Use Plane Travel to Focus on Work
You don’t have to waste the time you spend on an airplane. Use travel time to do real, creative focus work.
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Plane travel is tough! They jam you in a little metal tube and shoot it at 35,000 feet generally towards your destination. What could possibly go wrong? Well, since it’s one of the safest ways to travel, not much could go wrong physically. But you run the risk of using your time on the plane poorly.
More planes are starting to include WiFi, TVs, and games. These are the same things that destroy your ability to work every day at the office. Don’t give in! Plane travel is one of the last places where you have an excuse to do real, creative focus work.
Next time you have travel plans, choose a project to work on in advance. I like writing projects, because I do a lot of writing, but you can choose anything. Choose a task that requires thought and focus, though, since that’s what’s unique about planes – you’re a captive audience. Heck, you could even decide to do a mindfulness practice.
Then, leave your laptop and other distraction devices in your luggage. Work on your project 
using only your brain, and maybe a pencil and paper. When your mind drifts to other things, follow the drift, and then come back. Without electronics blinking and winking at you, you’ll find plane travel gives a great opportunity to enjoy the focus time you’ve been missing.
For more details, visit my full episode on how to get work done on airplanes.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock
About the Author
Stever Robbins was the host of the podcast Get-it-Done Guy from 2007 to 2019. He is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management training program and a Certified Master Trainer Elite of NLP. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BS in Computer Sciences from MIT.Â
