At first, it's something that you'll desperately crave. After all, traveling away with work is effectively a holiday, right?
As most of us know, this is rarely the case. The novelty soon wears off and before you know it, you're dreading that next work outing.
We're not even talking about the time spent away from your family here either. Most of the grumbles surrounding work travel are about productivity. While sitting behind your desk at the office might sometimes feel mundane, nobody can disagree that it's usually productive. Such productivity tends to fly out of the window with a business getaway.
Bearing this in mind, this post is going to look at rectifying this once and for all remaining productive while traveling. Here are some of the best suggestions to ensure that your productivity levels stay right on top on your next business trip.
Book the best hotel (not the cheapest)
Particularly if you are having to answer to the finance team, this first tip might be difficult to implement. While it really can be tempting to book the cheapest hotel available, attempt to resist the urge and find one that will accommodate your working needs.
The ones with spacious meeting areas are obviously going to work best, as are the ones which have the free Wi-Fi, desk space and everything else that will support the business nature of your trip.
If you've housed yourself in a tight room, where the Wi-Fi travels at ridiculously low speeds, you are just setting yourself up for a frustrating and unproductive stay.
Layovers can work to your advantage
Rather than rushing around trying to catch connections, attempt to embrace layovers.
If each train or plane departs immediately as the other arrives, you're going to be a frenzied mess. Instead, allow yourself a good 45 minutes following each transport segment. By doing this, you'll not only give yourself more margin for error in case of delays, but you will provide yourself some crucial time to catch up on work. Sure, you're not going to write complete documents in this period, but it might be sufficient to respond to emails and just keep your inbox manageable.
Co-ordinate your work with your travels
Hopefully, this next suggestion will be fairly obvious for most of you. If you are serious about getting things done while on the road, make sure that all of the projects you are planning for this timeframe are actually feasible.
Unless you are away for several days at a time, your time is unlikely to gift you the opportunity to write lengthy reports. Instead, you'll be on the move a lot, and this is where those teleconferences can work. The wonders of modern-day technology mean that you can hold these meetings while driving, or even on the train, and tick a usually time-consuming task off your list.
Of course, in the midst of all of this you also have to co-ordinate based on what Wi-Fi you have available. This is where you really have to plan, with some people creating "travel folders" on their laptops which contains all of the files they need so they don't always need that connection.
