Digital Nomads: Habit anchoring on the go
This summer I spend almost two months on the road. Work location included hotels in London and Berlin, a highspeed train in Poland, various cafés in Gdansk, my parents’ place in Germany, our Klaus’ HQs in Tallinn, and other random places. I do enjoy this nomad lifestyle for a couple of weeks, and I also recognize its challenges. Routines and habits often depend on external queues, which may or may not be present while you are traveling. Hence, you need to create location independent anchors.
Location-independent habit anchoring
When creating a new habit, your best bet is to anchor it to an existing routine, place or activity. It’s easier to go to the gym if you pass by its front door after dropping off the kids at school. Eating healthy is more realistic if all ingredients are already in your fridge and you know what to cook. Getting your regular work done is facilitated by being in a consistent environment.
Your challenge, then, is to anchor your habits to something that depends only on yourself and your backpack. While traveling you can’t always count on finding a gym on your way home, the fridge in the hostel/hotel is not ready for cooking, and your regular work environment can change from day-to-day.
In essence, location independent habit anchoring works best if you can map those habits to things in your backpack, or to specific times of the day. The goal is to signal your brain that all is well, and now is the moment to do [insert activity.].
Leverage your stuff and technology for your own goals
My kids sleep with a handkerchief and a stuffed bear (called Tutu and Bruno). Those two items are crucial when we travel as a family. As long as Tutu and Bruno are present, my kids can sleep almost anywhere - in the car, in a guest room we arrived at today, on a friend’s sofa. The equivalent for me is my eye mask.
For work-related tasks, you can use different user accounts on your laptop to get into the right headspace. Specific playlists for work vs creative tasks vs just browsing can do the trick. You could even include pattern breaks into your playlist (e.g. after 45 min of deep house, add a piece of classic music to remind you to move around for 5 min).
Your mobile phone can be another ally when used responsibly - that means, switch of all notifications but those that are related to specific habits you want to reinforce. Beeminder reminds you wherever you are (and adds consequences) to do what you set out to do. Strategic alarms can trigger going for a run or looking up where to have dinner while you are not hungry yet.
Which habits do you always break when traveling? How can you create triggers that do not rely on your willpower alone? And how can you practice and embed these triggers when you are NOT traveling?