Traveling is an exciting experience, but it can also be stressful if you don?t plan carefully. Owning your own business means you have to put in more miles to give a presentation or attend a meeting with co-workers. As you travel more and more, you learn tricks to make traveling as enjoyable as possible. Something that you should not forget is a calendar while you?re on the road.
Remember important events
It helps to designate what the most critical tasks are by making them stand out. Use a highlighter, underline, or use a color-coding system to organize your obligations. These events can be work obligations, important appointments, or other calendar-worthy tasks. Use a specific color for work, a different one for medical expenses, and another for other categories. With a quick glance, you can see when important events are coming up. Don?t schedule anything in times when you need to travel to or from a different location since you?ll need time to collect yourself.
Leave time open before and after
Traveling requires a lot of energy and time with a laundry list of things to do before you head out. Set aside time before the trip to prepare, and leave the day after you return free so you can wind down and get back into your daily schedule. It might not be possible to shut down completely but try to keep your obligations to a minimum.
Focus on travel time
Plan your schedule with plenty of time to get to and from your travel location. Don?t plan a meeting downtown at 5:00 p.m. if you aren?t scheduled to get off the plane until 4:30 p.m. Put your appointments in your calendar for half an hour before the actual appointment to give yourself more time to get there.
Be mindful of time zones
It can be easy to forget that you?re traveling to a different time zone when you have other travel concerns weighing on your mind, especially if you are making a conference call to someone in a different zone. The majority of apps and calendar systems take time zone differences into account, but you can?t always rely on this. Make an indication that the event is in another time zone when adding it to your calendar.
Make an itinerary
Google calendar is a convenient tool to create an itinerary. You can view your monthly schedule to get an overall look at your plans. You can create alerts to remind you when events are coming up, but apps such as Tripit fulfill the purpose better. You only need to forward emails with dates, and the app automatically creates a master itinerary to follow. Seeing everything you need to do in one location makes it harder to overlook something.
Update others
Sharing your calendar with others allows them to see what you?ve got going on. Share your travel calendar with co-workers and give them information about when you?ll be unavailable. Don?t forget to share with your family, so they know when you?re coming and going.
