Get Rid of All of Your Stuff

If you're going to be truly portable, you need to get rid of all your stuff.

This isn't the same as moving house, or even moving country as I was, because you're preparing to keep moving for an extended period of time. You are dividing your stuff into: get rid of it, store it, or carry it.

Getting rid of it is great. There is a certain lightness of existence realised when you can go from "I live here" to "my life is in this suitcase" in a couple of hours. In the last century, the cynics told us this was a world obsessed with material things. This century, it's the digital things we're hung up on. You can do without the rest for a while.

Storing it is where we admit we are attached to some of our possessions and we don't plan to travel forever. It's also a handy get-out clause for all of us without the guts to throw away everything we should.

Carrying it is the category you shouldn't bother to think about much at this stage. These are the things you can fit in a bag or two and walk with unaided to the airport and it will take time to refine. For now, just think about the things you'll need while you're moving out and the things you'll need access to in the following days.

I have enough to say about these that I'm going to split it into a couple of posts. Here's the leader.

Get rid of it

Most people find this hard to do (myself included) and end up hanging onto more stuff than they need. Here are questions that may help you whittle it down.

Do I use this?

If it seems useful but you haven't actually used it in 6 months, chances are you don't need it. Try to be brutal. If you use it all the time, then it's no use in storage: are you prepared to actually cart it around with you all the time?

Is it replaceable?

Yes, you are sure you will need it. However, you're not sure when and therefore you are not sure where. Is it something generic, easily replaced? If that seems like a waste of money then consider: what it will cost to transport and to store it properly; how much could you get by selling it; how much it will cost to get it where you need it. If Amazon can just sell you a brand new one and deliver it wherever you need it for free, isn't that worth something?

If I store it, will it still work when I need it?

A lot of things become less useful over time when they're stored away. Some physically deteriorate (especially if not prepared properly) or some things - especially technological things - date badly. Or it may simply be that when you need it, you'll need it quickly and you won't want to travel to dig it out of storage. These things - whatever they're worth, there's just no point keeping.

But it's of great sentimental value!

Those little nicknacks you don't really need but can't bear to throw away - the present from your grandmother, the rug you bought on holiday, the special postcard, that painting your friend made for you. That's fine - just try to keep it to the small things! Store them all away where they won't clutter up your life - until you give up your travelling ways (in about 40 posts' time?) and you can take them all out and help you form a home.

And remember - you will have just a few things that are quite unique and remind you of people, places and times that you may never see again. Discard your stuff, but not your life.


And there are a couple of special cases...

Books, CDs, DVDs

CDs are already on the way out as I write this and (unlike vinyl) as a physical object they just feel cheap and can't claim to be a definitive reproduction in any way. Sell or give them all away. Sign up to Spotify (though I have moral qualms) or if you really must and have time, rip them all to MP3.

DVDs will surely be dead in a couple of years time and they won't be replaced by Blu-Ray, you'll just be streaming them. Chances are you already have loads of movies and TV series on your hard drive. By the time you want these again, they'll look like beta-max. Get rid of them and get them from iTunes, LoveFilm, Netflix or simply BitTorrent when you want them.

Books - these are different. In some sense they're already obsolete but the design has barely changed in hundreds of years and people still think a physical book is special. Buy a Kindle or the like, because you really cannot carry many books any other way. The pulp, ditch. Any expensive, work-related books, put them somewhere easily accessible if you can. Store the rest and, like me, dream of a beautiful library in your future.

Paper

You will have various official bits of paper, receipts, manuals and - if you're anything like me - hundreds of bits of paper with possibly-incredibly-important scrawlings on them. Bear in mind that manuals can usually be found as PDFs on the Internet. Also, consider getting a scanner and reducing papers to a JPEG.

How do I get rid of it?

As hinted above, there are loads of ways to get rid of your stuff when you've decided to do so, some of them even without losing it: you can sell it, give it away, bin it, recycle it, scan it, rip it, summarise it... Like compressing a data file or a video, how far you can compress it partly depends on how much time you have available.

