Know how to measure your time in hours, days, weeks and months and always have a backup plan.

The idea of working in a mobile world appeals to me massively. 

Becoming the digital nomad and living and working from anywhere in the world would be an ideal lifestyle. Some time back in Scotland, time away in Europe, back to Scotland, off to Asia.

Three to six months at a time in each location. Choosing when and what to work on and for who.

What is not to like about that? 

This is one of the life goals I am aiming for. It is directly linked to my desire to be financially free and the master of my own destiny, and the owner of all of my time. 

Well, at least part owner of my time because I will always remain attached to my partner, family, and friends, but my time will be able to move around theirs. 

I will be a flexible person.

My focus is to save up as much money as I can, as quickly as I can, learn the skills that I can use when I am working remotely and then plan an exit strategy into that life.

Who knows if it will all go to plan, but at least I have a plan, and I am working on it.

I call it a life plan. Think of it as a ‘business plan’ for your life. Try it.

So with that in mind, I decided to come away for an overnight to work on the new website design. I also wanted to test what it is like to travel and work from a new place and start getting a feel for that future lifestyle.

As a note, I worked in a previous job where I travelled across the UK. I got accustomed to working in coffee shops, restaurants, and hotel lobbies. I know I can do that lifestyle and it is what I enjoyed about that job. Maybe that was the catalyst for seeking a more global version of that life.

Anyway, today I hit the road and headed off to an area outside of Beijing with the purpose to get some work done.

I am at a boutique hotel next to the Great Wall of China, near Huanghuacheng Lakeside Great Wall.

This is a great place to visit and to experience the local rural community in China. Walking around the local village and seeing the history of the area is fantastic. As always in China, people are super friendly and always happy to meet a foreigner. There is great pride in the country and the strength of China’s growth, and I always feel that people want to share openly with visitors that China is welcoming.

China is not what like what you hear about it in the Western media. Anyway, that is a whole other blog post.

This location is often used as a retreat away from the hustle and bustle of the city, which is what it felt like the minute I arrived. I relaxed into the retreat mindset quickly.

Today was a brilliant experience, and I was able to take some great pictures and enjoy the moment.

I did come away with a couple of reflections.

I learned today that doing an overnight is probably not productive because you get distracted by the location’s newness. You also want to meet and greet with other people and know something about the local area. 

So a message for my future self, the idea of staying longer in locations is the right one. An overnight is pointless. A week or two is a holiday, and going above that would be the right length of time to start to talk about getting good quality work done. 

Three months at a time would be a good shout.

The other thing is to have a backup plan for what you think you might want to achieve when working remotely. I will probably run out of time to do the work I wanted to do because of other distractions, but I am good with that. 

I have a backup plan for something else that I can work on to support the progress to complete the web redesign. A takeaway from this reflection is to always have a distinct idea of what work will take what length of time and then adjust the tasks according to the time within my days.

That means good priority setting and time management is a must-have competency for the digital nomad lifestyle.

Oh, and the other thing I took from the day was the following…

…It is a perfect use of time to just chill the f*ck out for a day.

---