J.D. Moyer

sci-fi author, beatmaker

Category: Lifestyle Experiments Page 7 of 9

My 11-day "30-day experiment" of Giving Up Coffee

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On August 19

In Health/Body-hacking, Lifestyle Experiments

Magic beans.

Earlier this month I decided to go without coffee for 30 days.  I’ve done a number of 30-day experiments over the last few years, including giving up booze, sugar, web-surfing, video games, and even artificial light.  30 days is a good amount of time to break old habits and establish new ones, or at least to reset your physiology and brain to a new set of stimuli.  Coffee was the only substance I hadn’t tried to give up.  In the interest of facing my fears, I decided to give up my favorite morning brew.

I also wanted to see if giving up coffee would alter my sleep cycle (sleeping deeper, and longer without waking), and/or affect my ability to concentrate and work on difficult tasks for long periods of time.  Lately I had been feeling that my mental wheels were spinning without the gears being fully engaged.

I did a one-day taper (only 1 cup in the morning, as opposed to my usual two cups in the morning and a cup in the afternoon), and then switched to only tea and dark chocolate.  At some point I may attempt a no-caffeine experiment, but that wasn’t the point of this experiment.

Physical withdrawal took about 5 days, with effects as follows:

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Overcoming Our Cognitive Bias Towards Excessive Caution Using the 3rd Person View

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On August 21

In Lifestyle Experiments, Metaprogramming

Adventure is in the eye of the beholder.

In my last post, Strategies for Multi-Class Characters, I touched on the idea of how seeing ourselves as characters in a game can be a fun and useful exercise.  One reason I’m so enamored with mental exercises in which I see myself in the 3rd person (as a character in a game or a novel) is that it helps impart a certain lightness and clarity to decision making.  When we’re in first-person view, sitting behind our own eyes so to speak, we feel the potential consequences of our actions quite heavily.  It’s hard to take big, disruptive actions, even if we know those actions will vastly improve our lives.

On the other hand, if we momentarily look at our own life as a story, or fantasy game, or even a dream instance, we can suddenly see our possible future paths with much more clarity; it becomes easier to take positive action in our real lives.  You wouldn’t think twice about sending your adventurer off to fight dragons or explore underwater caves or walk through a time travel portal, but in real life it’s sometimes hard to do something as straightforward as learning a new skill or going on a trip or starting a creative project.

Think about how easily we come up with action plans for acquaintances we know only superficially.  Within a few days of meeting someone it might be obvious to us what they need to do in order to drastically improve their lives.  So-and-so needs to drop that loser boyfriend and go back to school.  That guy over there?  He should quit drinking, move to Jamaica, and marry that woman he fell in love with last summer.  It’s all so clear.  But in our own lives, or even in the lives of those people we love and feel very close to (and are thus invested in) the decisions feel murkier, the right paths and best options less obvious.

Hmm ... could be a good opportunity but it might cost me half a banana.

Evolutionary psychologists are discovering that human beings have a strong cognitive bias towards loss aversion.  That is, we fear losing stuff (money, status, love) more than we hunger for gain.  In fact, we will do almost anything to avoid even the slightest loss, while we can be incredibly lazy about taking small steps towards enormous gains.  I, for example, will spend twenty minutes on the phone with my bank trying to get a fee reversed, when logically I’d be better off doing work for a client, or working on a track, or even writing a blog post.  The financial and/or emotional rewards of the alternative activities far outweigh the cost of the bank fee, but since the bank fee feels like a loss — the bank is taking my money — I’m willing to spend a lot of time and energy fighting it.

This same bias plays out on larger scales as well.  We’re willing to tolerate sub-par situations because we want to hold on to the meager benefits those situations provide.  Our life focus becomes shallow and we lose track of the big picture — what do we want the narrative arc of our life to look like?  What kind of story do we want to live?  What kind of impact do we want to have on those around us and the world we live in?

Unfortunately we can’t just flip a switch and start making rational decisions, weighing potential losses and potential benefits of various actions evenly.  Millions of years of evolution guarantees that we’re stuck with our bias.  Our only option is to trick ourselves.

Flip the switch -- all bets are off.

The 3rd person view is a good trick to get around the loss aversion bias.  Play yourself as a character in a game.  Write your own narrative and live your own novel.