I was lucky enough to have a popular office mailing list where people often posted things they wanted to sell. I sold everything from electronics to furniture that way. Also, if you are in contact with whoever will move into your place when you are gone, ask them if they want anything. Give them a discount rate, since the very easiest thing to do with your stuff is to leave it exactly where it is.

My experience

I can honestly say, a couple of years later, that there's nothing I got rid of that I regret. That means I didn't throw enough stuff away!

I have not yet set up a new home, so in theory I might one day be glad of... the huge old projector I never used, the amplifier and speakers that I liked so much, the whisky cabinet that was my favourite piece of furniture, the expensive mattress. But I doubt I'm going to much care. The projector was already very old. The amp and speakers were pretty standard items really, which I would probably enjoy shopping to replace. The whisky cabinet was from IKEA. A mattress is a real pain to transport or store.

What I can say I should have gotten rid of: all my computers. This was obviously a weakness for me at the time, based on the idea of lots of small, low-power computers set up around a house doing useful or cool things. So I boxed up and sent back a couple of old laptops, two mini-PCs, one or two flat-screen monitors... Then this was added to the similar stuff I'd already had stored away in the UK. When I finally came to go through these boxes some months later, it became a running joke for me, as to how many computers the next box would contain.

None of those mini-PCs, laptops or screens have been any use to me since and they'll soon be museum pieces - I would have been better to simply strip out the hard drives and give the rest away. To be fair, I did not expect to be without a house to use them for so long, when I was packing. But, after all, the Raspberry Pi has been invented since then!

Also, I kept far too many books that I did not really care about, just because I thought they'd help complete my dream library. Turns out, after being portable for so long, I hate the idea of owning any book (or anything else physical) that I don't really think is useful or awesome.

The things I'm reminded of are the reindeer-skin rug I bought in Stockholm, the posters and paintings, the statuette, the books. These things I look forward to unpacking one day.

YMMV


Read on to find out what to do with the stuff you're left with!

[Updates]
1/09/12: Expanded "My experience" section
20/01/13: Added re books

Leaving Your Home, Leaving Your Job

A home will hold you back

The chances are that you're living in a house or apartment where you have a long-term rental contract. If by some chance you're actually already footloose - well done, you can skip ahead! If not - it's got to go...

Having a base can be very useful, but when you add up all the maintenance costs it is a big financial burden. You will find yourself working to pay for something you're not using - and discouraged from travelling for that reason. Relying on temporary accommodation can be surprisingly cost effective and opens up a lot of possibilities. (Future post: Accommodation)

If you actually own your home already, that's fantastic: rent it out. I have no experience here but my understanding is that it should pay for any mortgage. Do it through an agent - otherwise you never know when you'll be required to turn up as a landlord. Consider setting aside a locked cupboard or some loft space or a shed for your own long-term storage that you can visit when you need to.

In my case everything to do with the apartment in Germany had to be taken care of - contracts for the place itself, utilities and so on - and in a language I still hadn't mastered. It was a shared apartment which helped a lot: only a few things were in my name, the whole flat did not have to be cleared, the contract needed amending but could continue, most of the furniture were joint purchases and many things I could sell or pass on to my flatmates. However, it still took a huge amount of time and the admin wasn't complete until weeks after I left. Some of this was because I was leaving a foreign country, and one where I was not fluent in the language - if that's you, don't underestimate how much trouble this can be.

I have never taken a formal rental or arranged utilities since, even in my home country of the UK - they make no sense on my timescales. If you go abroad with work, even for months at a time, look for alternatives.

Most jobs are not portable

This blog is about being a technology professional on the move and if you're the target audience, you probably already have a good, permanent employment contract that you're thinking of leaving, or you've recently left. If you're just starting out and you want to do it portably, that's a different road and perhaps a harder one.

