I am a road warrior. It sounds exciting and strong, doesn’t doesn’t it? It sounds like a gladiator.
A road warrior is someone who travels frequently for work or who works frequently while travelling. Some workers who spend their days in a small cubicle or office space idealize the thought of being a road warrior, because travelling must be so much better than a desk job. A computer by day and exploring a new location by night — sounds great, right?
But for those who are already road warriors, the situation isn’t always that great. In fact, it presents its own complications that need to be managed. Many road warriors end up wishing for a regular desk job eventually. However, the following tips can help professionals who travel frequently handle their jobs and trips more effectively.
1. Prioritize the tasks for your trip and self-care. If you are taking a business trip, prioritize the most important tasks you need to accomplish while you are gone. Include pending tasks in your current location and any tasks you will have while on your trip. Decide which ones are most important, and accomplish those first.
If you are going to have lots to do on your trip, either wrap up your pending tasks in your current location before you go, push them back to a later deadline or ask for help from a co-worker. This prevents your workload from piling up as you move from one place to another.
Prioritizing and delegating tasks will also help you enjoy your travels after work hours. You will need that after-hours downtime, given how stressful travel can sometimes be with delayed and crowded flights, time-zone changes, missed connections and so on.
In order to burn off stress after hours, you may want to plan some sightseeing time or a quiet dinner in the hotel, if that’s best. Either way, you need to keep in mind that it can be too easy to burn the midnight oil while travelling, because there is nothing else there to attend to. The laundry is at home, as are the kids and your family or partner, for example.
So, be sure to give yourself a break and not fall into overworking yourself. Also, with the frustration that can come with today’s travel, download an app like Headspace to give yourself some meditation time to help keep you calm and centered.
Action tip: Write down the top three tasks that you need to finish in the next week in your current location. Next, write down the objective of your business trip. Are any of your current tasks related to that goal? If they are not, try to finish them before you go, even if it means staying up late a night or two or starting work early one day. Clearing your mind of unrelated work projects before travelling will help you focus on the task at hand.
2. Be accountable to yourself. In order to be successful, you have to have a system of accountability. There is no one popping by your hotel room to check and see how your work is going while you are on a business trip. With no one checking in on you, work-wise, the opposite of the above (working too much), can also happen.
It can be easy to procrastinate. Think of ways to keep yourself on track, such as using an app with reminders or a reward system. For example, you could tell yourself that if you finish your review of the business offices you were sent to inspect in Connecticut, you can take the following morning to visit the small town of your choice.
Action tip: Set deadlines in your calendar on your smartphone with reminders to keep yourself on track. If you find you still tend to put things off, ask for help. Ask your significant other or a trusted colleague to check in on you at the end of the day with a call or text asking if you finished your work assignments. Or, schedule a conference call with a colleague during your trip to hold you accountable to completing the tasks for that project on time, prior to that call.
3. Keep it simple. In order to be a successful road warrior, keep it simple. Pack only what you need from your office to take with you, and bring only the clothes you need. Try to pick clothing staples that can make several combinations, and keep those on hand as your go-to items for every trip. For a woman, this could be a black skirt, a pair of slacks and several tops that go with the skirt and the slacks. (This would leave you space for a few adventure outfits.)
There is nothing worse than travelling with a million bags, so the lighter you can travel, the freer you will feel. For example, say your flight from New York to London is delayed for several hours. If you are feeling adventurous and packed light, you are now free to explore New York. But if you are travelling with many bags, you will have to spend your time in an airport restaurant. Decide what is most important to you while travelling, and plan accordingly. Keep a bag at home that has toiletries you travel use only, packed and ready to go.
Action tip: If it’s hard for you to know what to pack, or if you find that you often overpack, a simple Google search can help you find the tips that help you pack smarter. Accessories such as belts and scarves can help you create new clothing combinations with simple staples. And having three sets of work outfits you regularly pack for trips will help your packing process become much easier each time.
4. Make a backup plan. There is nothing worse than finding out your laptop crashed or a file disappeared two minutes before giving a presentation. Always keep a backup of the important files you will need while travelling. Use Dropbox, Google Drive or a thumb drive for your files. (All of my important files are in Dropbox so that I can access them anywhere. This makes it easy for me to travel and to pick up work whenever I need to in a pinch, if I have some downtime.)
Action tip: Keep your backup files in a place that would be easiest for you to access them. Upload the most recent files before you travel, if needed — most backup systems sync automatically, so make sure your sync is at least turned on — to avoid a high-stress situation of trying to call someone on a Friday morning to send you a file five minutes before your presentation starts.
Keep a backup power cord in your computer travel bag, too, as well as any backup tech accessories you typically need for a trip. This ensures your computer bag is ready to go at a moment’s notice, so you’re not fumbling around each time, trying to ensure you have the correct technology.
Also, you won’t check your computer bag, so ensure that your most important items for the trip are in there, such as files, technology and presentation binders for your client. This will save you in case your checked bag gets lost or delayed.
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