205 - Răzvan Ilin

Răzvan Ilin (Raz) is a digital nomad and the founder of Chartbrew. Chartbrew offers interactive dashboards and client reports that allow you to track the most important metrics from all your data sources in one place.

His workspace shown here includes his main setup back in his home country as well as a couple of bonus ones with my travel gear and café working.

Twitter → twitter.com/razvanilin

Items:

• Macbook Air M1
• Dell XPS 15 9570
• Jysk Slangerup, motorised standing desk
• Ergoplus Stacy-H desk chair
• Presonus Eris E3.5 BT Studio speakers
  
• LG LED IPS LG 27", 4K UHD 27UL550-W, monitor
• Samson Meteor USB microphone
• Keychron K7, low profile mechanical keyboard
• Magic Trackpad 2
• Logitech G2 mouse
• Roost laptop stand
• Samsung Galaxy Buds Plus
• Sony WH-1000XM4 Headphones
• Oculus Quest 2
• iPhone, iPad, Android phone (need all OSs for development)

As a digital nomad, how important is your setup? What is the bare minimum you need to do your best work?

In regards to the workspace, I'm quite a minimalist and I can be creative with just a laptop in front of me. It didn't use to be like that in the beginning of my career. I can focus much better now in all sorts of environments. Coding at an airport gate? Consider it done.

Traveling around, having just a laptop and a table is pretty common. I'd say the most useful travel gear is the laptop, laptop stand, trackpad, and external keyboard. When I travel to a new place, I always scout around for the best places to work from and then choose one or two as my main spots. My criteria are as follows:

-Plenty of light
-Good table-chair height so I don't get back pains
-Work-friendly (in some countries, it's not that common to work from cafés and some don't like you to work from there even when ordering stuff all the time)
-Wi-fi - although I don't need a super-fast one for my work
-Power sockets - this is optional since the M1 can stay alive for more than a workday (thanks Apple)

One other thing that helps me be productive and creative is to have other friends around to co-work with.

How do you keep the work-life balance?

In regards to work-life balance, I find that this is much better when I travel. If I base myself in a place too long, I end up working most of the time. When I travel I usually have more activities planned in a day which helps to not get stuck in front of my laptop for too long. Some examples can be working in the morning and going for a dive in the ocean in the afternoon or taking my motorbike for a ride around an island. Having other nomad friends around helps a lot as you can imagine. Maybe doesn't help if trying to consume less alcohol though.