Assuming you've decided to leave a long-term job for whatever reasons, there is some useful preparation you can do to lay groundwork for a portable career. I have to admit, I didn't do this out of a clear plan. Rather, it was just important to me to leave on good terms, to keep doors open where possible, to make the most of my experience to date and to start finding new opportunities.

As I've discussed in an introductory post, I am a technology specialist. I realised that my employer would really miss my experience. I talked to them about being available for occasional contract work soon after i gave my notice, and I signed a contract the day I left.

If this might apply to you then make very sure you explore it because there are a lot of benefits to such an arrangement. It instills a great deal of confidence in prospective employers if they know that you were valued enough to be offered part-time work. It's a great basis for keeping future contacts and networking. And if that work comes through, it will give you some confidence and a little security while you're finding your feet - it certainly did for me. If you're fed up with your work or your employer, try to see beyond that and keep the door open without concrete commitment.

If it's not something you can do - and I know of cases where employers simply won't consider it regardless of value - then still make a point of firming up your contacts in your company. Most of my best clients to date have come from word of mouth based on those initial contacts and I think that's a common experience.

I got in touch with a good jobs agency for my field and made sure they knew I was available. I wasn't looking for contracts of even 6 months in length so I didn't expect anything to come of it, but in fact I did take a contract in the end. If you just might take something then call them - but be very honest about what you're looking for. (Future post: Finding Clients)

If you're a technology specialist, you've probably got a wealth of accumulated notes, emails and reference material at work. If you continue to work in a related field, you are likely to really miss these. Take the time to go through these and take whatever you can with you in some form. That might simply be forwarding yourself a list of Internet links or might be making notes on some ideas you had. Don't be tempted to take anything confidential or that violates your contract - especially as an independent, trust is everything.

View your current job as a launch pad for a new, portable career.

YMMV

December 2009: Leaving

Some of the posts in this blog are a retrospective account of my own experience.  Each post will be about one month and I'll post every fortnight when I can. This is the first post in the series.

I've been told that I set a new record for the number of leaving parties. I find that hard to believe - I had stiff competition - but certainly I knew there were a lot of people I was going to miss and I wanted to say goodbye properly to them all. I had moved to Germany to join a company dominated by ex-pats, which had always been very social and I'd been very active in that. It did strike me that I might find working alone very hard for that reason (Future post: Working Alone).

Deciding to leave Germany and go it alone - that's a big topic all of it's own that I'll not go into here, or I'll never get started (Future post: Is It For Me?) Suffice to say that life had thrown me a couple of months to think, travel and put things in perspective and this was the conclusion I reached. There had been a building feeling for a long time that I was tired of talking about the things I believed I could do, without doing them and the experiences I wanted to have that weren't happening. If you can do what you want to do part-time, around a permanent job, I've heard a lot of people recommend that and more power to you. I'd found that wasn't working.

I felt my life had been "on hold" for a long time and I needed to get it on the move again because I had a lot of catching up to do. That was pretty much the single driving motivation behind the next two years!

I sent the first of my stuff home on the 3rd of November and I flew home about 6 weeks later, just before Christmas. Going from all the collected possessions of a settled existence to the few essentials of a peripatetic lifestyle takes some work (Future Posts: Getting Rid Of Your Stuff and Storing It).

But apart from packing, what else did I do in that time?

For a start, I made some great new friends! The thing is, when you're about to leave is when life gets exciting. At least, that's the case for me, I can't help thinking it should apply to everyone and I don't think there's anything remarkable about it either. You want to make the most of your time and suddenly you know that if you don't do it now - chances are you never will. I went to the parties I had turned down, I saw the sights I hadn't visited, I stayed to chat with the neighbours I'd never talked to, and this somewhat reserved soul got a lot bolder with women. (Yes - as I expect you've assumed by now, I was single. Future Post: Relationships)

In short, in those weeks I did more living than I'd done there in the previous year. It was a good way to finish - and a good start.

