1 Tip I Would Give Someone Who Wants To Get Started Writing Online (While Travelling A Lot) | RP 106

1 Tip I Would Give Someone Who Wants To Get Started Writing Online (While Travelling A Lot)

Do you want to start travelling and flexing your freedom... But you're nervous that you'll neglect your business goals if you do?

I get it. I've been travelling while writing online for almost 5 years now.

Last year, I spent a total of 3 months out of the country.

This year looks no different. Just take a look at my summer travel schedule:

• I spent all of June in the Philippines the one week in July in Japan.

• I spent a week of August in a summer cottage with family, then a weekend with friends in Parry Sound, before flying out to New York for a week.

• I just got back from a week in B.C, playing in Canadian ultimate frisbee nationals and exploring Vancouver.

Despite prioritizing everything but work this summer, I never missed a single edition of the newsletter. I even increased my publishing cadence in July and August.

And what I can tell you from this lifestyle is that in order to succeed in working and travelling is that you need to...

• Believe in the value of what you're trying to build.

• Commit to remarkable discipline to produce remarkable results.

• Order your life around work (not your days).

So, here's the 1 tip I would give you if you wanted to pursue a similar path that marries leisure with work:

"Work like a journalist"

Thanks to the deadline-driven nature of their work, journalists are trained to shift into writing mode at a moment's notice.

While legendary magazine writer Walter Isaacson was writing his first book, he shared a summer beach rental with bestselling author Cal Newport's uncle who was a fellow journalist.

In Deep Work, Newport shares his uncle's recollection of Isaacson's writing habits:

Newport calls this the journalistic method of deep work.

Through this method, Isaacson hammered out an 864-page book, while working full-time as one of America's best magazine journalists.

And this tip isn't just for folks who want to travel more.

This is for folks who work to live, and not the other way around.

I used this same strategy to keep up with my weekday and weekly writing schedule.

For example, I spent a week at a lakeside cottage with family, then went straight into another cottage weekend with friends. The point of these times wasn’t to work, but to spend time with the people I cared about the most… But I still had a business to build.

So I came up with a simple solution:

• I would wake up earlier than everyone else. I squeezed in at last 1 hour of writing, focusing on producing a piece I could publish.

• After my distraction-free writing time, I would migrate to work at the kitchen table or the living room with headphones on. This let everyone else know that it was ok for them to distract me since I was only doing shallow work and that I’d be done soon.

• I worked around the group’s schedule, rather than enforcing my writing schedule on everyone else. When my cousins or friends bugged me to hang out with them, I would give them a set time that I could rejoin them. This forced me to work faster so I could hang out with them.

Don’t get me wrong. Getting my media business from zero to one is the most important goal I have for this will allow me to continue living like this.

But I constantly remind myself of why I’m building this business. It’s so that I can…

• Spend time with friends and family

• Train for my sport

• See the world

… Without worrying about money, being at a certain place at a certain time each day, or answering to a boss.

😉 You're welcome

A selection of interesting links & fun recommendations.

• 🛠️ The Glocusent reading light. My most recent favourite purchase under $50. I highly recommend this little gadget for physical book fans. It’s for evening reading without screwing up your circadian rhythms. Bonus: Also great for reading or journaling on flights without waking up your seatmates.

• 🧠 One of my favourite passages by Marianne Williamson is a daily reminder to live your life and do your thing… So that other have permission to do the same.

• ❝ Ryan Holiday on taking your work seriously, from his book Perennial Seller: