Leo Babauta: how to make yourself work while traveling

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

An old acquaintance of Lifehacker Leo Babauta came up with another experiment: he tried to force himself to work and not give up sports while traveling with his family. And he succeeded. In the article, he talks about which rules helped him.

For two weeks I have been on a journey and I hasten to share my successes. The biggest one - I was able to work every day and do the workouts. I also had time, not as long as at home, but still. And what is also very important, I almost always managed not to overeat, although it is difficult during the trip.

In this article I will talk about my experience while traveling and about a few rules that helped me not to abandon this experiment. It was especially curious to find energy for work, because when traveling, it is always sorely lacking.

What have I done before? Finished everything before the trip in order to fully immerse himself in the journey. But this is often very difficult and requires additional time and moral strength. I decided that if I could not be interrupted while traveling, then I would be doing my work more calmly and steadily. This time, I deliberately did not prepare for the trip in advance, so that I simply did not have a choice.

My plan was this:wake up before the children get up, go to the coffee shop and work there for an hour. Then come back and go on walks and city tours together.

How did it actually happen:I only went to the coffee shop a couple of times. It took too much time to get there, work for an hour, then the road back. So I got up early and just started working. Of course, when my six children and my wife woke up, it became noisy and bustling around. Plus, I was terribly lacking in energy, because we walked incredibly a lot. And yet I worked, despite all the conflicting factors.

Working rules while traveling

I gave myself no choice

You probably know these feelings: you sit down to work, but before moving mountains, you give yourself a little respite. And it turns out that there are a lot of other exciting things to do: browse social networks, read news, look at the next pictures and share them in the chat …

When I sat down to work, I said to myself: “There are no options, only work and no choice,” although the temptation to get off the hook and abandon the experiment constantly haunted me. By giving yourself the choice of what to do now, you set yourself up for failure.

I publicly announced the experiment

When I decided to go on a trip with my family for a couple of weeks and try to work during it, I publicly announced this to my readers. I knew that I would have to report my results, and naturally I did not want to admit to failure. And I always remembered that I have only two options: either I will overcome the next step on the way to perfection, or I will give up. I think we all have a desire to become better, but we are not always aware of it, more often we follow it blindly. I turned my aspiration into a competition, which was also watched by the audience, and my choice became conscious - to win!

I could not deceive people who were waiting for the job to be done

How wonderful that there are readers of my blog and members of the Sea Change club who want to regularly read my articles and receive newsletters. How could I deceive people's expectations? Again, I had no choice but to work.

Once I did the job, I could forget about it

When we went with my family for a walk around the city, I did not want to experience this pulling feeling that I had not completed all the things I had to do today. And it was the best motivator to keep me focused on my work in the morning. I gave myself or so. And at this time, I was collected and focused only on tasks, after which I received a luxurious gift - the opportunity to throw all working thoughts out of my head until the next day.

I don’t want you to think that my experiment was going well. I was tired, lazy, sick for a couple of days, and sometimes we just wanted to leave the house for a walk early. And at all these moments I wanted to give up on work, but I understood that it was wrong, and tried to do it at all costs.

I think the listed rules are quite applicable not only to work while on vacation, but to daily work too. Surprisingly, while traveling, I was able to do most of my usual things in less time, so maybe I have been fiddling with them at home for too long and can I change that? This is a reason for reflection!