But what about all the boring stuff? And indeed, the important stuff.

There was a lot to be taken care of, in packing up and leaving my apartment but also in preparing for my new life and work. The next few posts describe my experience of that and give a few tips.

One final bit of preparation: organising my plans for Christmas and New Year. It's the best time of year to catch up with friends and family in the UK and I made the most of it.

I didn't make any New Year resolutions - everything I had been doing up to that point was putting in motion a whole new chapter in my life. And - I should make it clear now! - I had a lot of ideas about what I was going to do with it, but I didn't plan to spend all this time as an itinerant programmer. But that's what happened. I hope you'll enjoy my account - and maybe learn something useful to you along the way.

YMMV

Portable Code: About Me

So, who am I to talk about this anyway and what experience do I have?

I'm a computing professional, a specialist programmer in a particularly dynamic industry, with a good degree and a decade of quite varied experience behind me. I think that in my case, the key words there are "computing", "professional" and "specialist" - but I'll talk about that in future posts.

I've been pretty footloose since I left university. My first job saw me bounce back and forth between Australia and the UK - which I didn't set out to do, it just happened that way. Then I had my "settled" period of living in continental Europe in the same flat for 4 years. My working life there was intense at times, but steady and included very little travel. I jumped on a train or plane as often as I could for long weekends in European cities.

I'd always found travelling to be beneficial for my state of mind: relaxing, stimulating, refreshing. Whatever my worries at work or at home, once I set off with a bag I left it all behind me. That was something I lost over time as an itinerant and that I've been slowly recovering of late. If you find travel stressful this blog might help you, but I wouldn't recommend going all the way. For me, travel can or should be calm - time out from the world.

This blog begins when I left my regular job and moved back to the UK, to set up as an independent. Why did I do that and did I plan to become an itinerant? I left because I felt life was passing me by: I had too many dreams that I wasn't able to realise, both at work and in life. What I planned was to give a few of those my best shot until my savings ran out and I had to return to a regular job.

What actually happened? Well, read this blog and you'll find out. But here's the summary:

• I worked from around a dozen cities on three continents, visited many more
• Contracted with a couple of very big firms in my industry
• Earned mostly euros and dollars, even while based in the UK
• Gained a lot of new experience, contacts, CV points
• Kept no accommodation longer than 5 months

My friends and family have long since got used to it. They tend to start conversations by asking where I am. And a few of them, I doubt I could have done it without.

It's often been intense, there's been moments of real elation and lows as well. I feel like I've been lucky, but also that I've been much more able to take advantage of the opportunities that have come my way. There've been worries and stresses and difficulties. It's never been boring.

And what about now?

Well, I think that one reason I'm writing this blog now is because I think it's time to slow down, to settle a little.  I've found new goals in work and life and I think I can achieve more by staying put. I think my days as a true itinerant are numbered.

Having said that: in 6 weeks time I'll be visiting Europe, then probably the US and in October I don't know where I'll be - but I'm looking forward to staying there a while.

YMMV.

Portable Code: Intention

I've wanted to write a blog about my travels as an independent programmer for more than a year, but I wanted to be really sure about why I wanted to write about it. (You know, I think a few more bloggers could ask themselves that.) The answer is that I think people will find it useful. More and more of us are living highly mobile lives, while becoming ever more dependant on technology. If you already travel a lot, you might find some ways to do so more effectively and more freely. If you're feeling tied-down, this blog might just be the inspiration to cut yourself free.

It's definately not for everyone, not for every time in your life and it comes with risks, drawbacks and compromises. But ultimately I think the world would be a better, more interesting place if a few more people tried it.

What this blog is:

• Food for thought for any tech professional with itchy feet
• Practical tips for anyone technical who travels a lot
• Advice for those who are thinking about taking the leap

This blog is not:

• A travel blog
• In any way about my work itself
• Any help whatsoever in writing platform-independant code

You can find out a little about me in my next post.

YMMV.