building resilience in remote work

Maya Middlemiss • Oct 03, 2024 • 12 min read

Create your unique business blend to ensure your income is sustainable, diverse and future-proof

Man sitting and gesturing on an online call on laptop remote working

It’s great to work for yourself, whether as a business owner, a consultant, or a freelancer. It's also great to no longer be at the hiring whims of an employer, who has control over 100% of your income. But just like everything else your employer took care of on your behalf, responsibility for bringing in that income rests with you, today and for the future. Building resilience in the sustainability and diversity of where your income comes from is important, as is consciously creating your strategy.

Luckily we live in a time when you don’t have to go all-in on one activity, project, or business. Today it’s easier than ever to put together a portfolio career which is uniquely yours. Blended work involves combining various roles, projects, and income sources to create a diversified career path. It will grow and develop along with your professional strengths, and de-risk your earning security. For many people, this model offers greater control and flexibility, enabling them to balance short-term gigs with long-term projects and expand their client base.

Blended work helps offset the risks associated with relying on a single source of income, making it an ideal approach for navigating an unpredictable market. This strategy aligns with the trend toward more dynamic, project-based work and empowers entrepreneurs and freelancers alike to manage their careers on their own terms.

Your Estonian e-⁠resident private limited company is the perfect vehicle from which to experiment, diversify, and blend your perfect palette. So let’s explore what we really mean by building resilience through blended work, and how you can put this approach to work in your career.

The Importance of Building Resilience in Remote Work
The 'Blended Work' Thesis: Ultimate Control Over Your Portfolio Career
- My personal blend: Remote business storytelling, in varied contexts:
Managing Multiple Income Streams
Developing different income sources
Professional Development for Blended Work
Leveraging Blended Work and Building Resilience

The Importance of Building Resilience in Remote Work

Today's economic environment is volatile, and resilience has become a critical attribute for remote workers. We must constantly adapt to shifting market conditions, technological changes, and unexpected disruptions.

The building resilience approach allows remote entrepreneurs and freelancers to pivot quickly, seize new opportunities, and remain competitive regardless of external circumstances. Embracing a resilient mindset ensures long-term stability and growth, even when facing uncertainty.

Resilience comes from flexibility, and that includes being able to switch up your location, for reasons ranging from personal safety to digital arbitrage. With digital access to Estonia's business environment, e-⁠residents can establish and run an EU-based company entirely online, regardless of their physical location. This enables them to tap into European markets, build a global client base, and manage their business operations with greater flexibility. E-⁠Residency and Estonia’s native digital-first environment simplify administrative tasks and reduce costs, further supporting self starters in their quest for diversified income and greater career control.

From geoarbitrage to digital arbitrage?

Thanks to e-Residency and other initiatives, entrepreneurs can now choose where to live, work and do business - welcome to the world of 'digital arbitrage'.

The 'Blended Work' Thesis: Ultimate Control Over Your Portfolio Career

For knowledge workers, 'blended work' represents a strategic approach to building a flexible and resourceful career. It involves diversifying roles and projects across multiple sectors and disciplines, which allows them to balance high-value, specialised work with other income-generating activities.

This diversity protects against market volatility and opens up new opportunities, by aligning with different client needs and trends. By managing a mix of short-term and long-term engagements, freelancers gain stability, enhance their market value, and maintain greater control over their professional journey.

It also leans into one of the big benefits of sailing your own vessel as a solopreneur. You don’t need anyone’s permission to try something new, to experiment, to take a risk, or to diversify a bit more. However, in terms of personal branding and visibility, or simple headspace and focus, you might want to keep those different strands reasonably closely aligned, or at least united by some common thread.

That thread tying it all together might not be obvious and visible, but ideally, it’s at least explainable. Even if you can’t see the connections at first, and only join the dots in hindsight.

My personal blend: Remote business storytelling, in varied contexts:

In my case, my present blend includes writing for this publication and others about borderless business and remote work practice, but with a background in tech journalism I also write about and for collaboration apps and their use. Some of this has my byline on it, some of it does not. I am building the community startup Remote Work Europe, and creating training and information products within that. I also have advisory roles on projects relating to business, remote work, and entrepreneurship.

