I always think I’m going to get so much done on travel days.

All those hours on a train or plane—it should be pure, uninterrupted bliss! You can’t do anything but sit. There’s spotty wifi, so you won’t be tempted to get sucked into emails. You can just relax and write while watching the countryside scroll by.

As if.

Instead, travel days are a snarl of timetable stress and endless waiting, punctuated by periods of scrambling to board and disembark. You can’t truly become absorbed in your work because something might need your attention. Even once you’re securely in your seat for the next few hours, there’s the general brain malaise from the flood of residual stress.

Not to mention that your seat mate has a full view of your computer screen.

(Hello, writing stabby thriller scenes…)

Especially on a day like yesterday, which involved three trains, two bicycle rides, and piles of thorny bureaucratic red tape to transport said bicycles on said trains—all across international borders.

On paper, that looks clearly stressful. And yet, I had so much hope for a productive day!

Which is why I found myself somewhere 40 meters beneath the sea floor of the English Channel, opening and closing my iPad in frustration.

Open.

Stare blankly at the blinking cursor.

Close iPad.

Pick up phone and open Instagram by habit.

Feel furious with myself for not being productive.

Put down phone

Open iPad.

Stare blankly at the blinking cursor.

Close.

The thing is, I know this about myself and travel.

I want to be one of those writers who says they get their best work done on trains and planes. But I’m not.

I get my best work done when I’m peaceful and undistracted. Like while sipping an Americano in a cafe—not while facing a horde of distractions and swimming in a stew of residual travel cortisol after navigating a foreign train station and being herded like cattle through security.

I know this about myself.

And yet, I still found myself crabby and frustrated yesterday because I wasn’t more “productive.”

Because I “just” read a book instead of writing a chapter or seventeen of my own.

(I’m reading Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by the way. More on that in an upcoming newsletter…)

Probably, I should have spent part of the train ride re-listening to the podcast that I recorded a month or so ago with Michelle Byrd of the Busy Vibrant Mom podcast.

Because I definitely needed the reminder to be kinder to myself in that moment.

It’s episode 456 of her podcast, titled “Overwhelmed to Aligned: How Busy Moms can Create a Productivity System that Works.”

If you don’t know Michelle and her podcast, she’s awesome! So insightful and thoughtful, and extremely generous with her energy and expertise.

We had a great conversation, all about how to work with our energy instead of against it, why we need to be kinder to ourselves about our use of time, and how to come up with productivity methods that work with you instead of against you.

Michelle is a productivity coach herself, so she had tons of great questions and insights to add.

(By the way—if you’re not a mom, I’m not either! So don’t worry, there will still be plenty of useful stuff for you in the episode.)

So if you—like me—could use a good reminder to be gentle on yourself these days, go give the podcast a listen. I guarantee you’ll find some inspiration.

• ​Apple Podcasts link​
• ​Spotify link​
• ​Michelle Byrd’s website​

Talk soon,

Jessie