Really grateful that I got to collaborate on this article with Remotive, the community of remote workers that I’ve been a part of for many months, now!

This article is all about how remote workers disconnect or recharge their batteries when working remotely. Some great insights from 9 different people, myself included.

My answer:

I’m lucky enough to be a remote freelancer living in the South of France (insert cliche of the sun, the beach, and a colourful cocktail!) So there are a lot of perks that come with that. In addition, I’m living in the center of a medium-sized city: another perk that directly leads to my happy lifestyle of being able to walk around the city with my computer in my bag and working from a cafe a few times a week.

How to Disconnect:

My way of disconnecting is simple: whenever I feel like I need to take a break from work, I make a note of the advancement of the project I’m on, and leave with my keys, wallet and phone. Sometimes, it’s a short break to grab a coffee and come back, sometimes it’ll be meeting with a friend or running a couple of errands.

Even a small break helps me reorganise my thoughts, plan ahead on the next client work to be done, or simply helps me to take a breather from a busy day.

These days, despite the heavy load of work to wrap up before the end of the year, it’s rare that I spend my entire day indoor. And if and when I do, my Fitbit is always there to shame me into talking a walk during the day or after my work is done.

Recharge:

When it comes to recharging, nothing is obviously as efficient as taking a proper vacation. To each his own: some of us want to spend time with friends, or discover a new city and culture. And some of us prefer to be outdoors, or in remote places where they can completely disconnect from their day-to-day lives.

But even if a vacation is not available for a few more weeks or months, I find working in a different environnement (or even better, a different city to be very beneficial.)

For me, it’s usually a week-long break in Paris where I’m going to catch up with friends during my off-time, but also work in cafes and coworking spaces during the week. I’ve actually met some members of the Remotive community like this, IRL / AFK after months of chatting online.

I guess in conclusion, I’d add that we are an incredibly fortunate bunch, at the forefront of “the future of work”: we’re location independent, employees and freelancers and can work at any hour of the day and from anywhere. It doesn’t get any better than that. 

And while it’s great to set some sort of routine, it’s also worth trying something new with the free schedule that you now possess.

Read the entire article: [≠]

[soundcloud url="api.soundcloud.com/tracks/29…" params=“auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=“100%” height=“450” iframe=“true” /]

youtu.be/we9BdAK2G…

youtu.be/xZUmm3lf4…

The third instalment of my “Love & Beats” series.

This one is much longer, clocking in at 1:56:03, and filled with music that inspires me, ranging from chill downtempo, all the way to loud bass-heavy trap and future beats.

[mixcloud www.mixcloud.com/tibz/love… width=100% height=400]

Along with a few (predominantly) American friends ranging from minorities to women, the first few days post-US election have been terrifying. From early reports of hate-crimes rising in the US to personal friends being insulted, there’s a lot of sad news coming from across the Atlantic.

Here’s my good friend Ashley:

In the days after the American election, I was threatened online again, a very chipper man on the internet threatening to rape me while telling someone else to grab my pussy. I didn't cry then. I shook with impotent rage, but tears never came. Not for that incident, anyway.

I don’t tell these stories for pity. When I told them before, shared them after they happened, it wasn’t for pity. It was to let all the white people I know, the large, mostly conservative family that I have that see me only on Facebook, and the many conservative people in my rural Ohio hometown, it was for them to see.  I told those stories so they would KNOW that something was happening to me too- a boring ass white girl that they supposedly care about. Someone relatively high on the totem pole.

Another incident you might have heard, this time from Manik (remember Manik, from my podcast?)

twitter.com/ManikRath…

This was so outrageous it made it to a collection about the hate crimes committed on Day one:

twitter.com/i/moments…

Stay safe out there!

[≠]

Two weeks, I hosted my good friend Marisa, from California! Brace yourselves for Adventures across the French Riviera! youtube.com/watch

From my good friend Andrew, who also happens to be amongst the smartest men in the room, on a regular basis:

Make no mistake, this will have a profound impact on our future and our history. The deep, sinking anxiety that I've felt over the last 24 hours is something I never want to feel again, but it's merited. This is a key moment.

The feeling has nothing to do with liberal vs conservative. It has everything to do with right vs wrong. I can’t support what he stands for - racism, sexism, division - and I won’t. That’s a binary thing. This is not policy, it never has been. It’s person.

I’m sad that we’re so divided. There’s a real issue deep within the country that allowed him to rise, not unlike what we’ve seen in the history books. It’s on all of us to fix this, in whatever way we can. And that needs to start now. We can’t let the progress that generations before us worked so hard for, fought for, died for - vanish.

This morning I woke up compelled to public service and politics, and I hope you did too. 