Psychologically, the fear of even minor losses holds us back, but when we take the “I” out of the equation and start seeing ourselves as a “he” or “she,” those minor potential losses cease to matter so much, and the potential rewards become more clear.

Pitfalls?

I’ve worried at times that this approach might be narcissistic.  Does it lead to too much focus on self, at the expense paying attention to (and considering the needs of) family, friends, and community?

Maybe — but only if the narrative we write for ourselves doesn’t include fully engaging with our family, friends, and community.  Our narratives should have a heroic element — and narratives that are simply about fulfilling our own needs and desires aren’t really heroic.  To be heroic you need to engage with other people, and with the world, and make positive changes.  Non-heroic wish-fulfillment narratives (acquire this thing, have this experience, etc.) probably aren’t sufficiently energizing for most people.

What about recklessness?  Is it possible that if we take the 3rd person view towards our own lives, we’ll be impelled to take drastic, unwise, reckless actions?  I don’t think so.  In my own experiments with this mental exercise, the actions I’ve ended up taking have been 1) low risk, 2) more-or-less reversible, and 3) carefully considered.  The idea is to see your own life more clearly, and with less weight, so that you can actually make more rational decisions about what paths to take.  It’s probably more reckless to only see your life from the inside, from the first-person view.  Inertia and non-action can be reckless too.

Personal Results

Taking the 3rd person view has led to a number of concrete actions in my own life.  It led to taking a 6-week workation in Costa Rica with my family.  It led to me taking a prolonged break from club DJing (never say never) and instead focusing more on writing (including this blog).  Just as many life areas have remained unchanged — I’m happy with the way lots of things are going for my “character.”

When I’m able to take a 3rd person perspective on my own life, it gives me a wonderfully freeing feeling that my life is not that important.  I’m just one character among billions.  Why not doing something fun, or flippant, or daring, or new, or brave?  If it doesn’t hurt other people, why not do exactly what I want to do? Why not try the thing I’m considering, and see what happens?  Why not set an ambitious goal and charge at it full speed?

Working Abroad Experiment Wrap-Up Part II — Financial Results

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On July 21

In Lifestyle Experiments, Travel

Spend money thataway!

We’ve been back from our Costa Rica “workation” for three weeks as of today.  It has taken that long for me to feel like life in Oakland (blessedly temperate with very few biting bugs, but much farther from the beach) is “normal.”

Hindsight continues to clarify the experience.  As beautiful as it was, and as friendly as everyone we met in the Puerto Viejo area was, I didn’t fall in love with Costa Rica.  It’s not really a matter of why or why not — it just didn’t click the way some other places I’ve visited have for me (Parma, in Italy, for example — or the north shore of Oahu).

You can’t predict what parts of the world you’ll fall in love with.  Hopefully your home is one of them.  To find the others … beyond randomly going places, I’m not sure how to go about it.  I don’t think a guide book can tell you.  Maybe the best way to improve your odds is to follow a lead … some picture or story or traditional food or factual detail or potential project that sparks your interest and that resonates emotionally.  If I gain more insight into that process, I’ll be sure to share it.

Still, I immensely enjoyed parts of the workation, and even the hard parts weren’t that bad.  I have zero regrets about the experiment, and we plan on going on similar adventures in different places (with a few tweaks to the game plan).

How Much Did It Cost?

One of the objectives of the experiment was to go on a longer trip without breaking the bank.  Until I sat down with a spreadsheet, I didn’t know how much damage our bank accounts had actually taken.  During the trip I was focused on making sure we had a enough cash for day-to-day needs; I wasn’t paying attention to the big financial picture at all.

Spent some money here (well-spent).

Gross expenses for the three of us (myself, Kia, and our toddler daughter) were $7033 for the entire six weeks.  The top four expense categories, from most to least expensive, were 1) flights, 2) rental houses, 3) eating out, and 4) groceries.  Those four categories came to about $6000, and the remaining grand was taken up by hotel, taxi, bicycles, bus tickets, laundry, ecotourism, gifts, childcare, clothing, exit fees, bank fees, and other expenses.

Of course, if we had stayed in Oakland, we’d have spent money in many of those categories over the same six week period.  Looking at average monthly expenditures in January through April of 2010, I calculated that we saved money in the following areas, comparing workation costs to “life in Oakland” costs.

