How to Stay Productive While Traveling Full-Time
8 habits that will safeguard your remote productivity
When people learn about my digital nomad lifestyle, they mostly ask money-related questions.
How do you finance your lifestyle? How much money do you make? And most importantly, how much did you save before traveling full-time?
These questions are valid, but they don’t tell the whole story.
Finding ways to make money online is only the first step.
If you want to travel full-time over long periods, you need consistent online income streams. And for that, you need productivity.
As such, the biggest struggle for most digital nomads isn’t money. It’s productivity.
Remote workers will know that without a proper daily routine, discipline, and astute time management, they’ll soon be back in the cubicle.
Consequently, if you want to succeed as a digital nomad, you’ll need to remain motivated and productive anywhere, no matter if you’re catching a plane to Fiji or relaxing on a beach in Rio.
8 productivity-furthering habits for full-time travelers
The following are eight tried and tested productivity hacks for digital nomads. These habits constantly secure my output, even in the world’s most remote locations.
1. Devise a daily routine that will work anywhere in the world
First and foremost, you need a routine.
I know. Most digital nomads chose this lifestyle to escape their monotonous 9 to 5 routine, not to enter a new one.
Nevertheless, a well-tailored routine will make or break your remote career.
No matter the type of remote work, your output has to be consistent and dependable. And for that, you need a solid daily grind that will secure the completion of your work.
This daily routine has several essential components.
First, it needs to be adaptable. If you’re traveling full-time, your daily activities cannot rely on a specific location, time zone, or culture. They have to function anywhere.
As an example, if your morning rituals involve a certain brand of corn flakes and a walk on the beach, they might need a few tweaks to suit your digital nomad lifestyle.
In that same vein, your routine cannot rely on a specific type of co-working space or coffee shop. You might find those in country X, but not country Y.
Secondly, a great remote working routine has to account for travel-related hiccups. If you’re traveling full-time, you’ll inevitably face plane delays, traffic jams, and other travel-related problems.
Because you travel much more than the average corporate worker, your daily routine has to function when travel setbacks hit.
In situations like these, smartphones and tablets can become lifesavers.
A few years ago, I took a plane from Hong Kong to Manila. Due to an airport maintenance problem, the plane arrived in Manila with a delay of over 24 hours.
I had to complete a writing gig, and those 24 hours should have been my editing buffer.
Because of the extreme delay, just two hours separated my arrival in Manila and my client’s deadline. If I couldn’t submit it on time, I would probably lose the client and also my fees.
Upon arriving in Manila, I rushed to the taxi stand in the hope of getting to my Airbnb in time to complete my writing gig. Manila’s infamous traffic, however, had other ideas.
During the ensuing three-hour taxi ride, I managed to send in the assignment. Luckily, I had prepared for contingencies and gotten a SIM Card with global data.
This example shows that travel hiccups can seriously hamper your business if your routine doesn’t include emergency planning. In my case, it was a global SIM Card.
Consequently, the first step toward remaining productive is an adaptable daily routine that will work even when disaster strikes.
2. Use transit hours wisely
In line with my Manila taxi expedition, transit hours can become crucial working periods, especially when delays block your schedule.
As a full-time traveler, you need a mobile workstation, and this mobile office shouldn’t always require fast Wifi.
Long-haul flights are a classic case in point.
Even without in-flight Wifi, you can use those hours wisely by preparing follow-up emails, writing blog posts, or planning your schedule for the upcoming week.
In this context, I try to work a few hours on long-haul flights before watching a movie or nodding off.
I usually prepare new articles and blog posts by coming up with fresh ideas and possible outlines.
I call this “light work” because I don’t complete an actual article. Working conditions aren’t ideal on flights, that’s why light work is the best way to remain somewhat productive.
The same applies to bus rides, airport waiting hours, and long car journeys.
You won’t move mountains during these transit hours, but they can play their part by helping you catch up on some light work.
3. Complete your work assignments in advance
“Better three hours too soon than one minute too late.” — William Shakespeare
Any disciplined worker will try to complete tasks ahead of time, but for full-time travelers, time management is even more decisive.
Because of travel hiccups, constant adaptation, and flexible working environments, not every day has the same working conditions.
In short, you can’t expect the same productivity on any given day if you’re traveling full-time.
That’s why you need to plan ahead and finish tasks when you’re in a productive environment, not on deadline day.
Let’s say you have to complete a certain project in five days. You’ll need two full days to finish the project. Today, you’re in a cozy coffee shop with great internet. Tomorrow, you’ll have similar conditions.