If you need motivation, look at the photo below. Look at the race of the crowd. I’m fortunate, I’m a straight white male. Imagine how it feels to wake up this morning as a minority, a woman, a homosexual. The battle against hate starts now, again. I’m not a democrat and I’m not a republican. This is not party lines.

[SOURCE]

By Maajid Nawaz, whom I’ve seen give a talk at TEDx Brighton:

Only a new commitment to the universality of human rights and human dignity can lift us out of this current quagmire. But that will require foot soldiers of peace who preach what we have in common rather than how we are different; what we have gained, rather than what we have lost; and what we seek to achieve rather than what we have failed to accomplish.

Let that sink in: this post was written by a Muslim on an Israeli site – gives you an idea of the gravity of the situation!

[SOURCE]

Adding Maajid’s talk from back when I first discovered him!

www.youtube.com/watch

The election of Donald Trump to the Presidency is nothing less than a tragedy for the American republic, a tragedy for the Constitution, and a triumph for the forces, at home and abroad, of nativism, authoritarianism, misogyny, and racism. 

Trump is vulgarity unbounded, a knowledge-free national leader who will not only set markets tumbling but will strike fear into the hearts of the vulnerable, the weak, and, above all, the many varieties of Other whom he has so deeply insulted.

Fascism is not our future—it cannot be; we cannot allow it to be so—but this is surely the way fascism can begin.

[SOURCE]

The fact that the linked post’s title is about both Elon Musk and Basic Income is likely a big clickbait.

In an interview with CNBC on Friday, Musk said that he believes the solution to taking care of human workers who are displaced by robots and software is creating a (presumably government-backed) universal basic income for all.

I’ve been posting about this every now and then, mostly on Facebook to discuss it with my private circle of friends, but it looks like it’s really time to get our governments to experiment with this.

And Josh nailed it, by the way:

“If all you can do is shout "they took our jobs!" then you probably think universal basic income is a communist plot to take over the country by paying migrants to move here.”

[≠]

Hey everyone!

It’s been nearly a week since my last edition of the Incoming Transmission Series. I was actually overdue to write about my latest news and projects, as well as finishing to upload my blogging archive, but I got swamped with work¹ so I thought I’d send you a quick one from the plane, until you get more news.

I’m writing this on the plane, on my way Up North.²

I’ll be spending the next two weeks across both sides of the family and 10 days living & working in Paris in between. In all honesty I could use this time and change of pace.

The past few weeks and months have been pretty eventful to say the least. Between a fading relationship, slowly ending after 3.2 years, and big plans for the next 12 months, it looks like the end of the year is going to be busy.

I’ll be gone away from home until the 13th of November. Then, I’ll have four weeks to move from the lovely flat I’ve lived in since last year in October and back to my parents' house.

I’ve always dreaded moving back to my parents' place. As a working millennial, even a couple of weeks there feel like I’ve failed along the way, somehow.³ But this is an integral part of my big 2017 master plan, and doing so will save me about 4000€ in about 3-4 months. Money well saved: just you wait and see.

We’ll be traveling between mid-December to early January across South-East Asia⁴ (I’m incredibly grateful to be able to take this trip back to the roots, and with the family.)⁵

After this Winter break, I’ll be back to work in January, with later another work-and-play trip to London in February, just around my birthday. In late March I’ll be attending a business event on behalf of a client, in Switzerland. A first for me. I told you it’d be a busy one.

But perhaps more exciting is what is going to come from April onwards, something to be discussed in the coming months.

My name is Eliott, I'm 25. I used to live in Paris, working as a consultant for a marketing agency (...)

I've decided to do something else with this life, and create a new one for myself. A better life.

Eliott (aka Vegipirate) is a really good friend. In fact, we go back to our late secondary school years (‘Collège’ in French.)

Today, I wanted to share my friend Eliott’s story.

It all started when, after 2 years working in a marketing agency in Paris, Eliott started to feel uneasy, with the need to get out of the capital. He decided that he’d set up shop as a freelancer, and move back to the South of France, here, where we both belong.

When you grow up on the French Riviera and you move away, it’s really hard to be away from the warm sun, from the sea, and living inside a packed city. It’s been my experience too, after stints in Paris and over in the UK — “you can take the man out of the South, but you can’t take The South out of the man.”

For the first couple of months, he decided to take a couple of trips throughout Europe, first on holidays, and later, as a digital nomad working from youth hostels, beaches and coffeehouses in between Norway, the Czech Republic, Malta, Portugal, Italy, and Bulgaria amonst many others…

When you’re in your mid-twenties, with no debt, no family, and no rent to pay, it’s easier to afford those trips. And when all you need to work is a laptop and an internet connection, you’d be a fool not to take the chance and travel the world.

