Productivity Issues for Gringos in Latin America

Another day in Mexico City…

I walked out of my apartment to go meet up with some chick named Diana who was some white Mexican chick.

Anyway, it was another chick after another in my first year in Mexico City.

Meet them at the nearby metro station and back to my place to fuck or not.

With a night afterwards of heavy drinking with friends.

Suffice to say, as I wrote here, I didn’t do shit in my first year in Mexico City.

I remember thinking I’d do shit.

I planned on doing shit.

I even had it written down!

But shit I did not do!

Or something like that….

You get the idea.

I had too much fun in my first year in Mexico City and never worked a single day.

From then, I’ve had other days or weeks like that even after I got working again.

I know a guy actually who makes good money doing what he does online but only works like a week a month or some shit.

The other 3 weeks of the month?

He doesn’t do shit except travel, party and whatever else.

Truth is that it is not uncommon for gringos down here to basically not ever get shit done.

Even though we are the first ones in line like myself to bitch about how unproductive and inefficient the locals can be at their jobs…

Well, let’s just say, we join with them at being lazy.

Though the difference is while you find some employee lazy at their job…

There are plenty of gringos who stop by down here who don’t even have jobs…

Like myself in my first year in Mexico City!

And others, like the friend I mentioned, who work as minimally as possible.

The reason for that is simple.

Cost of living is low when you earn USD online or have savings in USD….

And so with a total cost of living of 500 bucks a month or whatever it might be…

Well, you just might be lucky enough to not have to work much since once you know how to earn money online more efficiently…

It can be easy to just say fuck it and not do shit.

Which is the very first issue….

That I want to bring up when it comes to productivity for gringos down here.

Enjoying that low cost of living a bit too much…

Distracted by the Latinas and drinking.

But outside of that?

What else might cause a gringo to not have his shit together while down here?

Here’s just some of the things I’ve seen down here.

If you have any other ideas yourself, drop them below in the comment section.

So beyond the low cost of living and partying…

What else?

No Real Skills?

Another issue that can come up is perhaps a bit of the opposite of the last issue.

Where you have some gringo living down here who basically has no real world skills to make any money.

Subsequently, when he is done partying and living job free, he has to make a choice.

Go back home and earn USD at whatever job he can get.

Or suffer working long hours online until he somehow finds a way to make money.

Where the long hours could be some crazy shit like 12 hour days writing articles for other people for 5 bucks an article or something.

All the while working long hours for peanuts like 500 bucks a month or whatever can also kill motivation after a while as you realize the ROI of doing whatever low pay shit you are doing isn’t worth it.

Making you question rightfully if it is even worth your time.

At least until he hopefully finds a better way to make money.

For me, that was the case after I had to find a way to support myself after the first year in Mexico City.

Right now, things are good but they weren’t after my first year when I was running around figuring out how to make money online.

So just keep that in mind in that it could be an issue for you also.

Minor Laptop Issues

One miscellaneous issue that can sometimes happen apparently to people working online and trying to be productive has to do with laptops.

I’ve heard elsewhere that sometimes laptops can get fucked up in very humid environments.

I’ve never experienced that myself personally up to this writing.

However, if you read this article, it can apparently happen.

And when your business is based around your laptop, I suppose this is something to think about.

Mental Health Issues?

Sometimes gringos either face challenges down here or bring their own when they travel.

Such as facing loneliness when they first start living down here or travel around…

To again dealing with whatever issues from the past that come with them.

Which can somewhat impact the quality of their work obviously.

Thankfully, because of the low cost of living, they have plenty of time to deal with those issues.

However, if the issues are severe enough, I suppose it can hurt the work they put out there.

Especially if they drink a lot or whatever to cope with it.

And the low cost of living kinda encourages that to a degree in my opinion in that it allows more time to cope with the past and less pressure to get off your ass to work hard.

Traveling all the Time

Another issue is when said gringo is traveling all the time from country to country.

When I first started living in Latin America, I was basically just hopping from country to country for the most part.

Back then, I would’ve been a lot less productive than I am now.

I feel that constant travel would hurt productivity quite a bit – especially if you are working online.

As you are distracted by the logistics of changing locations…

To not being able to establish good contacts for local work in whatever country you are in as you prepare to leave soon.

All the while being distracted from doing very touristy things constantly on a 24/7 basis.

Well, more frequently than you would if you were established somewhere for a little bit.

Local Business?

I’ve never tried running a local business in Latin America as I’m not interested and prefer digital work.

However, I have heard of other folks trying that shit and it never sounded very nice.

At least up to this point of writing, I’ve always heard more negative things about trying to run a business down here.

Like you can see in articles like this one here.

Where you might have to deal with more inefficiency in general and also run into possible cultural issues I suppose from what I’ve heard by others.

And perhaps other logistical issues also.

Now if you don’t speak Spanish, I’d wonder how that would impact things also.

Anyway, these are all just some issues I’ve heard about when it comes to being productive with a local business to run.

The only thing I can say is that the only successful gringo businesses I have heard of involved sending products from down here to be sold in places like the US, Canada, Europe, etc.

I’m sure there have been gringos who have pulled off other types of businesses but those are the only ones I’ve known of that were successful.

The City

Some cities are arguably better for getting shit than others.

The city in question simply has more successful digital nomads or expats that you can connect with.

For some gringos, having a lot of people around you that are getting shit done can help boost your productivity and keep you motivated.

And you got others who, like I said, go to some cities in Latin America like Rio de Janeiro and chase ass all day because there's too much hot Latina ass to go around.

Your Friends

I hinted at this in the last section but I'll bring it up separately.

Even if you live in a city with a lot of successful digital nomads or expats, you still might choose to only hang out with other gringos who don't aspire to do much.

It's like anywhere in the world and not specific to just gringo expats or digital nomads.

No matter where you are in the world, who you hang out with will influence your life in many ways.

Got Any Ideas?

Like I said, if you have any ideas yourself about productivity issues for gringos in Latin America…

Then drop them below in the comment section.

Also if you have any questions.

Anyway, follow my Twitter here.

And thanks for reading.

Best regards,

Matt