If you’re like me and you travel often on business, you probably have moments of ‘dead-time’ that could be filled with something helpful for business. These time-slots might go to waste and there are activities that can be done, even small things, that will improve our business. When done often, the effect mounts up and can result in serious business value.
Most of these things need you to have access to a laptop, a tablet or mobile, and also access to the internet. I can do all these things on my iPad and I tether to my iPhone. It’s so easy and most don’t chew up lots of data too. If you have android or windows, you should be able to do the same. Even if you can’t access the web (maybe because of poor reception, tunnels, etc) most of these things can be done offline and then completed when you have access to the web again.
Here are five things you can do:
- Write blog posts– (just like I am right now) 500-1000 words can be written in 30 minutes. The good thing here is that you don’t even need to be word perfect – you can just write in a kind of ‘flow state’ and then tidy up when you are back at the office later. I write my blog posts like this – I just do a ‘brain dump’ and then review it when I have more time.
- Do some search engine optimisation – you can do this piece meal. If you are clear on your SEO strategy, then it’s quite easy just to implement it as and when you have the time. It doesn’t need to be done all once! For example, I will choose a list of keywords and phrases and implement them in my content and off page, piece by piece. I tend to do this by keyword category. This was a tip given to me by Toni Marino.
- Record expenses – one of my most dreaded tasks. I don’t enjoy it at all! So I can do this paperwork bit by bit and it doesn’t seem such a big task. This means when I have more important and enjoyable things to do I have more time to do them!
- Contact customers –I use travel time to send catch up emails to customers. Are you like to fill deep and personal relationships with my customers where possible (and appropriate) so regular contact is important to me. When travelling, I can take my time to write a more personalised message to each customer.
- Think the unthinkable – this is when I come up with crazy ideas most of which won’t come to anything. But sometimes, just sometimes, an interesting idea begins to form and develop. It’s surprising how the scenery, when travelling, can be inspirational for new ideas. It’s always handy to have a paper with me because I am a very visual person and like to scrawl!
I hope you find these tips useful!