Aside from his day to day life, Eliott started aching for a different lifestyle. He had always enjoyed the outdoors, nature, birds & whales, and had recently decided to follow a vegan diet. However, living in a country such as France where meat is an inherant part of the culture, it was a bit difficult to figure out what to eat, and how to cook it.

This lead him to create Vegipirate, a blog that would let him write about his travels, newly-found state of mind, but also about his recipes and discoveries in the world of vegan-friendly food.

In the meantime, he felt like he needed to take a break from the digital world, something that I experience once a year in smaller doses, when I try and take a digital cleanse of sort, getting off the grid for a couple of days or weeks.

But for him, it was time to try something new. And since mid-septembre, Eliott has been in Australia, where he’s going to live, travel, and work on a one-year “Working Holiday” visa. And here’s how his adventures begin: the rest can be found over on his website! — French is required. Otherwise, you may have to use Google Translate.

[via [Sur la route] De Melbourne à Byron Bay – Part. 1 — Vegipirate]

Creative professionals are generally told not to work without a paycheck. But can strategically offering your services for free actually catapult your career?

As always in the world of freelancing, career development, or even “growth hacks”, there are numerous advices you can read about online. However, spend enough time on these different articles, and you’re very likely to start reading the opposite theories.

Personally, I strive to have a close personal relationship with my clients: if I feel that this relationship is likely to go well, I’m definitely up to sacrifice a short term financial gain over a reliable connection.

When you’re a sole trader, like yours truly, your reputation is all you’ve got. It’s all about the long term and your reputation as a working professional.

[via “No free work” is the wrong advice for creative people — Quartz]

Back to a more casual week, working across my flat and local coffeehouses.

[youtube=youtube.com/watch

So… about Yesterday’s huge attack and DNS problem…

“It’s remarkable that virtually an entire company’s product line has just been turned into a botnet that is now attacking the United States”

[Source]

Virtual Insanity

Reanimating characters from TV shows

[youtube=youtube.com/watch

[via prosthetic knowledge — Virtual Immortality: Reanimating characters from…]

For all freelancers out there, I wanted to highly recommend this podcast from the talented folks at Relay.fm/¹

A quick pitch:

David Sparks and Jason Snell spent their careers working for the establishment. Then one day, they’d had enough. Now they are independent workers, learning what it takes to succeed in the 21st century. They are… free agents.

They are two friends who are independent workers/freelancers with their own business, and the conversation they have are sure to resonate with all of us here :wink: At least, I know they resonate with me, on a personal level!

Although I’ve been freelancing for over a year, which sounds like such a long time ago, I’ve been freelancing for over a year you guys! So, while I’m generally past the topics they’ve talked about on the podcast, so far, I totally identify and remember going through each and every one of the situations they discuss.

You can start with Episode #1 here. And check them out, to subscribe via your favorite podcast app.

aka Charlie’s Angels

Hello everyone! Welcome back for Issue #4 of my daily series of posts. I’m pretty stoked that I’ve been able to write these small posts once a day.

Today is going to be interesting. In the past 36 hours, I’ve ended up booking multiple activities for the day.

First of all, I’ll be meeting up with one of my best friends, Elodie.

Elodie has just graduated from her Master’s degree and is looking for either a job in PR/Communications/Marketing, —preferably with a Premium Sportswear or Luxury company— or launching her own (side-)project and company.

She’s actually coming over so we can work on our separate projects, but also to catch-up and see what we can do together! “Co-working, it’s a thing!”

Then, I’m meeting up with Sarah for lunch. She’s a friend from high-school whom I’ve continued to keep in touch with over as the years have gone by. I actually haven’t seen her in a while, and I actually look forward to catching up with her.

Also: we’re going to a lovely Italian place in town, so I’m also very excited for the food!

Then, my good friend Marisa will be in town for a couple of days, and that’s probably going to be a highlight of the day, possibly of the week!

Marisa is a friend I’ve met during my 2011 internship in San Francisco. Since I left San Francisco, we actually managed to meet up back when I was in Paris, and we’ve kept in touch ever since.

She’s graduated this past summer and is currently going on a roadtrip throughout Europe. And after hitting Amsterdam, Barcelona, Madrid, and Carcassonne, she’s on her way for a few days on the French Riviera, before heading over to Italy. I’m really looking forward to it.

And finally, to end the day on an even better note: we’re meeting up with Kevin for drinks in Antibes. Kevin is another of my best friends — we’ve known each other since we were 8 years old, going to the same middle school, secondary school, and high school together!

I’m already really happy, excited and grateful!

Americans continue to clock in far more hours than their European counterparts. Europeans worked 19% fewer hours than US citizens, which correlates to about an hour less each weekday, a new working paper shows.