Maya Middlemiss, author of Building Resilience in Remote Work — The Author, and e-Residency Envoy, Maya Middlemiss

When people ask how I manage all those different things, I can explain that actually they’re really not so different after all. Pretty much all things that I do—at least the bits with my name on—relate to remote work and global mobility, whether I am speaking, researching or writing about the tech, the best practice, the regulatory environment, or the people doing it. So these are the bits I focus my continuing professional development on, without getting spread too thinly.

I am able to tweak the blend as I go, depending on my needs and plans for travel, income, business growth, and personal development—a bit more ‘keep the lights on’ work one month, vs. a ‘create for Remote Work Europe’ month. I definitely haven’t got everything perfectly balanced or figured out—and there are for sure ‘yikes, need to find more client work urgently!’ months, times which are more reactive than planned.

But by building resilience and maintaining a dynamic overview of the different elements, commitments, cashflows, and time—that’s all part of the fun.

Managing Multiple Income Streams

You only have true resilience when your resources flow from different directions, and with different correlations between time and continual effort. There are several benefits to developing and sustaining multiple income streams, even if they start off really small:

Stability: Reducing reliance on a single income source offsets the impact of client loss or project cancellations. This is particularly valuable during economic downturns or market shifts as well as geopolitical uncertainties.
Risk Reduction: Diversification spreads risk across various income streams, industries, and geographies, lowering the overall risk profile of a freelance career.
Increased Opportunities: By engaging in multiple roles, freelancers continuously expand their network, build new skills, and unlock fresh opportunities in emerging markets and sectors.

For knowledge workers, this model is crucial for maintaining relevance in a dynamic and ever-changing global economy, making them less vulnerable to external shocks and more capable of capturing growth opportunities. Of course, income is only one part of the story when it comes to mastering your finances, a topic I covered in an earlier blog post:

Future financial planning for remote workers and entrepreneurs

How can location-independent entrepreneurs and freelancers future proof their finances? Top tips on Banking, Tax, Investments, and Savings for the long term.

Developing different income sources

Developing multiple income streams can help break the time-for-money exchange paradigm that is the curse of knowledge-work freelancing, and ensure you work towards future wealth. There are many strategies you can explore, to build a diversified income portfolio that enhances resilience and growth potential:

1. Combine Freelancing with Consulting

In addition to project-based freelance work, offering consulting se r vices in your area of expertise can provide a steady revenue stream. Consultants often command higher rates and can leverage their experience to advise businesses or other freelancers. So create content about your own expertise, and add this to your marketing blend.

2. Create Digital Products

Developing and selling digital products such as e-books, online courses, or templates allows freelancers to generate a less linear income (note, I am not using the term passive income. There is nothing passive about creating, marketing, selling, and supporting digital products!) These products can be marketed globally and cater to a broad audience interested in niche knowledge or skills.

3. Teach, Coach and Create Content

Teaching through webinars, workshops, or online courses can build authority and provide another income source. Writing articles, blogs, or creating video content for platforms like YouTube or Substack can attract new clients and build a following, and you may be able to develop a crowd-funded income through a platform like Patreon. You could each what you know as a guest lecturer, at a higher or further education establishment.

4. Save and Invest

Try to put something by, for Future You. A tiny trickle into a managed fund like an ETF, some kind of retirement planning—you might not always need or want to work in your freelance business. Investing in property could give you somewhere to live, a source of rental income, and a forced savings plan, as over the long term real estate typically grows in value. And you really do need to try and accumulate some cash buffer, to see you through the inevitable leaner months that even carefully-blended freelancing sometimes brings.

E-residents can use their private limited companies to make investments in Estonia and globally. Read more on the blog:

Investing in Estonia: Making safer bets in volatile times

Estonia’s growth and prospects are increasingly attractive for investors. So, how easy is it for e-residents to invest there?

5. Manage costs and outgoings

Keep an eye on your income, your costs, and your profits. Don’t get sucked into shiny-thing tech-stack expansion, and review your subscriptions regularly for value. Just because you can buy the very latest highest spec MacBook as a legitimate e-⁠resident business expense, do you actually need that model? The beauty of freelancing is that you really can be flexible—cancel that app, work from home, even go and live in a cheaper country, or one with a more favourable tax regime.

Professional Development for Blended Work

Adapting to the evolving demands of the market is crucial for knowledge workers pursuing a blended work approach. Continuous learning enables entrepreneurs and freelancers to stay relevant and maintain their competitive edge because as technologies advance and new tools emerge, the skills required today may not be sufficient tomorrow. Resilient business owners and freelancers need to prioritise ongoing professional development to remain adaptable and effective in various roles.