The three days after that, however, you’ll be exploring a national park and only working at night in the hotel, where you cannot predict the strength of the Wifi.
You could take the risk and count on finishing your project during your stay in the national park, but that approach could have serious consequences.
A much safer option would be to finish your project tomorrow and fully enjoy your time in the wild.
A deadline represents the last possible moment to finish, not the only one.
Consequently, always plan around your most productive environments, not your deadlines.
4. Plan and research your travel activities ahead of time
Much like working with time buffers, planning your travel activities ahead of time is essential to stay productive on the road.
The main challenge resides in creating a productivity-boosting schedule that includes work assignments and travel activities.
Let’s say you’re a digital nomad staying in Sydney, Australia for two weeks.
The city has a myriad of cultural and culinary sights and also fantastic day-trip options like Bondi Beach and Blue Mountains National Park.
During those two weeks, you have to complete five writing gigs and a few administrative tasks. Aside from work, you want to spend four days exploring the city and its surroundings.
Now, the best course of action is to plan your working days and travel days before arriving in Sydney.
That way, you’ll know exactly on which days you’ll need a productive remote working environment and on which you can simply go with the flow.
To remain productive on the road, you can’t just arrive in a new city and start contemplating whether you’ll work today or not.
You need a reliable plan that will both secure your remote productivity and satisfy your wanderlust.
5. Stay fit and healthy on the road
No matter your line of work, productivity and physical wellbeing go hand in hand.
Because full-time travelers face extra constraints and travel-related stress, staying in shape is even more vital.
In this context, the following are some simple strategies that can help you stay fit while traveling full-time:
- whenever possible, choose Airbnbs or hotels with gyms. Especially in Asian cities, most large condo blocks have passable gyms;
- set up a personalized home workout routine. Learn how to train in tight spaces without weights;
- walk as much as possible and take the stairs whenever you can;
- don’t eat out every day. Exotic food might be tasty, but to stay fit on the road, you’ll need a base diet with healthy and balanced meals; and
- don’t drink more alcohol than you would at home. As a digital nomad, you’ll quickly realize that hangover recuperation will negatively impact your remote working routine.
6. Slow down and take time off (from traveling)
At the outset of your digital nomad odyssey, non-stop travel feels ecstatic.
The more places you see, the more you want to travel, and the more activities you want to partake in.
Constant globetrotting, however, has another side effect: travel fatigue. At one point, you’ll experience mental and physical exhaustion.
You’ll become tired of seeing new places, and your body will scream: “Stop, I want to chill.”
That’s when you need to slow down your travels and spend more time in one location.
I’ve experienced travel fatigue several times, and my antidote is to spend one month in a city that I already know.
During that month, I still do a bit of exploring, but I don’t feel the itch to explore new places every day.
This summer, it was Porto, Portugal.
Before returning to Portugal, I had spent two months traveling around Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, and Italy, never staying in one place for more than 10 days.
Needless to say, those eight weeks of hardcore traveling left me worn-out and tired of seeing new places. A “travel detox” was in order.
Time and time again, travel detoxes saved my professional productivity and allowed my body to recuperate. Thanks to these short stationary periods, I can take some time off traveling without eschewing my digital nomad lifestyle
7. Choose productivity-furthering travel gear
Another major aspect of staying productive on the road is your travel gear.
In this context, travel-friendly electronics like the right laptop, a Wifi Jetpack, and noise-canceling headphones can make a critical difference.
Buy your gear with productivity and sturdiness in mind. Always remember that it will be used daily and in different environments.
Packing cubes and clever luggage can also boost your productivity by helping you gain valuable time.
8. Eliminate small daily minutiae with automation
Finally, daily minutiae can hamper your remote productivity. That’s why you should automate as much as possible, both for work- and personal matters.
As an example, if you have to pay monthly fees for your health insurance, storage at home, or business expenses, set up automatic payments.
These small administrative acts might be annoying at home, but on the road, they create additional stress factors next to travel-related chores like accommodation and planning.
Along those same lines, set up automatic email responders, both for personal- and business emails. They may not always resolve the issue in question, but they usually buy some time.
If you want to master full-time traveling, make a list of all your common administrative acts and minutiae before setting off.
Try to automate as many as possible, and eliminate the ones that don’t serve your travel lifestyle.
To conclude, automation is the key to focusing on your business, both at home and on the road.
However, because digital nomadism adds another layer of administration to pre-existing obligations, automation is even more crucial.
