Travel Zen

Photo by Pablo Barrios at stock.xchng.

I have seven trips scheduled between 7/9 and 8/3. That’s right. Seven. Two for pleasure and five for business (not that these can’t be pleasurable). Six of them involve airplanes. And airports. And waiting.

Lots of travel can mean lots of stress. Airports are like stress factories. Especially during the summer when you have an upsurge of “casual travelers” (the people who don’t realize that you have to take off your belt and that TSA definitely won’t let you take a big bottle of liqour through the screening checkpoint - no matter how expensive…). And once you reach your destination, you inevitably end up in all-day meetings followed by full course dinners (where you eat too much) and not enough sleep.

I don’t have a magic formula to reduce the stress of excessive travel. However, I do have some ideas and thoughts on the topic. And hopefully some (or all) of these will be of value to you.

• Get to the airport early. I used to enjoy the sport of getting to the airport as late as possible. I would be the one running down the concourse and arriving (out of breath) at the gate just as they were shutting the door. However, at some point, I realized that it created unnecessary stress (and it was rather painful with high heels), so I decided to change this travel habit. Now my goal is to get to the airport at least one hour before the flight is scheduled to leave.
• Use the same airline, hotel, and car rental service. This isn’t always possible, but sticking with what’s familiar reduces stress. You know what to expect and if you travel to the same place often, you eventually get to know the people, which provides a sense of “home away from home.” (It’s also good for frequent travel rewards…)
• Recognize and accept the fact that you will get less done while traveling. It’s hard to get anything done when you’re in meetings all day and dining out with clients/prospects/colleagues late into the evening. This is the reality of business travel. As such, it’s best to accept that you won’t complete your “normal” tasks and focus only on the essential. For me, I try to make sure that I get to the workout room for at least 20 minutes in the morning. Most everything else (including blogging, apparently) gets dropped until I get back home.
• Bring your running shoes. If you exercise on a regular basis, you’ll feel much better if you can maintain your routine (or at least an abbreviated version) while traveling. If you don’t exercise, I suggest you get started! Exercise is a well-documented form of stress-relief.
• Take advantage of the airplane ride. When I am returning from a trip, I am usually way too wiped out to do anything productive on the flight back home. My favorite activity is to put on my Bose® noise reduction headphones, turn on some music, and close my eyes. If I happen to be conscious when they come by with the drink cart, I order a glass of red wine and happily sip it for the remainder of the flight.

Since nothing interesting happens in the office (per Pragmatic Marketing), travel is a must for Product Managers. It’s the best way to know what’s going on with your customers and in your industry. Face-to-face meetings make a world of difference, especially to establish long-lasting relationships. I hope these tips will help you maintain some sense of calm as you travel in the future. Have a safe trip!