How to Write a Book in the Most Distracting Place on Earth

Note: This is a guest post from Matt Kepnes of Nomadic Matt. This week his new book “How to Travel on $50 a Day” was released, so go check it out!

This is also a timely post, as on my latest trip I’ve been working through all of the distractions and struggles Matt mentions here, so pay attention.

Last year, I wrote a book while living in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, a popular spot with travelers and backpackers known for its beaches, cheap booze, and all-night parties.

It wasn’t the best environment to work in – there were always distractions (such as the really pretty Scandinavian girls). And, of course, I would much rather be with them than locked in my room writing a book.

So if I wanted to meet my deadline and party with beautiful women, I needed to stay ultra-focused and use my time wisely. The girls I met didn’t want to see me working in my room all day – they wanted to party and go to the beach.

I had to stay on task. I didn’t come to this town to be a hermit – I came to work and party and if I wanted to be able to do both, I had to focus.

The downside to working on the Internet is that it is always on – 24/7/365. The Internet doesn’t have normal business hours. It doesn’t close. The upside is that you can make money even while you are sleeping, as your store is always open. Another downside is that it’s easy to get sucked into the Internet. She is a harsh mistress and will take all the time you will give her.

As folks who have chucked conventional living aside to work on our own terms quickly learn, this can be quite a downer as we find ourselves putting in 14 hour work days while in a foreign country. This isn’t what we signed up for, right?

As someone who runs a travel website, this issue of time management is critical. My job is to travel and write about where I go, but the catch-22 of my job is that to make a living I must travel– but I can’t work when I travel, otherwise, I can’t fully experience the place I am supposed to be writing about.

And I certainly didn’t become a travel writer so I could fly to Bali just to sit in my hotel room while working on my SEO and utilizing social media. I chose this job so I could travel and make a living doing so.

How to manage your time so you can still party with hot foreigners

I struggled for years with time management. Days in foreign countries would quickly disappear as I ran my website and got lost in trouble shooting problems, blogging, networking, and promoting my site. I’d start my day by checking my email and posting a blog and before I knew it, it was the middle of the afternoon. Lists that should have taken a couple of hours to complete took all day because of my inability to turn off Facebook.

Something had to be done in Cambodia. A month watching people have fun and inviting me out, only to turn them down, would have been seriously depressing – and the book would have suffered because of it.

So I used these temptations to hone my skills and productivity. Here are the five methods I’ve devised for keeping my productivity high and not getting sucked into the Internet when I travel:

Find the Right Tools

The Self Control App has been a lifesaver for me. This is a program for your Mac that restricts your access to distractions. You enter a list of websites and then for a set amount of time, the program blocks your access to them. Even if you turn the program off or reset your computer, the websites are inaccessible until the timer hits zero. This program has dramatically increased my productivity. (Hat tip to Steve Kamb for telling me about this lifesaver.)

Lists, Lists, and More Lists

Staying organized is the best way to stay on task and focused. I can’t extol the virtue of lists enough. By writing down what I have to do and organizing my thoughts, I can better plan and break up my tasks.

Set tasks each day – Lists are great, but they can be overwhelming. Looking at a to-do list that’s 30 bullet points long can simply turn into crossing off the easiest bullets first while avoiding the hard stuff and not really moving forward. To avoid that, I break up my lists into smaller lists broken down by day. For example, on Mondays, I might only write. On Tuesday, I’ll do all SEO related tasks. On Wednesday, 6 small tasks. This way I only have certain work to do for the day and when that is complete, I am done.

A 9 to 5 Isn’t Always a Bad Thing

We may have gotten away from the cubicle, but I’ve found having a work day actually helps. By clocking hours and taking the weekend off, I separate work and play. Working all the time can be mentally exhausting and having a weekend is a great way to recharge my enthusiasm batteries.

Set a Specific Timeline

I like to force myself into working set hours. It can be challenging to stick to it at first, but by saying I am only going to work until 11 a.m., I force myself to either get things accomplished or leave them unfinished.

Know Thyself

I work best in the mornings and early evenings. Don’t push yourself into working when you know you won’t be the most productive. Don’t waste time. Work when you’re productive, play when you aren’t.

By forcing myself to work, using productivity applications to help me, and creating task lists, I can better utilize my time and thus get more work done so I can work less. It’s about working smarter, not harder. I still do a lot of work, but now I get a lot out more out of each minute. It wasn’t easy and it took a little while until I got in the grove of being productive. I fruitlessly tried getting on Facebook for many days after I started using self-control.

I don’t have a good work ethic – I am easily distracted and my low productivity is simply overcome by the sheer volume of hours I put into my work.

If you’re like me — not naturally disciplined — you need to create systems and protocols to reign in the bad parts of your life.

A tiger never changes its stripes and in an unstructured environment, I’m going to sit on Facebook, go out drinking, or read The Oatmeal all day long. The only way to overcome that is to create a structured environment where I’m forced to get things done.

All that said, if these tips could help me write and finish a book in the go go party environment of Cambodia, they can help you too.