not to write them down too precisely. I set very easy tasks in the beginning, just one or two simple things. As I will proceed to the next topic, you’ll notice how it is another strong catalyst to get yourself motivated.

Networking

When you work remotely, it is easy to get lazy in self-improvement. I have to keep reminding myself what’s my next goal or what should be my next step. The best way to figure it out is to go look for networking opportunities. I went to seminars at the Bay Area Korean Group and checked out the Meetup app. Also, I found my interest group on facebook as well. Communicating with people who have similar interest and similar backgrounds, helped me get a better understanding of my field as well as find a motivation to do better. Also, in Konolabs we use Zoom meetings a lot! Communicating with co-workers is important, especially when you are abroad for a long time and hardly see your teammates face to face. You can hone your networking skills within your group, before you go out and meet new people.

So, that’s all for me. I hope my experience and growth as a digital nomad may help others who are interested in becoming one!

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