  • Childcare: $2163 saved (we’re looking forward to public school)
  • Groceries: $1605 saved (see below)
  • Eating out: $495 saved (even though we ate out way more)
  • Gasoline and bridge tolls: $258 saved (we biked everywhere)
  • PG&E bill: $40 saved (our renter used less gas and electricity than we would have)

In addition to saving money in these categories, we had an additional $1100 in rental income from renting our place out.  That amount is below market in our area, but since we were renting to someone we knew and trusted (and found easily — no searching or interviewing required), it was a win-win situation.

During our workation I had income from music royalties, Loöq Records, and my database development freelance work.  Working conditions weren’t always ideal (lack of childcare and proper desk space), and I didn’t feel like working as often, so billable hours were down.  I calculated about $1700 in “lost” billable consulting fees for myself — work that probably would have gotten completed, delivered, and billed if I’d been at home.  That’s over the full six weeks.  Kia worked less as well, though I’m not sure what her numbers are (or if she wants to share them with the entire world).

Taking everything into consideration (gross expenses, money saved, additional income, changes in regular income), I calculated that the six week workation cost me $2357, or about $400 a week.  Slightly better tactics (renting one house instead of two, eating out less, and arranging better working conditions for ourselves) probably could have gotten that number down to about $300/week.

Depending on a number of factors, spending $2357 for six weeks in a different part of the world (during which you still need to complete and deliver a fair amount of work) might sound like a lot, or not very much.  To me it seems like a fairly good deal, though it wasn’t as inexpensive as I had hoped.

I think I’ve spent about that much (or a bit more) on many two-week vacations.  It’s an interesting comparison — two-week vacation vs. six-week workation.  The longer your trip, the more certain costs are amortized over longer chunks of time.  Flights you pay for just once (unless you hop around during your trip), and monthly rental costs are often almost the same as weekly rental costs (especially during low season).

The longer workation offered the experience of actually living somewhere else, and of completely breaking with (as opposed to just getting a break from) my daily routine.  I’m glad we did it, and I think, going forward, it will probably be our preferred choice over the whirlwind vacation.

Bank Fees and Credit Cards

It cost us $3-5 in ATM fees, plus about 3% of the actual withdrawal every time we withdrew cash.  I’m not sure which fees were Banco de Costa Rica and which ones where Chase, but they both got their share.  What a drag.  I wish there was a way around this (besides bringing massive amounts of cash into the country — no thanks).  Is there a way to use foreign ATM’s and avoid the fees?  If you know of one, please let me know.

Want a new dress? Cash preferred.

One bright spot was our CapitalOne Venture card — a new credit card we got just for this trip.  No foreign transaction fees at all, no annual fee (with our version — there’s also one with a fee and more rewards points), plus rewards points that can be used for travel or other stuff.  I wish we could have used the credit card in more places, but lots of places in Costa Rica only take cash, and many places (including hotels) that do take credit cards add a steep transaction fee.

A different credit card, one that I only used at only two restaurants at Costa Rica, ended up with some fraudulent charges on it, and had to be closed.  Chase took care of the problem with minimum hassle, but I’m glad I used a credit card instead of a debit card at those places (even though I’m not sure that the problem occurred at either restaurant).

On Groceries and Bicycles

Farmer’s market in Puerto Viejo

You may have noticed that we saved a lot of money on groceries — about $1600 over six weeks, or $267/week.  There are a number of reasons for these savings:

  1. We were eating out more.
  2. Food was less expensive.
  3. We were eating conventionally grown food instead of organic food.
  4. We were eating primarily local foods, and almost no imported foods (imported foods are an order-of-magnitude more expensive in Costa Rica).
  5. We generally drank beer instead of wine.
  6. Everything we bought, we had to carry home on our bicycles.

The last point is the most interesting.  We bought (and therefore ate) less food, simply because it was difficult to lug it around.  It made us think twice about our regular style of shopping at home — making gigantic trips to the grocery store and filling up the whole trunk of the car.  We also lost less food to spoilage (despite a flaky refrigerator).  It was more of a European village style of shopping: figure out what you want to eat that day, then walk or bike to the market and buy it.  Less efficient, but also fresher and less expensive.  We’re trying to emulate the same model now that we’re home, and so far the results are good — less money spent on food with no drop in quality (and nobody is going hungry).

30-Day Luck Experiment — RESULTS

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On July 4

In Lifestyle Experiments, Metaprogramming

Richard Wiseman, aka Dr. Luck.

