Book A Trip Away

Tim Ferriss, author of The Four Hour Work Week is an advocate of mini-retirements, taking mini breaks. Read an interview with Tim on the subject on his blog.

I love this principle of the mini-breaks. For me, I take short breaks to inspire a project or an idea, rather than for 'time off'. So they are not so much retirements, but more my 'oxygen' for fuelling my next idea (if that's not mixing metaphors). For instance, I always find journeys SO productive for ideas generation, not in a formalised way but in a chilling out with a drink and my notepad sort of way. That first beer on the take off on a flight or the first coffee on a train trip gets me fired up.

So here I am about to start writing my second book. And I don't happen to have any journeys in the next few weeks to help stimulate me; I don't have a break scheduled until July. So what I’m doing is creating a mini-trip to the South Of France. Just two nights, but the journey, the focus, the isolation, the buzz, the different environment, away from emails and distractions will really fire me up! I might be sitting with my feet up, but it's an investment in my intellectual capital, in my next big idea, and that investment should never be underestimated.