Business travel for face-to-face time is still important, even with all our modern connectivity options. Pre-decide and develop a plan before your next trip to maximize your travel time. Here are 21 ideas for you to consider:
- Prepare for meetings and presentations. Review documents and polish presentation materials. Rehearse. Check the Linked-in profiles of people you’re meeting with to develop conversation topics and understand their perspectives.
- Observe people around you and reflecting on their behaviors. You can learn from anyone. Leaders must be students of people. Watch people and imagine what their stories are.
- Listen to podcasts. Podcasts are a rich source of information, especially interviews with people.
- Enjoy music that inspires or energizes you – or gives you peace and perspective. Music is powerful. Leverage your playlists to help you perform at a high level.
- Get to know your colleagues better. Talk with the people you’re traveling with. Learn new things about their story. Review issues, get their perspectives. Plan together.
- Chew on thought problems. Start the night before you travel, and mull over it as you’re traveling. I recently had a productive travel day considering ways to provide 20X more service for 2x more cost.
- Read books and articles. My Kindle weighs 7 ounces, has a built-in backlight and runs for over a week on a single charge. Print off articles to read, or load them to your tablet in advance. Grab a local newspaper to skim, so you have a feel for the “news” important to where you’re visiting.
- Work offline on email. Compose email messages while you’re offline, so there’s nothing that comes into your inbox to distract or distress you. Get caught up responding to people on those non-urgent things that didn’t demand your attention earlier.
- Write. Any kind of writing. Travel time on trains, airplanes, and at hotels can be organized to be free of distractions. Writing is a tremendous aid to thinking.
- Journal. Capture your thoughts and feelings, work on the problems you’re trying to solve, document insights and information from your Muse.
- Meditate. No need to go all woo-woo, but a few moments focusing on your breathing while your eyes are closed will help you maximize your productivity.
- Take a short nap. An intentional nap for a few minutes will help you be more productive at other times.
- Imagine the future. Brainstorm. Consider alternative scenarios. Unleash your creative potential and don’t worry about existing boundaries.
- Play a stimulating game. I’m not advocating mindless solitaire for hours, but word puzzles, chess, etc., can be a useful break from other mentally intense work. Your brain doesn’t get tired like your muscles, but it does crave a change of pace.
- Update lists. You’ve got lists of things you need to do, or speak with others about doing. Things you want to investigate. Honey-do lists.
- Create thank-you notes and encouragement notes – customers, your colleagues, and friends.
- Craft summary reports and meeting notes. Especially useful on the way home – get the reports finished while the information is fresh in your mind, and then it’s not hanging over you when you’re back at the office.
- Practice gratitude. This never gets old. Travel issues tend to make us grumpy, so it’s the perfect opportunity to exercise your spirit.
- Stretch – travel tends to make you stiff, so do some simple stretches. I don’t recommend you perform full yoga while standing in the aisle of the plane, but a few stretches will help you arrive less stressed.
- Try new things – foods, visit sites, different music experiences. The world is a remarkable place, and everywhere has wonderful things to experience. Getting out of your comfort zone is a good, and you’ll also discover that there are many ways to experience life.
- Organize papers and consolidate action items. There’s something about the trip there and the trip back that gives perspective. It’s fun to recycle no-longer-necessary papers, too, for a sweet feeling of accomplishment.
What else can you suggest to add to this list?
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