Long time no see...
I've been backpacking for 10 months and found a few nuggets of gold that might help you out.
You: Who the hell are you?
Me: You don’t remember that one article you read on Medium?
You: No… *inching closer to the unsubscribe button*
Me: I swear! Look you got value out of it, give me a chance!
You: Sigh… Go on then what’ve you got for me?
OK, Who are you again?
Oh boy, so I’m Sah (Shah), the guy you read an article from an eternity ago, subscribed to the mailing list of, and never heard from again. Why you ask? Because I was busy figuring out a way to bring you, yes you specifically, value.
I’ve got more than enough golden nuggets that we can all share in, and turn them into some bling along our collective journey of self improvement. Inspiring, I know right. I’m talking productivity, lessons learned, case studies, wacky characters and a whole lot of travel.
What do I have for you today?
Latest article: why we procrastinate and how we end up taking action.
Top solo backpacking on a dime tips learned from 10 months of it.
How to achieve deep work by creating an anti-interruption system.
A link dump of things worth your while.
If you’re thinking of solo backpacking on a shoe-string budget, this parts for you.
Somewhere between wondering why I brought white clothes to Bangkok, the city of food stains, and sneaking onto a cruise ship off the coast of Hvar, Croatia because I lost all access to take my money out and needed a ride. I learned a few things that might be helpful.
Ditch the check-in luggage and go carry-on only. 7kg (15.4lbs) of clothes and accessories in a 40L bag is all you need.
Hot Tip: Packing cubes are life savers, and this Osprey Bag is by far the best investment I made for this trip. It has the perfect dimensions for airlines to not tear me a new one. I saved $500+ on baggage fees.Get a travel card that re-reimburses ATM fees. For Australia, ING Bank has a card that will re-reimburse all foreign ATM fees, I’ve heard of similar ones for the UK and US. Because I didn’t do this, I had a nice “$I don’t want to even calculate” total fee at the end.
Use Skyscanner’s price chart to compare flights, use Rome2Rio for land travel comparisons. You can compare prices by day/month, get cheap flights to gems you previously (and still) couldn’t pronounce, find the best routes that suit you. Don’t use travel agents if you like money.
Work in guesthouses/hostels and teach English for free accommodation and travel money. These are some of the easiest ways to practically travel forever, all you have to do is ask. And if you speak English and are social, you’ve got the job.
Use Hostelworld, Booking, Agoda, and Airbnb for discovery, but go into the place and book direct for cheaper prices. Airbnb’s are harder as they have no reception so I’ve added a coupon on that link. But the others should work, if they try to charge you more, just book from the site then and there.
I’ve written a comprehensive article on this with much more detail and links to other resources, let me know @sahkilic on Instagram and Twitter if you have any suggestions.
A Story: The Interrupting Duck 🦆
Once upon a time there wa.. *quack* was an interrup.. *quack* - Oof, deep breath.
So it turns out that being interrupted by someone, in addition to being annoying, frustrating and driving you to a premature death, is an administrative overhead in your mind - this has been confirmed by Interruption Science, and yes that’s actually a thing.
According to a study on office workers, “each employee spent only 11 minutes on any given project before being interrupted.” Whether you work in an office, for yourself, or you’re studying, we can all in unison agree - Holy Sh*t.
Imagine you’re a ball rolling down a hill, picking up momentum. Every time you think you’ve gained enough speed you hit a tree or a rock that slows you down. Much like Steven coming to your desk and asking about what you did last night, a Monday night, it’s an interruption that’s taking away from your momentum.
States of deep work and flow where we create some of our best work, where time doesn’t exist and suddenly 3-4 hours are gone - these need to be fostered if we’re looking for success.
Interrupting ducks take many forms, the worst forms are down here;
Notifications from social media, texts, or calls on your phone
Habitual pick-up of your phone
Emails that fall into the urgent but unimportant category
People physically interrupting you
Task switching, instead of focus
The method I’ve been using to deal with this has become so habitual that it’s overwritten everything these can throw at me. I call it my morning flow.
My Morning Flow
If I’m sharing a calendar with others, I block my mornings as a “meeting.” - totally a meeting with myself and my flow, it counts.
I put my phone into airplane mode first thing in the morning, and put it away in my bag to avoid pickups, because self control is difficult.
I turn off email notifications, or leave my auto-reply to “in a meeting, will get back to you this afternoon.” or something similar.
I put in headphones with no music, if someone interrupts, I smile, point at the headphones and say sorry in a meeting, this afternoon?
I keep it to 1 or 2 tasks and as soon as I catch myself drifting, I bring myself back.
Ladies and gents, it’s not perfect, it doesn’t always work, but for the most part, I’ve been able to achieve a flow state of deep work most mornings. I’ve been getting much more work done that usual and it’s all thanks to adopting a system, rather than having at it in a shotgun approach.
Other things probably worth your while.
Morning Brew - It’s an email newsletter that breaks down the most noteworthy business, economy, tech, entertainment, and cultural developments. It’s hilarious, it’s where I get my business news everyday, and I’ve been using it for over a year.
An insightful 15 second read from Seth Godin. - his blog is always on top of it.
This email extractor chrome extension has been a god send when it comes to grabbing emails from web pages, you hustlers might need it for those cold emails.
That’s it for this one ladies and gents. This is the first of (hopefully) many little emails to give you an idea of what I’ve learned that also might be helpful to you. Join the discussion and let me know what you loved, what you hated. This post is public and can be commented on here.
Until next time,
Sah