During the month of June I conducted a 30-day experiment; I tried to “be more lucky.” I based my experiment on the research of Richard Wiseman, who has studied lucky people (and what makes them lucky) for a number of years.  Wiseman discovered that lucky people tend to have the following qualities:

  • They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities.
  • They make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition.
  • They create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations.
  • They adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.

Based on these findings, I created and resolved to practice five customized exercises everyday for the month of June.  I’ll discuss my experience of each exercise in turn.

Exercise #1: Discuss and tweet favorite three experiences of the day (focus on the positive)

Discussing the “Top 3” with Kia and Tesla Rose was an easy and fun thing to do in the evening.  Sometimes it was surprising which experiences made the list.  For example, one evening we were walking in the evening on a beach trail, in near-total darkness (it gets dark very early in Costa Rica) when we began to hear scurrying and rustling on either side of the narrow trail.  The noise intensified; soon we were threading our way through a surround-sound mosh pit of horror movie sound effects.  The experience was harrowing, but it made Kia’s Top 3 list for that day.  She has written about the experience here.

Simple activities, like playing in the surf at the beach, often made the list.  So did experiences with nature … hearing or seeing howler monkeys, for example (we were on a working vacation in Costa Rica for the entire month of June).

Early in the month I tweeted the top 3 experiences of each day, but this started to feel obnoxious, and I abandoned that part of the exercise.  People don’t necessarily want to read about how precious your day was.  Nobody complained, but I ultimately decided it wasn’t the kind of thing I want to tweet about.  I would rather share interesting links or facts … provide value of some sort.

Did it make me luckier?

This exercise certainly made me feel luckier.  It’s an effective method.  Even though the exercise was very focused — picking out three discrete experiences — the overall effect was to make me consider the big picture.  Here I was in Costa Rica, with my loving family, in good health, and so on … so yeah, it made me feel like a lucky man.

The grapevine is an important source of information.

 

Exercise #2: Talk to everyone — strike up a conversation at every opportunity (expand opportunity)

This was the hardest exercise!  I’m not naturally a chatty person, and I had to overcome extreme reticence in order to make myself strike up random conversations with strangers.  My limited Spanish contributed to the problem.

I ended up compromising; I struck up conversations with people who I perceived to be interesting in some way.  Also, if needed information (directions, when a store opened, etc.), or help, I made myself ask someone nearby.  Asking for directions or help comes quite easily to some people, but for me it’s challenging.  A combination of 1) pride, and 2) not wanting to impose usually conspire to make me to tough it out alone.  Could be a guy thing.

Interestingly, sometimes this exercise contradicted Exercise #3 (“follow your gut feeling”).  Sometimes my gut instinct directed me not to talk to somebody — to avoid engagement.  In those cases I always went with my gut instinct … definitely the easier choice.

Did it make me luckier?

Somewhat.  I just wasn’t that good at this one.  It was good to overcome my reticence about asking for directions or help, and that proved helpful in several situations.  One afternoon I asked a random construction worker if he could spray some WD-40 on my crusty bike lock, and I bought him an ice-cream cone for his trouble (he was working right next to CariBeans).  I also had some short, interesting conversations with a few random people.

Kia is quite good at talking to strangers.  She actively sought out people with young children (Tesla Rose had a dearth of playmates during most of our trip), and cornered The Dellingers one morning at the beach.  Tesla Rose had a great time playing with the Dellinger girls (Eli and Annika) for the remainder of our trip, and meeting them definitely enhanced our experience.  A stroke of luck, you could say.

Exercise#3: Consciously consult “gut feeling” at all significant choice points (follow intuition)

The intuitive path.

This one was easy to do, and felt effective.  Significant parts of our brains are processing information at a tremendous rate before our conscious minds are aware of the data; the calculations are subconscious (as Malcolm Gladwell discusses in Blink).  While intuition is inferior to cold, conscious calculation in some situations (evaluating financial securities, for example), it’s a perfectly adequate way to navigate a Costa Rican workation.

Whenever I had a moment of doubt or confusion regarding the ever-present question “what to do next,” I consulted my gut instinct.  What felt like the right course of action?

Did it make me luckier?

I think it did, but it’s hard to prove.  The evidence is invisible; bad things that didn’t happen.  We stayed out of trouble, avoided crime, didn’t get (badly) injured, etc.  Is this a good beach to hang out at?  Correct choice = fun times, no sunburn, and not being mugged.

