[malandrew]

The best way to do meaningful work while living as a digital nomad is to contribute to open source. IRC, mailing lists and Github issues provide all the conversation and decision making infrastructure necessary to make the same architectural choices needed to build something with the same level of substance and depth as any project being tackled in an office environment.

[mooreds]

My takeaway from the article was that the cognitive overload of being in a new environment was at least as big a factor in not being able to handle meaningful work (that is to say, challenging work that forces you to grow) as the logistics.

But what you suggest has merit and I'd be interested to hear what the nomads' take on it is.

[malandrew]

Totes. The one big difference though with open source projects versus client work is that the logistics of collaboration in open source never changes. It's always somewhat async and almost always communicated in writing, with various tools to help (JSBin, Gists, Diffs, IRC, email, etc.). With clients, the biggest complicator is negotiating how to communicate with them, which can occur for every new project and on every move. Time zone differences compound these negotiations because so many people expect phone or video calls to sync up.