How to maximise productivity when travelling for work

I’m back on the road again for business this week. Saffron Walden; London; Windsor, then back to London again, delivering presentations, training workshops and a pitch for an exciting new piece of work (keep your fingers and toes crossed for us, please) 

Spending so much time travelling means there is a lot of potential for wasted time. And there is nothing more I hate than wasted time (other than maybe litter and Brexit). 

I am super-careful with my time (my friends would say ‘militant’) as I tend to work at 99% capacity. Wasted time means falling behind on my deadlines or missed opportunities. Neither of which is particularly appealing. 

In the attempt to maximise every second of my time while I’m on the road, I’ve developed a system of working that goes a little like this…

1. Make a list of everything that needs to be completed over the working period and allocate timings for each. For example, I know how long it takes me to write an article or blog post; I can estimate how long I'll need to write up my notes for a comms audit.
2. Place these into appropriate slots in calendar. For instance, I focus on longer pieces of work that require sustained concentration during the flight between Bergerac and Stansted; and I save shorter pieces of work for those times when there are only 15 mins or so available, such as when waiting for a meeting to turn up or for the airline gate to open…
3. Factor in time to eat, drink, sleep and relax. Self-care is a must! I’ve learnt that the hard way. 
4. Download any documents needed onto my laptop that will enable offline working while on trains and in the air.
5. Ensure both laptop and phone are fully charged before leaving the house – there are never any plug sockets when you need one!
6. Print off relevant documents and/or pack required reading materials for when standing in queues, waiting to board / go through customs.
7. Save all important contact details before leaving, which cuts out the need to search through emails on your phone around; 
8. Make calls while walking to meetings, through airports/train stations etc.

It requires a small investment of time the day before travelling, but it means that I am more productive and it makes the whole experience much less stressful – after all who wants to be worrying about what they’ve not done or got to do, when they should be concentrating on other more important activities?

What about you? Have you got any systems in place for when you travel for work? How do you make sure you don’t get burned out while also managing to get everything done that you need to?