I wrote earlier that one of the most important things in my life is to control my time and what I do during the day. So what does a typical day in my life look like?
There are two things I need to fit into my life everyday – training and focused work. As I mentioned in my article about how to become successful, a big part of it is the habit of showing up every day. If you are able to make training a lifestyle, a daily habit, you don’t even think of it as a struggle.
But here in Malta it is of course much easier to enjoy the training thanks to the weather. When it comes to work, I’m in the lucky position that I don’t necessarily need to work at the moment. But I have big goals for my future and to achieve them it will take a lot from me. Starting new ventures is always tough and takes a lot of focused work.
It’s a lot about trial and error, before you find something that brings you success. Luckily I have been in this position before and learned everything about the daily struggles as an entrepreneur. I think it’s much tougher if you have never had any success in business in your life. It’s easier to give up if you don’t see any reward for your efforts. Thanks to the success of my lifestyle site that I sold, I know how important it is to never give up and to always have a clear goal of what you want to achieve in life.
At least I’ve already found the new ventures that I want to become successful in and I have also clear goals of what I want to achieve in life. In addition to that I have also visualized exactly how my life will look like in five years time. All that will eventually lead me to achieve my goals.
As for showing up for work, you don’t necessarily need to work that many hours a day to make progress. It’s about the habit of doing a little every day. Just sitting in front of the computer for a couple of hours a day keeps the momentum up and forces your brain to find solutions. The solutions to different problems most often comes to you when you are sleeping or running, but it is the act of doing some actual focused work that starts the whole process.
My Daily Habits
As a morning person, I like to be up at around 5 AM, which is ok since I often go to sleep at 9 PM. What the day looks like depends mainly on the time of year. In the winter, my daily runs usually start around 8 AM because my running buddies and I like to run when the sun is up.
This gives me time to plan the day and sometimes even start working before the run. I have always been a person who likes to write down my plans and strategies in notebooks. It makes your thoughts much clearer than when you only do everything digitally.
Ideally this would be something that you do in the evening, so that you could starting working first thing in the morning. Unfortunately I’m too tired in the evenings and most often I end up doing my planning in the mornings instead.
I am very thankful that I have found good running buddies here in Malta, as it gives me more routines to my life. They are also people I like to discuss business opportunities with and thus give me many ideas for my daily work.
After the runs, we sit for about an hour in the sun on one of the terraces on the promenade to discuss. There are currently seven people in our running group, but most of the days there are four of us on our daily coffee sessions. It all started from me and my Swedish friend here in Malta, that is now also one of my business partners.
After I get home, it’s either strength training on the terrace at home or breakfast right away. I have built up a pretty good home gym over the last few years, and after this month, I no longer need a membership to the gym I have been going to for the last six months.
After breakfast, I quite often have a power nap before I start the workday at 11 or 12. I work 4-5 hours before my girlfriend comes home, with a short lunch break at around 2 PM.
In the summer, it’s a slightly different setup. Since the sun comes up around 6 o’clock in the morning, we start training already then. This means I’m home from training at 8 o’clock instead and can start the work day much earlier.
Summers are very hot here in Malta, so I try to stay indoors in the middle of the day.
Speaking of summer – what exactly is summer here? Compared to Finland, we have summer temperatures all year round here. The winter is about two months long in Malta, from January to February. There are very few rainy days and constant sunshine from March to December.
Already now the temperatures are close to 20 degrees and you can start enjoying the days without needing to wear any sweater or jacket. Also during the runs you can now wear just short sleeve and shorts.
Weekends are mostly spent meeting friends or hanging out on some of the many lovely terraces here. There are many things I like about Malta. The short distances is one of them, but also the fact that there are many nationalities in a small area.
It’s easy to make new friends, which adds to life. We constantly have activities with our friends during the 8-10 months of good weather.
I also like the fact that it is never quiet here. You can retreat if you don’t want to meet people, but if you want some action, there are always many people out on the terraces, whether it’s a weekday or weekend.
This was a little insight into what I do during the day, but since I work for my own company, there’s no set schedule for organising my days. Some days I don’t feel like working at all, while other days, I work more than regular office hours. For example yesterday (Monday) I felt like enjoying the beautiful day and put most of the day on training.
I started with a interval session together with my Swedish and Portuguese friends and after that I had a strength session at home. I continued with a lunch on one of the terraces. When I came home I worked a couple of hours before another strength session at home.
This is precisely the life I visualized that I wanted when I arrived in Malta almost four years ago, and it shows how important it is to know what you want from life. Behind it all was a desire not to wait until retirement to live life to the fullest, and having this opportunity already at this stage of life is a dream come true.