Perhaps the main benefit of “trusting your gut” is that it provides a way to move forward in life, with confidence, and without excessive, time-consuming analysis.  Unfortunately there is no way to do a controlled experiment; once a choice has been made you can’t go back in life and try things the other way.

Another benefit of following one’s intuition: it provides an easy way to maximize the return on the expenditure of limited personal resources (such as time, money, willpower).  If you find yourself with a spare ten minutes, what’s the best way to use it?  Send an email?  Relax and stare at the trees?  Read, or read a book to your kid?  If you had to consciously calculate what the best way to use that time would be, the decision-making process itself would probably take you ten minut
es.

Exercise #4: When something “bad” happens, consider possible upsides, and refuse to be demoralized (resilience)

There’s always an upside.

This exercise was moderately difficult, but extremely effective.  When I was feeling down, for whatever reason (usually mosquito bites, or Tesla Rose throwing plates on the ground, or having internet connectivity problems), it wasn’t always easy to find “the bright side.”  Usually the “opportunity” in the situation was to change my own perspective or behavior.  Mosquitoes?  Part of the Costa Rican equation — avoid as much as possible, but don’t focus too much on the bugs or the bites.  Two-year-old acting out?  What’s going on with her psychologically?  What’s she feeling, and what are her motivations?  Internet problems?  Find something else to do.

Did it make me luckier?

Our biggest piece of “bad luck” was renting a house that wasn’t an ideal fit for our family.  This exercise helped give us the fortitude to do something about the situation; we moved from the jungle to a beach house.  There was a financial hit, but not a huge one.  We found ourselves much happier closer to the beach — the double rental cost was well worth it.

Following this exercise made me realize the absurdity in the “I’m having a bad day” attitude.  You can always turn it around.  You can always use your imagination to find a course of action that will improve your situation.  To paraphrase Lt. Gen. Harold Moore: if plan B doesn’t work, go through the entire alphabet.

Exercise #5: Observe and record (journal) at least three anomalous details every day (expand opportunity)

I failed miserably at this exercise.  Part of the problem is that I created too many exercises for myself — I couldn’t keep them all in my mind at once.  The other part of problem is that my natural observation skills are dismal; this one was just too much to bite off.  I basically gave up after a few days.  This would probably be a good 30-day experiment on its own.  I’ve read accounts of people dramatically improving their powers of observation; I believe it’s possible.  But it was too much for this time around.

Did it make me luckier?

N/A — I didn’t do the exercise.

Conclusion

Maybe I’ll actually buy Wiseman’s book and see what “make yourself luckier” experiments he proscribes.  I wanted to start with making up my own exercises, but I think mine might have been too ambitious.  Three out of the five I created for myself really worked for me — the other two more or less flopped.

The three exercises that I was able to practice did all seem to have a positive effect.  They made me happier, if not luckier.  There’s a reason those two qualities are often paired, as in “happy-go-lucky.”  Focusing on the positive leads to both luck and happiness.

Focusing on the positive doesn’t mean that you ignore problems, or that you have any less awareness of evil, injustice, wrong-doing, bad feelings, or bad situations.  It simply means that you focus on what is good in your own life, and build on that.

I’ve never had a victim mentality; at least in adulthood I’ve always seen myself as responsible for my own fate.  But these exercises had the effect of moving the personal responsibility dial from 8 to 10.  What “luck” I would like to have befall me — it’s just a matter of doing the work, meeting people who can help me out, and cultivating an indomitable spirit.  There’s nothing magical or mystical involved (though the subconscious is heavily involved, and one’s path through life is ultimately unpredictable, which can make it feel mystical).

Lucky Events

Catch some falling coin.

June did contain a couple “extra lucky” events.  One night I went out to dinner, and by the time I returned a lucrative Loöq Records music licensing deal had been offered, negotiated, and closed by the time I returned.  That same evening I received an email notifying me that there were some uncollected music royalties in my name — would I like them to be collected?  Why yes, I would — thank you!

On a less tangible note, June was filled with creative inspiration.  Ideas (mostly for stories, blog posts, music) sometimes came faster than I could write them down.  I attribute this mostly to being in a different environment, with a high degree of novelty.

What About “The Power of Intention”?