Embrace Continuous Learning

Adopt a mindset of lifelong learning. This involves recognising that knowledge and skills have a limited shelf life in a dynamic market. Building resilience requires staying up to date with industry trends, best practices, and technological advancements. It's about more than just gaining new skills; it's about understanding how to apply them in diverse contexts to create value for clients.

Find Your Effective Way to Upskill and Reskill

Freelancers and entrepreneurs have many opportunities to learn and grow:

Online Courses and Certifications: Platforms like Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning offer courses that range from technical skills, such as data analysis and coding, to soft skills like communication and leadership. Acquire certifications in these areas to enhance credibility and attract new clients.
Consume Content Consciously: find the right publications, podcasts, feeds, and forums, that truly enhance your knowledge and capabilities. Then pay attention to them, including recording your learning outcomes for later reflection. Courses as above are great for the portfolio and LinkedIn profile, but not all great learning is certified. If you can find someone who clearly knows their stuff, then see what they’re sharing and what you can learn from them.
Workshops and Webinars: Attend live workshops and webinars to get practical, hands-on experience. Many sessions are available online, allowing anyone to learn from industry leaders and interact with peers from around the globe. Lots of it is free, but it’s often worth paying to cut through the noise to the high-value insight which will move the needle for your business.
Professional Communities and Networking: Join professional communities, both online and offline, for a wealth of learning opportunities. Engage with peers in forums, attend meetups, and participate in industry conferences. You'll come away with valuable insights into emerging trends and client needs, as well as the obvious networking benefits.

Start with our monthly webinar!

E-⁠Residency Live Q&A: Expanding to the EU – Setting Up Your European Office

Sep 17
18:00 - 19:00 EEST
Online

Join us for our monthly e-⁠Residency Live Q&A with our team & special guests answering questions about e-⁠Residency & starting a company in Estonia.

Commit to Your Professional Development

For skill enhancement to be effective, it must be consistent. Set aside dedicated time in your schedule for professional development—it’s not a luxury, it’s just one of those things to factor in, along with your accounts admin and your inbound marketing.

Upskilling could be a daily routine, like reading industry news or listening to a podcast, or weekly sessions focused on structured learning, such as taking an online course or practising a new skill. Use time-blocking techniques to help ensure that learning does not get sidelined by your daily work demands.

In an unpredictable global economy, the ability to learn quickly and adapt is your most valuable asset. A commitment to professional growth helps identify new opportunities, understand shifting market demands, and adjust services accordingly. Whether it’s mastering a new technology or developing expertise in a niche field you expect to grow in demand, invest in your personal growth. It helps with building resilience and means you are better positioned to manage change, stay competitive, and sustain your career.

By focusing on continuous learning and development, you'll always be prepared for what the future holds, and be able to leverage the full potential of the blended work model. Consider a current example. Those of us who are fully across the latest AI tools and how they impact our work and our clients have a significant competitive advantage, in addition to whatever productivity gains the tools themselves may bring.

Leveraging Blended Work and Building Resilience

To thrive as a freelancer, it is essential to anticipate and navigate both threats and opportunities in an unpredictable market. Building resilience begins with developing a personal strategy: setting clear goals, defining a mission, and creating a vision for your career. Time management techniques, like time blocking and prioritisation, help maintain work-life balance, while self-care and mental health practices ensure long-term success.

Freelancers should also identify potential risks—such as market changes, technological disruptions, or geopolitical shifts—and plan accordingly. Using data and trend analysis, they can spot emerging opportunities and pivot their services to areas of growing demand. Engaging with networks and communities, like freelancer groups and industry leaders, keeps them informed and connected to new possibilities.

By combining strategic planning, proactive risk management, and continuous learning, knowledge workers can use the blended work model to remain adaptable, sustain their careers, and capitalise on future opportunities. This approach makes them not only resilient but also better positioned to achieve long-term success.

You’re already part of the world’s most innovative community of digital entrepreneurs—so keep your eyes on the horizon, as you create your uniquely resilient future-proof career.

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building resilience in remote work

Table of Contents

The Importance of Building Resilience in Remote Work

The 'Blended Work' Thesis: Ultimate Control Over Your Portfolio Career

My personal blend: Remote business storytelling, in varied contexts:

Managing Multiple Income Streams