When you’re traveling a lot or working for yourself, it can be tough to stay productive and get into a regular work routine. As an entrepreneur or world traveler, your daily routines are so inconsistent and oftentimes totally random. This can make it tough to sit down and stick to a schedule. Here’s my advice:
Use a Remote Work Place
It’s important to have a location strictly for work. When I started my first business in high school, I made a point to get dressed up (shirt & tie) every morning and move my laptop into a room I used strictly for work. Even though I didn’t leave my house, I was shifting my mindset from passive to productive.
When you’re overseas, traveling frequently and staying in hotels, hostels or other forms of limited accommodation, it’s important to find an environment that you can use just for work.
A free option is to find a local cafe (Starbucks has free wifi and they’re everywhere) or restaurant with a relaxed atmosphere where you can buckle down and work hard for a few hours every day. Never take friends to this spot, only use it for work.
Another option is to use a service like Regus that provides office spaces and meeting rooms all over the world. For a monthly fee ($50/month), you can have a nice place to work in most major cities.
Incentives
I’m the kind of person who can take forever to actually start working. Unless I just bite the bullet and start, I can spend hours procrastinating or working on small, useless tasks instead of tackling my bigger projects.
I like to give myself an incentive to work every day. There are endless ways to do this. I used to have a deal worked out with another friend of mine who’s self-employed. We used to set a goal for the week and, whoever didn’t complete their goal would have to buy dinner for us both. We would check up on each other throughout the week to be sure we were making progress.
Make sure you find motivated friends who can hold you accountable for your projects and goals.
Surround Yourself With Motivated People
You’re likely to emulate the behaviors of the people who you spend the most time around. If most of your time is spent hanging out with lazy, unmotivated people then you will probably act in a similar way. Likewise, if you align yourself with positive, productive people — it will be much easier to get things done and achieve your goals.
It’s a good idea to start a mastermind group with people who have similar goals or who have qualities that you’d like to adopt. This doesn’t have to be in person, it can be a virtual group and you can meet on Skype once a month or something. This will give you a secure group of people to bounce ideas off of and a way to be held accountable.
Don’t Procrastinate
You should never wait around to act on something. If you have an idea that you think could be profitable, you should instantly take steps to get it off the ground. The longer you wait around, the less likely something is to take shape.
Even if you just make an outline or set up a basic webpage, any effort is worth more than just idle brainstorming.
Just Do It
There is no secret formula for success. It won’t just magically appear overnight if you happen to stumble upon some “exclusive method”. The key is to take action and to be able to fail.
The more active you are in taking steps towards your goals, the more realistic they will become.
So, stop reading blogs, stop watching videos of cats and get to work. Success comes to those who take it.