I have read some travel memoirs and blogs of travelers and a lot of times I’m left wondering, what happened afterwards? Did their life change when they got back? How did it change? So I thought it might be interesting for you if I continue sharing how I apply things I learned during the trip to create a new life. What do you think?

Before setting out for my around the world trip I was hoping I would learn something along the way and grow in many ways. That definitely happened during the trip, but here is a positive side-effect that happened within one week of getting back to my previous life.

I notice things more. I notice more acutely things that affect my productivity. I notice when my brain is not at it’s peak capacity. I have known for years that how much I sleep affects my productivity. However now I notice a much more nuanced contrast between when I have not slept quite enough and when I’m fully refreshed. Now I notice my daily energy levels against a backdrop of three months of having peak energy.

During my trip, I either had slept a lot and was relaxed whenever I wanted to read or write. When I hadn’t slept enough I didn’t even try to do anything productive. So I only worked when I was at my peak energy. Now if I try to work at less than my peak energy, I notice it. And with noticing it I can fix it. Pretty much the main contributor to my energy is how much sleep I get. I knew this before. After super intense high school I promised myself to finish college without a single all-nighter due to studying. I succeeded at that. Work has been way less intense than my high school and it is easy to forget how much sleep can influence productivity. Now it is great to have another, much more nuanced reminder at that. So now I try especially hard to regularly sleep 8 hours a night.

I also notice more the moments when I’m distracted. One day I was on my commute home and I started reading a book that I was really excited about. My phone buzzed with a notification from the Facebook app. I opened the app, read the feed, checked one link, then another and went down the rabbit hole. I was shocked at myself! I really wanted to read this book, but here I was reading Facebook. So right then and there I uninstalled Facebook app from my phone. I have been less distracted and more productive since.

Yes, unfortunately I haven’t been as responsive to my Facebook messages (and old messages get drowned by new messages), but right now capitalizing on my trip experiences and learnings is more important to me.

This post was about effects one week after the trip. I plan to write about effects two weeks, one month and two months after.

To be continued.