After a fruitful and enjoyable month long stay at The Hub in Amsterdam last winter, I decided to try and make it a practice to get out of London and go live and work in a new city each December/January. I left a freezing cold London two days ago to travel to Lisbon for a five week sojourn at Coworking Lisboa.

I came to Lisbon a few years ago for a long weekend when I lived in Spain and fell in love with the light, the people and the custard tarts (there is one on my desk as I write). I have wanted to come back ever since and as work is quiet during December and the beginning of January, it seemed like the perfect time to visit again.

Getting out of London and living and working in different countries is a core part of my vision for my work and life and I would heartily recommend that everyone gives it a go. All you need is a laptop, internet connection and a place to work.

Here are some thoughts on the benefits of taking your computer and going working abroad:

1. It gives you the physical and head space to work on a big project.

My project that I tackled in Amsterdam was researching material around mindfulness at work. This year I am writing my new book The Business Yogi: How the Science of Yoga Can Help You Be More Productive, Happy and Healthy at Work, which takes ideas around the practice and philosophy of yoga and applies them to modern business and the workplace. I actually had allocated time in August this year (another quiet period) to write the book but for whatever reason, I couldn't summon the creative juices then. I sat down yesterday to write and the words just flowed. Getting your of your normal routine can do wonders for your creativity!

2. You are working but not really available.

When you are away you can't have meetings, the request for random coffees stop, and your email inbox slows to a trickle. Without all these interruptions and calls on your time, you can get an enormous amount of work done.

3. You can work more according to your energy patterns and feelings instead of pre-planning your time.

Being a bit of a productivity geek, in London I tend to plan and prioritise my time quite strictly. When I am away I tend to kill the to-do list and instead work on what I feel like working on that hour or day.

4. You can foster new collaborations and opportunities.

Being in a coworking space means that I have access to a whole new set of people and businesses and already opportunities for collaborations are emerging here in Lisbon.

5. It's good personal development stuff.

Seth Godin says "seek out habits that help you overcome fear or inertia". Going to live and work in a new country, even if only for a short time, is scary stuff. You leave the comfort of your family, your friends and your language for somewhere new. Yes, it's scary and you have to really put yourself out there and try to make friends. Sunday afternoons are always the worst as everyone seems to be with others except for you. But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and a little bit of loneliness now and again makes you grateful for what you have back home. You also find yourself really looking forward to going to work on Monday morning!

6. You can see how other cultures work and play.

I find this a fascinating part of working in another country. In the Netherlands, people tend to start work early at 8 or 9am but down tools bang on 5pm as they head home. Here in Lisbon we start later around 10 or 11am but work through until 6 or 7pm. Lunch at The Hub was taken communally round the kitchen table. Lunch here in Lisbon is an hour and a half affair at a local cafe or restaurant. I have already been taken to task for eating lunch at my desk - very unusual here! The Dutch spend time with family and friends with an early dinner and early bed. Lisbon workers head home to get changed and then might have dinner around 10 or 11pm before hitting the bars until 2am. And that's on a school night!

Fancy giving this working abroad thing a go? Here are some top tips for making it an easier and enjoyable experience:

• Book yourself a desk at a coworking space. I know first hand how lonely it can be working from home so find a space where you can go to work everyday and meet new people. Pedro Santos, one of the members here at Coworking Lisboa, has developed a new platform called All Desk where you can search for a spare desk in cities around the world.
• Get involved in the space. If there are lunches or social occasions, go along. Offer to run a workshop or talk for the space members. If there is a space mailing list, introduce yourself and say what kind of people you would like to meet.
• Use AirBnB.com to find a room for your stay. Don't stay in a soulless hotel, stay with a local so you get a real feel for how the locals live. I am staying in this gorgeous place in the Barrio Alto, one of the coolest places in Lisbon. Use AirBnB to also rent out your home while you are gone to cover your costs.
• Don't make it all about work. Make the most of your stay in a new place. Spend evenings trying out local cuisine and entertainment and use the weekends to go exploring. Bunk off the odd afternoon to go for a trip out of town. Build some non-work time in as well (we are off to the Algarve for five days between Christmas and New Year).
• If you can, invite your partner along for part of your trip. I am lucky that Alex also works for himself and he was able to join me in Amsterdam and now Lisbon for part of my trip.
• Make the most of Skype. Unlike in London, here I am logged in to Skype all the time. When I see a friend online, I jump on for a chat. Keeping in contact with others back home can stop you getting lonely.

This is my last post until the New Year, and so from Lisbon, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

[image with thanks to ChrisYunker via CC]

The typical image of a digital nomad living a location independent lifestyle is like the one above. You, your laptop, a beach chair and a cold beer or cocktail somewhere on the horizon. But have you every tried to read a screen in bright sunshine?

Seriously though, I have been a fan of the location independent movement since I read Tim Ferriss' best selling book The Four Hour Work Week back in 2008 and even had my own taste of location independence with a move to the south of Spain for a year while working virtually with clients in the UK. 

But while the experience was amazing, sometimes it was not the more productive way to run a business, something brilliantly recorded by blogger Jonathan Fields in his recent Renegade Workflow experiment, Blogging in Bali. I found, as Jonathan did, that sun, sea and sand can be amazingly distracting and you can feel a real distance between yourself and your clients.

Read the rest of this post »