Now that the pandemic is showing signs of winding down in many country areas, people have been thinking about traveling for work again. Meeting clients or attending conferences is preferable to holding yet another online meeting. You may relish the fun aspects of travel by train or by plane because you get to go to new destinations and see old friends, but you may not be excited about the time spent traveling. If you are worried about all of the time spent traveling, here are some suggestions for using your time wisely while you’re traveling.
Learning Opportunities
Travel time is the perfect opportunity for you to do something productive. One option may be companies like Career Progress. While you’re traveling, you can read a book, or take an online course to further your career. There are all kinds of online courses available for you to try. For example, you may want to take a simple, six-week course to brush up on your skills, or you could work towards earning a higher degree. Since a lot of learning takes place online, doing coursework while traveling is the perfect opportunity to make progress towards your learning goals.
Work On Financial Goals
Since you are going to have some downtime, why not use that time to work on your budget and finances? You may want to take a look at your retirement portfolio or look for ways to cut costs to add to a vacation fund. You may even look at where you can improve on your savings structure to save towards a little goal–such as buying a new exercise bike–or a large goal, such as buying a boat. No matter what you are looking towards in your financial future, hours of travel by train or by plane can only help you get your resources in order to make the most of your money.
Time to Reflect
Many people use an extended period of travel to journal or write about their week. Journaling has become an increasingly important time period of reflection and a way to self-monitor. While the journals of yesterday were simply blank pages, you can now find journals for a month at a time, a quarter, or a year. Journals can allow you to keep track of your diet and exercise, your food intake, how well you slept, your moods, and even your goal accomplishments for the day. In addition, researchers have noted that journaling about your thoughts and emotions helps reduce stress levels, so feel free to pick up a pen.
Read
There is nothing like relaxing with a good book while you are traveling. Reading a book can take you away from the plane or the car, and move you into a completely different world. Of course, if you don’t like to read on planes, you can always listen to an audiobook. By listening to a book, you can drift away from the monotony and towards a crime, a dragon, or a romance–depending on what type of book you prefer. Reading helps relax you and expand your mind, plus it gives you something to talk about at the next business meeting.
Work Towards Business Ownership
Many people use time on planes and trains to work on a business plan. This isn’t a surprise because over two-thirds of Americans dream of owning their own business. There’s a lot of work to be done to get a business off the ground, and you can use the hours you have on a plane or a train to put your framework together. First, you will need to do a lot of market research to find a niche market. Second, you’ll need to make sure that you have all of the personal and business skills you need to run your own business. Finally, if you’re looking at financing, many lenders require a sound business plan before they will consider your loan. All of this research to put a business plan together takes time, and you’ll be able to use this time to your advantage while you’re traveling.
No matter whether you climb aboard a train each day for an hour each morning and evening, you take a weekly flight, or you take a long business trip once a quarter, you’ll want to use your time wisely. Taking career courses, journaling, reading, drafting a financial or a business plan are all great ways to spend your time on the road.
What if none of these suggestions is quite what you had in mind? If all else fails, sit back, relax, and let your mind wander. Sometimes simply taking some time out to daydream can be refreshing, and enable you to refocus on the task at hand. That way, you’ll be able to say you used your time wisely while traveling.