I completely believe that we have the power to “manifest” our desires (or preferences, as I prefer to call them) by imagining them.  That is, as long as we’re willing to do the tangible work in the world that brings us to that reality.  Bringing something into reality always starts with imagination (or visualization, if you prefer), but it must be followed up by action, by work.

But what if I’m wrong?

What if all you really have to do is imagine what you want, to completely believe that reality will manifest, and then, well … kind of sit around and wait for it?

Back in April, Steve Pavlina put up an interesting post.  He suggested that if you don’t believe in the power of intention, you can put a “tracer” on your intention so that you’ll be able to distinguish an intentional manifestation from coincidence.  One example he gives is manifesting $100, somehow related to a lime.  Yes, the fruit.  The more random of a tracer, the better.

Are you my lucky lizard?

What’s the opportunity cost of trying something like that?  Zero, I thought — I’m going to manifest $15,000, somehow related to a lizard.  Kia hates it when I try kooky stuff like that that doesn’t align with my beliefs about reality, but I don’t see what the harm is.  We all know that some of our beliefs must be wrong — we just don’t know which ones.  So since early April, I’ve been “trying” to manifest $15,000, somehow related to a lizard, by believing it will happen.  That’s all I’m doing.  I’m not starting any lizard businesses, or writing songs with lizard names.

When I receive my $15K, somehow related to a lizard, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Working Abroad Experiment Wrap-up, Part I — What We Did Right and What We Did Wrong

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On June 30

In Lifestyle Experiments, Travel

A young friend from the Iguana Verde Center.

Today is the last day of our Costa Rica “workation“; right now we’re at The Hemingway Inn in San Jose (CR) and we fly back to San Francisco tomorrow.  Six weeks flew by — at least that’s how it feels now (at times, time crawled at a snail’s pace).  Six weeks was certainly long enough to feel like we were truly living, and working, somewhere else.

Was the Trip a “Success”?

Kia and I had pretty similar goals going into this trip, and our two-year-old daughter was along for the ride.  Here is the short list of what Kia and I hoped to get out of the experience:

  • Perform a test … does “workationing” (a longer stay in another country, working remotely at least part of the time) work for us?
  • Be out less money than we would on a regular vacation.
  • Change things up; experience living in a new place; break out of our Oakland routines.
  • Have a good time, enjoy the foreign country we’re visiting.
  • Be creatively inspired; do creative work.
  • Do paid consulting work; meet client expectations; don’t fall behind on obligations/work responsibilities.
  • Meet new people and make new friends.
  • Avoid the boredom and aimlessness both of us have often experienced on longer vacations (no matter how beautiful the location).

Our daughter didn’t have “goals” for the trip, but it was important to us that she enjoy the experience as well, and grow from it.

File under "what we did right"

The short answer to the “success” question is yes, absolutely.  We performed the experiment, we got work done, we met new people and made new friends, we had some incredibly fun times, we totally broke out of our regular routines, we experienced creative inspiration, we avoided boredom, and we didn’t break the bank.  That said, there were some difficult elements, as follows:

  • We only had sporadic childcare, and this made working difficult.  It was rare that either of us got a clean three or four hour block of uninterrupted time, the kind that enables a person to get into a groove and experience deep concentration.  We had to work in fits and starts, and hour here and an hour there.  Having two of our daughter’s grandparents around for part of the trip was a huge help, as was Sylvia, a new friend who also did some babysitting.  Still, there wasn’t enough time to work.
  • The Puerto Viejo area is home to multitudinous hordes of insects that want to eat you for supper, including mosquitoes, sand fleas, and biting flies.  Some people get used to this, or cease to care, or stop having reactions to the bites.  Some people, but not us.  We suffered.  Mosquito nets helped somewhat, but I had a terrible reaction to neurotoxic DEET spray, and I actually preferred the insect bites to the sharply fragrant stench of citronella.  I would have tried Avon Skin-So-Soft in a second if I could have found some.
  • Internet speed and reliability has a long way to go in the Puerto Viejo area.  I realize this is true for many parts of the United States as well, but the slowness and drop-outs were frustrating when we were trying to deliver projects, check email, download files, etc.  It wouldn’t have been an issue if we were just on vacation, but it made workationing difficult.  I no longer buy into the false “first-world/third-world” dichotomy (see Hans Rosling’s TED talk for more on that), but there is progress to be made in Costa Rican internet service.
  • Tesla Rose, our two-year-old daughter, was bored and frustrated at times, and sometimes acted out.  When she had enough to do, and had friends and grandparents to play with, she did really well, but at other times she complained about missing her Oakland friends, threw more than one glass on the ground, and often exclaimed “I’m getting bited!”

