March 17, 2020 - 13 Comments
Being a digital nomad is a dream for many aspiring entrepreneurs. It seems glamorous and exciting to travel on a permanent basis and to keep discovering exciting new locations, countries and cities.
Unfortunately, it's a lifestyle that is really bad for productivity. In fact, it's a lifestyle that's incompatible with, well, a good lifestyle in many ways.
In today's post, we'll discuss why this is and what you can do about it.
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I began working on this article before the COVID-19 outbreak that we're in the middle of, right now. In the video, I address this towards the end. The reason I'm publishing this now anyway is that everything related to productivity that you find below is equally important whether you are traveling or stuck in your home.
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
The above quote is attributed to Aristotle and it holds up well, even today. The results you get as an entreprneur are largely dependent on your day to day habits and the skills you develop through them.
The book Good Habits, Bad Habits by Wendy Wood highlights a crucial aspect of habit building: it's all about environmental ques. Whether intentionally or not, solid habits are always linked to environmental ques.
For example, if you try to build the habit of drinking more water, but you change nothing about your environment, it's unlikely you'll succeed. But if you place a big water bottle right on your desk, you can easily build the habit. Every time you glance at your bottle, you're reminded to take a sip. And when the bottle is empty, that's the que for the second part of the habit: get up and refill the bottle.
Building good, productive, positive habits isn't about willpower as much as it is about optimizing your environment (something we cover in great depth in the focus & action productivity course).
Stable environmental ques are the most important factor fo maintaining good habits. That means that the most disruptive thing you can do to your habits is change your environment completely.
As you do when you travel to a new location, for example.
I really can't over-state how important this is. Changing your environment is taking a wrecking ball to your habits.
And that's why, in general, digital nomads are nowhere near as productive as they could be. Every time you move to a new location, you have to build your good, productive habits almost from scratch.
And there's more bad news: many bad habits are very easy to maintain, even when you're on the move. To name just a few examples:
Smartphones have become a major source of distraction for basically all of us, at this point. We live in a new, hyper-distracting world and smartphones are our access-portal to that world.
Unfortunately, the smartphone is maybe the most stable environmental que around. It's always in your pocket or purse, it always looks the same, acts the same, has the same apps and so on. No matter where you are, the phone can always distract you the same way.
Another que that remains pretty stable when you travel is the bedroom TV. I would say that roughly 80% of apartments and hotels rooms I've stayed in over the years have had a TV opposite the bed. And these days, it's usually a smart TV that can easily connect you to YouTube and Netflix.
So, if you're in the habit of watching TV instead of doing productive work or bingeing Netflix shows instead of getting your much needed sleep, that's a bad habit that's easy to keep.
Whenever you arrive in a new place, you have to figure out how to feed yourself. At least, if your goal is to feed yourself well. Where are the farmer's markets with fresh produce? Where are restaurants serving healthy, wholesome foods, smoothies, salad bowls and such?
In other words, there's some friction in the task of finding healthy food. But almost no matter where in the world you go, you can easily find junk food "staples" like McDonalds or KFC. If you have a habit of eating junk food, travel doesn't disrupt that habit.
Okay, so some bad habits are pretty resilient to travel, but most good habits aren't. What can you do, proactively, to get the upper hand and remain productive?
Here are the 3 steps I recommend:
Before I travel to a new place, I scout ahead. I use Google Maps and Nomadlist to find out things like:
I only book an apartment once I've scoped a place out like this. I'd rather pay a bit more to live in a place that's close to a gym, healthy food and good work spots than save on rent and lack access to these things.
Ask yourself: what are the 5-10 things that you need to get in place, as soon as possible, to get a good start in a new location?
For me, the list includes items like:
These are the kinds of things I need to get done as soon as I arrive. I know that the longer I delay on any of these, the longer it will take me to get in the zone and have a good, productive and healthy lifestyle.
I use Trello to create my arrival checklist as a template that I can re-use every time I change locations.
What environmental ques can you take with you? Here are a few examples to consider:
Think about what your cornerstone habits are. The ones that make a biggest difference to your life quality and productivity. Whatever small aspect you can take with you, to have a reminder and a stable environmental que will go a long way to keep up those habits.
As you can see, my concern is not just with "business stuff" productivity, but with overall lifestyle. I believe you'll be most productive and most capable of reaching your goals when you are at your best, overall.
This is also something I've baked into my productivity course, by the way. The course fully acknowledges the importance of optimizing your physical and digital environment, whether you travel a lot or stay put.
What other tips do you have, to optimize your environment and get more done? Let me know in a comment below!
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