Megan, a beauty copywriter with five years of remote work experience, learned the hard way that on-call availability kills nomad life. She now limits real-time communication to three hours daily, works retainer-only, and raises rates every six months. Protecting your time is how you actually get to travel.
If you want to be a digital nomad or are new to digital nomadism, digital nomadality, digital— watch this. My name is Megan and I have been working remotely for about 5, 6+ years on and off, but for the last 3 years completely remote digital nomad as a beauty copywriter. So like and follow for all the travel, all the makeup, all the fun, all the food, all the singing, all the When I started, I was working off of Upwork, taking project-based roles, being able to control my work-life balance. But then some of my roles started to foray into 10 to 20 hour a week positions. But which 10 to 20 hours a week? One of my clients wanted me to be at their 9 AM meeting. They're on the East Coast. I was on the West Coast at that time. Which meant I was getting up at 6:00 AM and then proceeding to be on call for the rest of the day to put out any fires, do the work that I was actually hired to do, and just be available for whatever. So I'm supposed to be working 20 hours, but my on-call hours meant I was working their full-time hours, but on East Coast time. Eventually I got burnt out and we parted ways. Something similar happened with my next client. And when I tried to leave, they were like, what can we do to keep you? And I was just like, I can only be available from 10 to 1. I will give you 3 hours for real-time communication to check anything you need to check for any meetings. That's my time. And they met it. That too comes with its own drawbacks. Like right now I'm in Istanbul. So that means I'm working from 9:00 PM to midnight, Monday through Friday. And it's not ideal, but I'm in love with this client. So. So any client that's come after them, I say right up front, I am project-based only. I will always be available to respond to your emails within 24 hours. I raise my rates every 6 months. Whenever new clients approach me or I take on new clients that are offering me a higher pay range, at the 6-month mark, I will bring The previous clients up to that level because that is what I'm getting. I also only work on retainer. So if they were looking for somebody for 10 hours a week, they pay me for 10 hours a week, whether or not they use me. And if they go over, I just invoice them. Your time is valuable and not just to keep yourself open to make more money from more clients and/or side hustles or whatever, but to go out, to sleep, to take naps, to call your family, to travel. Like, live your life, live it on your terms.