Tesla Rose and the Dellinger girls doing their best to get us kicked out of Casa de Carol (great food -- recommended)

These difficult elements were easily outweighed, at least in my view, by the positive highlights of the trip, including:

  • Going to the beach two, three, or even four times a day to play in the waves, kick the soccer ball around, build sand castles, and admire the tropical Caribbean view.
  • Being in close proximity to Costa Rican flora and fauna; hearing and seeing howler monkeys, sloths, agouti, iguanas, giant blue morphos, etc.
  • Seeing old friends and meeting new friends, including a fellow workationing family, The Dellingers, from Virginia.  Tesla Rose got along great with their daughters Eli and Annika, and we had some excellent times at the beach, eating out, and seeing the local sights.
  • Good food!  Restaurant food was always at least decent, and several times exceptional (and this is coming from two Oakland food snobs).  Basic food quality is great too — for example, regular eggs from the local market in our area rivaled super expensive organic eggs from free-range pastured chickens in California.
  • Seeing Tesla Rose get braver, stronger, wordier, etc. — she grew up a lot during the trip.  Kia has done a full post on this.

What We Did Right, What We Did Wrong

Will we do it again?  Will we take another workation?  Yes, absolutely.  And there are some things we’ve learned from our first foray into this area.

What We Did Right

  • We chose a place where we knew somebody (Eric Haller) who was already living there.
  • We chose a place where rent and other prices were reasonable (or at least cheaper than U.S. prices), and we went during low season.
  • We chose places to live with internet.
  • We chose an area that’s easy and enjoyable to navigate via walking and biking.
  • We chose an incredibly beautiful location.
  • We chose a place where Kia speaks the language, and where Tesla Rose and I could get by with our Spanglish.
  • We maintained a generally positive attitude, even in the face of difficulty.
  • We were outgoing and met new people (Kia and Tesla Rose were especially good at this)
  • We heeded local advice regarding area to watch out for (in terms of crime) and managed to avoid trouble.
  • When we found that the original house we rented wasn’t ideal, we moved.
  • We rented out our place in Oakland to someone we knew, which both eased our minds about our house, and also relieved some financial pressure.

The excellent little preschool in the jungle we would have loved to send Tesla Rose to (unfortunately, they were full up)

What We Did Wrong

  • We ignored the advice of our local friend, and rented a jungle house separated from the main road by a long, hilly, rocky, often muddy trail.
  • We rented a place, sight-unseen, for the entire six weeks; we should have rented a place for just the first week and gained more local knowledge before committing.
  • We chose a place with lots of biting bugs, and didn’t have a good strategy for how to avoid getting eaten alive.
  • We didn’t choose a low-crime area (even though this decision turned out not to have consequences, the constant tales of gangs of machete-wielding youths kept us a little on edge).
  • We didn’t plan, or find, an independent activity for Tesla Rose.  Going to the local preschool, even part-time, would have been fun for her and would have made working easier for us.
  • We didn’t arrange enough childcare for the “crunch periods” (Kia had a couple of intense deadlines for her motion-graphics work).
  • We came in needing faster and more reliable internet service than was currently available in our area.
  • We didn’t choose places with enough desk space.
  • We packed much too heavily, bringing warm clothes we didn’t need, and a car seat we only used once.
  • We didn’t bring enough of certain clothing items.  Some things we planned to get when we arrived in Puerto Viejo, but discovered those items were either unavailable or very expensive.

Overall, the experience was positive, with some glitches.  Some of the glitches were major, but most were avoidable.

I think we’ll enjoy our home in Oakland more than ever for awhile.  I could see trying another workation sometime this winter, or maybe we’ll go somewhere cold next summer.  We have friends and/or family in Switzerland, France, Norway, The Netherlands, and Argentina.  We’re also curious about Iceland, Denmark, Chile, Peru, Japan, and New Zealand.  A number of U.S. and Canadian cities are on the short list too.

If you have recently gone on a working vacation, or are planning one, I’d love to hear about it — please comment below.

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