It’s amazing how much time business travelers have to spend waiting: waiting in airports, waiting for taxis, waiting for meetings to begin…the list goes on.
But thanks to technology, there are plenty of ways to use that time more productively. Here are 5 ways to make the most of your business travel hours.
Make some phone calls
When you’re waiting for a flight, you don’t always have a long span of uninterrupted time. However, you can almost certainly count on having 5 minutes, and that’s about the perfect length for a quick phone call.
An article in the Harvard Business Review recommends keeping a list of short phone calls you need to make, and making as many as you can in a row while waiting in airports (or train stations, or hotel lobbies, or wherever you may be).
You might need to check on a supplier, or touch base with a client – whatever it is, as long as you’re fairly certain the call won’t take an extensive amount of time, it’s a perfect way to spend some travel waiting time more productively.
Learn something through a podcast or audiobook.
Podcasts and audiobooks are great – and hands-free – ways to learn something on the road.
You can listen to both through any number of devices, including your phone, so you can check your boarding pass and travel documents, even grab a coffee while you listen. Whether you’re hungry for some professional development, want to learn something new, or just want to be entertained, there are plenty of options in both the podcast and audiobook formats.
Organize your digital photos.
If you have an extended period of time – if your flight is delayed, for example – you may be able to break out the laptop and organize your photos.
This is a good task to get to while you’re traveling, if only because it’s something most of us put off. It’s hard to reconcile ourselves to spending three hours of family or leisure time organizing the hundreds, even thousands of images many of us have.
If you’ve got a Nixplay WiFi Cloud Digital Frame, you can use the Nixplay app to organize your photos into playlists and share them with friends and family. It’s a great way to stay in touch with loved ones while you’re traveling.
Work on projects for which you don’t need an internet connection.
When you’re traveling, WiFi isn’t always a given. Planes don’t always have it, and even airport WiFi can be spotty.
To make the most of your time, whether you have internet or not, make a list of projects that you don’t need internet for – formatting a presentation, writing an article, or consolidating your business contacts list, for example – and have it ready for when you have some internet-free downtime.
This will keep you from getting too far behind at work, and let you stay productive throughout your travel time.
Enjoy yourself with some pleasure reading or tech-free time
You can just as easily get burned out on work while you’re traveling as when you’re in the office. It doesn’t make sense to exhaust yourself by spending every minute on business. If you’ve got a long wait in the airport, take a little time to read that thriller you’ve been eyeing, or indulge in an entertaining magazine.
Not only will it give your brain a rest, but you’ll be doing your eyes a favor too by taking some time away from screens – which most of us professionals use for far too many hours a day.
For more on how to make your business travel a little more enjoyable, read our post “Traveling for Work? 4 Ways to Stay Connected to Family in Style.”
Bea is Nixplay’s Social Media Manager. She enjoys drinking coffee, reading about wars, and writing stories. Send her a message at beatrice.bisais@nixplay.com.