An (imperfect) guide to help you stay productive and healthy

how do we keep our healthy habits and our productivity when we wake up in a different country every other week?

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Jake and I have been living on the road for the past 3 years. We are incredibly thankful for our apartment in Kuala Lumpur that is now our “base”, but still - we don’t spend a lot of time there.

Having a consistent routine helps you stick to certain rituals that are good for you, like daily exercise or regularly writing into a journal.

So, how do we keep our healthy habits and our productivity when we wake up in a different country every other week?

This is a question we have been asking ourselves since we started travelling and working online fulltime. I believe that the most important thing is that you focus on a few essential things no matter what - things that can really improve your mood, mindset and daily productivity.

This post isn’t to show that we’ve perfected the art of routine (because we haven’t - it’s a process). Rather, this is to motivate you to kick off the new year with new positive energy and a great routine for you to make this year amazing!

It all starts in the morning!

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We believe the key to our consistent high level productivity and our overall great health relies heavily on the fact that we are able to implement a morning routine no matter where we are in the world.

If you start your day right, everything during the days feels better and easier. This is why created our own Miracle Morning Routine that we try to stick to as much as possible.

The following 5 tips are easy to implement and have helped us to be productive despite having a busy life on the road. Here we go! ☺

1. wake up early

This year, we started getting up between 5.00 am and 7.00 am. This shift is life changing when you can create a habit of waking up early.

Before most people are even awake, we have planned our day, exercised, tackled our most important tasks, showered and prepared ourselves for a happy, productive day. Waking up early makes you feel proud, like you can do anything because you left your comfort zone (the comfort of your own bed) early on in the day. ☺

It is great for multiple reasons besides being proud of yourself:

No one else is awake, which means: no distractions
No phone calls to answer, which means laser sharp focus
Getting things done makes you feel good, you feel accomplished which leads to more good energy.
Once you have done most of your priorities, you can then take your time for yourself and check in with yourself

To us, our mornings are the most crucial part of our days. They set the tone for a positive, successful and productive day ahead. We want to start our days feeling relaxed and calm, not rushing from A to B or jumping straight into our emails 5 minutes after our alarm goes off.

To avoid feeling stressed right after waking up, we make sure to get up early enough, we avoid looking at our phones within the first 30 mins and we do things that clear our minds and calm us like stretching, journaling and meditating.

2. good quality sleep and water after waking up

I also make sure that I sleep enough!

After I had my first and only cold sore on my lip (deutsch: Herpes) in January and when my skin was bad last year. I realised that I not only needed to eat clean but also get enough rest.

Personally, 7-8 hours sleep is ideal in order to function well. I can recommend to you to find out how much time your body needs in order to feel well-rested.

Ideally, you wake up in the morning without an alarm clock. I am still in the process of getting into a rhythm where my body wakes up naturally. (This year I plan to use a sleep tracker to better map my sleep, I will keep you updated on the results).

So, after a successful evening routine and a good night sleep, this is how my morning routine start after waking up.

I found a way to make the journal process easier for me

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3. morning journaling

I have never been a big journal person. I couldn’t get myself to write down a lot of things or even describe my thoughts and feelings in a journal.

But last year, I started to understand how important it is to have control over your thoughts. After reading countless books and listening to several podcasts about how to be happy and successful, I found that the common denominator is to have a basic ritual. And one of those rituals to add to your routine is to journal.

Only a few weeks ago, I found a way to make the journal process easier for me.

I am using my Five Minute Journal now that my life coach recommended to me, and it truly helps me to set my intentions for the day and raise my happiness-level by appreciating all that I have in my life.

I really like that its quick and easy to fill out and I am already starting to feel happier when I open it and start noting down a few things that immediately come to my mind.

The way it’s designed is that you use it twice per day, early in the morning and before going to bed at night.

From the first page, there are inspirational & motivational quotes that set the tone for you to start sharing your thoughts. It allows you to reflect on the previous day, and make goals for the next 24 hours.

I then journal down what I am looking forward to and affirm that I believe in myself. Affirmations are a tool that can help you shift your mindset from sadness to positivity and gratitude. When we believe in ourselves, anything is possible for us.

At night, I like writing down (in a few words) what was outstanding for me and what I could have done differently so I can make sure to improve the next day and try again.

Completing the days tasks leaves me feeling accomplished, empowered and motivated to keep following my dreams. You can even use the 5 minute journal on your phone, by downloading the app “Five minute Journal”.

4. get-to-dos and efficiency/ productivity

In our relationship, I am the one who needs structure when it comes to our work. It calms me down to know what my day will look like.

Jake never needed that, he has always been a free, creative spirit, but now that we are running our own company, having a to do list had to become part of our lives. I quickly realised that simply writing down all our to-do’s didn’t really help us to be efficient.

I would always start with the things that I liked doing the most, and not the things that need to be done ASAP. Dividing our tasks into important vs. urgent tasks has helped a lot.

We have all been guilty of postponing the annoying tasks that are actually important, because we hate doing them, like booking an insurance or filling out a big form to apply for something? That’s something we struggled with for a while.

We needed to start prioritising our tasks by level of importance. And I also wanted to approach them differently, so I started to look at them as “Get-To-Do’s” rather than “Have-To-Do’s”. Instead of thinking about what I “had” to do I started being grateful for any and every task.

We love our job, so approaching them differently made a huge difference. I was so excited when I started working with my Productivity Planner because this really helped me prioritise my tasks and allowed me to track how long it took me to complete a task.

Inside of the planner, you are working with a technique called “Pomodoro”. The Pomodoro Technique is designed to keep your focus stable and get you into your “zone“.

One circle on the journal is one Pomodoro and lasts 25 minutes. During this time, you work on one task without any distractions (no multi-tasking allowed!) and once the time is over, you can take a 5-minute break - and start all over again.

You start by listing out your main 5 priorities of the day and write out how many 25-minute-intervals you estimate it will take you to complete that task. You then fill out the circles as you go along, and finally note down how many Pomodoros it actually took you to finish it. This gives you an idea of how long certain tasks take for future reference.

5. easy yoga flow & exercise

When it comes to being active, we don't follow a strict routine. Usually, we just do whatever feels right for us in the moment.

Both Jake and I usually practice a simple flow that varies every single time we get on our mats (or towels when we are traveling :D). We love getting inspiration for new yoga flows on YouTube or Instagram. They mostly consist of light stretches, lots of deep breaths and easy-to-remember sequences.

In 2020, we aim for at least 20 minutes of movement per day, no matter if that’s a quick yoga sequence or a workout. When we work out while traveling we rarely have access to a gym. Therefore we have to get creative to exercise all the different muscle groups.

This year a major goal for us is to reach a new level of fitness and health which means we will be more consistent and work harder in our exercise routines. We will keep you updated with our progress on Instagram.

We hope you enjoyed reading about what has helped us in 2019 to feel happier, healthier and more productive. We are still optimising and tweaking things as we go along, and we certainly want to set up a proper evening routine as well.

Reflecting and unwinding at night will be a bigger priority in 2020, so that we feel our best and perform our best.

Let us know in the comments down below what your current morning routine looks like, and what you would like to read about next on our blog! ☺

If you found this post helpful, feel free to share it with friends or your community on Instagram.

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