If you look through the post, you’ll notice that France has the second lowest number of hours worked per week, just before Italy, with about 19.3 hours.

I’m not exactly sure where this comes from, and how it measures against the actual 35 hours work week we have here. However, it does correlate with the ongoing idea that the French are very productive, being able to “do the work” in less time than others.

Obviously, this is an average, not reflective of everyone in the French population. And just like any country-wide census, YMMV —Your Mileage May Vary.

Just… keep in mind that I might be biased on that one!

[via Quartz]

I found an interesting article yesterday: “Is Your Podcast Being Held Hostage By iTunes?”

 iTunes is notoriously finicky, and its team tends to take a Honey Badger approach to the concerns of indie podcast creators.

You can file this under “OH HAI, This actually happened to me.”

See, for about a month and a half, my podcast was essentially in iTunes limbo, which dropped my monthly listenership by about 60%. Sixty Percent!

In that time, I had numerous conversations with the support team who confirmed that they had fixed it, or forced the refresh, but each interaction took, at the very least 3 days between a message or action, and the actual refresh or result being in effect.

In a way I’m incredibly grateful not to be financially reliant on iTunes, because I would have lost half of my income from this revenue source otherwise.

Also thankful to have a good listenership over other sources (such as Mixcloud, Soundcloud, and most of all the dedicated microsite.)

I think this is important for a number of reasons —

1. First of all, you can't be reliant on a single platform. Just like anything in business, you can't put all your eggs in one basket and need to diversify. In my case, that means uploading to the services I've mentioned earlier, as well as here on my own blog.
2. In a similar vein, I truly believe that owning your content & distribution channel is very important. It's great to have access to a bigger audience on a specific website, but you are limited by the platform as well as the terms & conditions. On your own website, you can do whatever you want.
3. At this point in time, I'm trying to reach as many people as possible, so being easily findable on different sites, including my own, is a great way to see how different people and communities react.

The trolls who take a toll on their fellow Twitter users with alarming regularity have finally taken a toll on Twitter itself. Bloomberg reports that the Walt Disney Co. ditched a potential acquisition of the social-media platform, in part because it did not want the family-friendly Disney brand to be associated with the hate speech…

On a hopeful note: maybe this will get Twitter to look into it much more. Also worth noting that this would be the perfect time to let Twitter users buy the company!

[via The hate speech on Twitter reportedly steered Disney away from buying the company — Quartz]

“Here’s a story about a prosecutor in North Dakota charging a journalist with ‘participating in a riot’ because he was unhappy with her coverage of that event.”

An infamous quote from George Orwell comes to mind:  “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”

[Source]

This post marks an attempt to publish more personal & regular articles. I’ve actually written this part yesterday, but thought I’d split my post in two smaller and more manageable bits.

…Continued from Part 1

Throughout the day, I try to switch off of my client work to catch up on interesting newsletters, and other bit of news.¹

You can also find me hanging out on my Twitter or Facebook feeds sporadically. Interestingly I’ve ditched Snapchat and catch up on Instagram and its stories because I also use the app for my client work. Posting on several accounts, I also take a minute to see what my friends have posted recently.

Around 3-4pm, until 5-6pm, I get to see and hang out with the girlfriend, as she comes home for her break from work (she works in a restaurant). Usually, she comes home and naps, and later I walk her to the restaurant and we stop for a coffee and sweet treat on the way. It’s a good way for us to spend some time together throughout our work days, but also for me to head out and take a breather from work.

It also serves two more purposes:

• First, it allows me to find the time to run errands before heading home.
• And perhaps more importantly, it helps me find the time to find my composure and reflect upon the tasks I need to finish before the end of the day. I usually make a mental note, or sometimes jot my thoughts down in OmniFocus, my productivity app of choice.²

I usually stop working around 7pm, when a French TV show called Quotidien comes on the air. It’s a mixture of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert — two of my favourite daily talk shows in the US. Essentially, they take a critical look at the day’s news, focus on one important topic in the first half, and then take a more relaxed approach to subjects of concern.

With the French Presidential election coming on next year, you can be sure that politicians are heavily featured in the spotlight these days.

To be continued tomorrow when I’ll be talking about a totally different subject…

Having recently purchased a GoPro to help me with my Vlogs, I was waiting to use the exciting new Quik Desktop, the laptop-friendly version of a french-made iOS app to help streamline the entire editing process.

Turns out it was already available, but needed to be found on the support pages of the GoPro website. (It wasn’t on the main page when I looked 10 days ago.)

Long story short, I’ve finally found, downloaded, and installed it, and I’m excited to give it a try!

[≠]