More often than not, it appears that maintaining a business and travelling around the world simultaneously is a glitzy lifestyle: You call the shots for yourself since you’re your own boss, you make the schedules and can work from whatever remote location you so desire.
But the same features that make it seem so appealing also make it appalling. Given the freedom to choose between travelling and exploring exciting lands and meeting new people or doing some SEO job in an internet café, writing e-mails and taking part in conference calls for your steel fabrication in Dandenong company, or it services company, most people would tend to pick the former over the latter.
I’m pretty sure if you had a choice, you would not hesitate to shut down your computer system and go enjoy the cool of the beach with friends who just invited you.
As appealing as the digital-nomad lifestyle might seem, there’s nothing dazzling about freaking out simply because few minutes before an important conference call or product lunch, your internet connection suddenly went down in the small town you are.
Striking a balance is possible and you can effectively run your business from the road, using time management and tactical planning as your tools.
As spontaneous as this might sound, it is never really easy to strike the right balance. It is indeed hard work to fit into a routine when you’re changing locations and time zones all the time. Personally, it took me a long time to fit into a routine. It’s very easy to join people beckoning on you to join them at the new festival while pushing work aside.
My first time travelling, I had no intention of running a business simultaneously. All I wanted to do was just travel. I started a blog as an afterthought and as it began to gain popularity, I was hesitant to put in more of my time. All I wanted to do was just travel.
I wasn’t using the best of my time, hence my business grew rather slowly. For about a week, I was totally offline just because I wanted to go sailing on the Australian coast. Consequently, I missed four interviews and opportunities to guest post.
For me, it has always been travel first, but again I longed to have my cake and eat it, too. After my business scaled through several years of mismanagement, I was finally able to come up with a routine for running my business overseas.
There’s a way to strike a balance. All it requires is discipline by building a schedule that fits into your own rhythm and can be accomplished. Below are my five secrets:
Know your optimal working hours.
This is an essential part of running a business overseas. You must know your best working and most productive hours. Having this knowledge, you can plan your day in such a way that you would attain maximum productivity, also trying to work online when your business specialising in 3d wire forming is probably not ideal as this is a very hands-on, in the factory type of work, as opposed to wireless based.
For me, mornings are my most productive times. Therefore I take on as much task as possible before lunch, then I’m off to sightsee and enjoy happy hours. I attend to “busywork,” such as emails and comments after dinner when I want to perform a few tasks before setting out for the evening.
Create a schedule.
I admit that maintaining a schedule on the road is a tough job since you’re always on the move, but creating one, even if you can’t strictly adhere to it all the time, will help you to batch your work onto certain days, make a more manageable to-do list more and create more time for all the fun stuff that comes with traveling.
Take a day off from the road.
Dedicate a day to work. Develop a routine such that every few days, you sit down and only focus on work, just work. This definitely would enable you to catch up on things and keep your mind from lingering about emails while you’re out catching fun.
While in the Galapagos once, I found out that the human mind can’t be in two places at once. All I could think about was work, hence I barely enjoyed my trip unlike I would have done if I gave it my undivided attention.
I realized I had to change something, upon returning, I decided that I would devote every fourth day solely to work. This led me to focus more on where I was and be a lot happier while still getting work done.
Just say no.
This is two-sided: Firstly, you’ll have to say no to things that don’t help your core business. It’s easy to say yes to interviews, guest posts, phone calls and the like, but when you’re travelling and working, every second count, especially in the commercial property sales industry.
If something simply would not grow your business, don’t be too courteous to say yes. Learn to say no.
Secondly, you also need to learn to say no to people you meet while travelling. Some of them are just travelling for a vacation and are not running a business just like you are. They have all the time in the world to themselves to have fun and will always be trying to encourage you to tag along. Resist. There’s nothing wrong with not partying for one night, there will always be another night to party.
Plan ahead.
I’m a planner and a list maker. This gives me the opportunity to prepare for the times when I might not be able to go online or I am too busy having fun. Keep a calendar, plan and use the days dedicated to working to stay on top of your schedule. Be proactive. Use every moment wisely.
By planning, I’ve been able to go offline and still remain on top of my game with ease via cloud computing services. On one of my travels to Africa a few years ago, I didn’t have to worry about my website because I had already prewritten blog posts and scheduled messages on Facebook and Twitter so that if I couldn’t get online, my content would still be updated. This is what planning ahead does, it reduces stress.
By applying these five techniques, you can build habits that block out distractions inhibit you from accomplishing your business goals. It’s harder to maintain discipline while travelling but not impossible you be a successful commercial real estate in Melbourne office while travelling.
