What the fuck am I doing?

I am about to fly to Tokyo, my first destination along a multi-month tour of Asia.

And I am not excited.

I’ve put myself through days of stress. I haven’t slept enough. I’ve tried to get everything “done” and “wrapped up” and “organized” before I leave. Partially for my friends, with whom I am leaving my belongings, partially for me, because my journey continues on a direct route to Burning Man upon my return, and partially because that’s kinda just the way I am.

Wait a minute. Burning Man.

Last year was my Virgin Burn, and I wasn’t excited for that, either. I was terrified.

But despite that fear, I went, because it was intolerable to be so paralyzingly afraid of something I knew nothing about and hadn’t personally experienced.

And it was amazing. It changed my life! It brought me to where I am today. Burning Man is to me as Y Combinator is to a startup.

I read a book many years ago about Focusing, a technique of communicating with your body to process felt senses. These feelings live in my tummy, in my gut. And they are familiar. They say:

“I am afraid that I won’t be accepted.”

“I am afraid that I will be hurt.”

“I am afraid of how I will change.”

These are exactly the same fears I had before Burning Man, and look how that experience turned out! I was accepted (by others, but most importantly by myself), the hurtful things I feared simply weren’t there, and I was an active agent in my processes of change so that I changed with intention.

I am not doing this because it’s easy. I’m not doing this because it’s hard, either. I’m doing this because I believe it’s worthwhile.

My felt sense is also telling me that I need to cry. OK, I know how to do that, and to inspire myself at the same time. With this:

How much can you lose? How much can you win?

Or, at least, things I didn’t know or forgot:

• The coast is stupid beautiful. Like video game fantasy beautiful.

• Oregon takes littering seriously. The maximum fine is $6250!
• For the first time the “SELF” label on a gas pump (or lack thereof) is meaningful to me. In Oregon you can’t pump your own gas for your car, remember?. BUT! If you’re filling a motorcycle or boat, you CAN pump your own gas.
• Logging is a big industry here. You’ll frequently see trucks on the highway hauling felled trees, and you’ll pass many mills and processing plants.
• There is no sales tax.
• Bank of America ATMs will dispense $10 bills. Your can withdraw $30 and $50. (In California their ATMs only do increments of $20.)
• There are beer styles in this region that don’t (quite) exist in California. For example, the Cascadian Dark Ale (CD or CDA). Someone likened it to a Black IPA, which you can get in California, but in my experience a CDA is much less bitter than I expect from an IPA. To me a CDA is like a Dark Mild or Dark Bitter brewed exclusively with PNW hop varieties.

And a spotlight on Portland:

• Portland is referred to as PDX. Have a business here? Have a website or Twitter for that business? Put “PDX” in the name so people know where you’re at.
• The public transit is awesome.
• It’s small. Going “across town” is 3 miles. (And people here complain about this like how people complain about going from Echo Park to Santa Monica in LA.)
• Breweries are everywhere, and most of them are brewpubs, not like brewery + tasting room setup that’s popular in LA / CA.
• For most places, doesn’t matter if you’re just a brewery or bar, if you serve alcohol, you have to serve food. I think it’s a law. And lots of kitchens are open late, past midnight. And the food is good, too.
• Portland has a big food cart (not food truck) culture, but it’s different from LA’s. These are more like permanent installations. (They don’t roll up and leave every day.) Many of them are setup in parking lots, and many parking lots have become food cart hubs.

• Portland’s got a big strip club scene. Going to the club for lunch, or happy hour, or just out with your friends is no big deal. It’s just another place, with seemingly no taboo at all.
• Folks like to drink.

• Stumptown is huge, and most coffee shops serve ready-made french press coffee.
• Most of Portlandia is surprisingly accurate.

I have a few tricks I use to focus and get into work, especially when I’m having trouble doing so, the work feels hard, or I catch myself procrastinating. Here they are:

The 15-Minute Trick

Very simple, similar to Pomodoro, my own take. I find this trick especially helpful for getting started on tasks that seem daunting. Here’s how you use it:

1. Set a timer for 15 minutes.
2. Work until the timer goes off.

That’s all you have to do. Work for 15 minutes, then do whatever you want. Take a break for as long a you want, walk away from work, or keep going. I usually find that I’m really into what I’m doing when the timer expires, so I reset it and work for another 15 minutes. Then I do it again, and again, and before I know it I’ve been working for an hour. Sure feels good.

Music

For whatever reason, there are a handful of albums that help me to really sink into work. My work albums tend to clock in at 45 – 90 minutes, which is a nice chunk of focused work time, and I’m usually ready for a break afterwards. Here are the ones that do it for me. Find what works for you!

• Mission: Impossible Soundtrack
• Lost in Translation Soundtrack (Add these bonus tracks not included in the OST!)
• Nightwish – Once
• deadmau5 – Unreleased Album
• Sword & Sworcery LP – The Ballad of the Space Babies

The following compilations really drown out everything else and keep me dancing in my chair as I work:

• Best of Deadmau5
• Best of Wolfgang Gartner

Finally, the DJ sets on Robot Heart’s SoundCloud consistently create a great audio space for working.

Take a Nap

I own the couch in my offices. I am the king of naps. I usually take one nap per day, sometimes multiple. Here’s what to do:

Take off your shoes, put something like a scarf or an eye pillow over your eyes, and listen to music or just wear headphones. Set the timer for 25 minutes, which is enough time to fall asleep and enjoy a solid 20-minutes of napping. It could be shorter, but don’t let it go longer.

OK, nap time.

Sometimes you just have to participate in an unplanned leggings fitting party.

I often tell people what I’m doing, which roughly goes like this:

“I am a digital nomad. I work remotely, and I am living in different cities for one month at a time. Last month I lived in Portland. This month I’m living in Seattle. Next month I’ll be living in Tokyo.”

Then they ask why I’m doing this, to which I usually reply:

“Because I can!”

Which is totally true. But only one, small facet of the truth.

I returned from Burning Man having lived a spontaneous life in a way that, prior to the Burn, I had not known. I tried to continue to live that kind of spontaneity after I returned to LA, but it was hard. I had lots of commitments and not a lot of room for spontaneity. Everyone around me was the same. Everyone was busy and had a schedule. There wasn’t a lot of room for play, for saying “yes, let’s!” to something unplanned.

That was unacceptable to me. I wanted to change that. I knew that if I created a life in which more was unknown, more was unplanned, I would be more spontaneous. I would have to be. I wanted my daily circumstances, the very structure of my life, to invite me to be spontaneous.

I knew that if I left Los Angeles I would be more spontaneous. It’s always like that, away from home. So I decided to uproot and leave. I also knew that if I stayed in one place too long that routine, commitments, and momentum – a bias that favors of the known and dissuades the uncertain – would start to set in. So I decided to make uprooting a pattern.

This is my life now: move, root, uproot. Repeat.

Why am I doing this?

To remain on the edge, stay uncomfortable, facilitate spontaneity, cultivate play, and live.

And to try on some leggings along the way.

Before I even left Los Angeles I knew I’d be working in Tokyo. I had identified my first choice office there, and beyond that I had a lead on a space in Taipei, which was as far as I had taken my office research and planning in Asia.

Since leaving LA (six weeks ago), and particularly since arriving in Seattle (one week ago), I have discovered so many more opportunties! I feel like the whole world is opening up to me.

I now have a concrete list of coworking spaces that includes Seoul, Kyoto, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, Ho Chi Menh City, Hanoi, Auckland, and Kathmandu. The list grows every day.

!!!