As I write this, I am sitting in the Knoxville airport. It’s a nice regional airport that has clearly had a recent renovation done. It is fairly quiet, but not surprisingly so since it is a Tuesday morning. I travel a lot. However, one of the reasons that I look forward to it is that I am at my most productive when on an airplane. I try to board the plane as early as possible so I can pull out my laptop and get some work done.
Most of my days during normal business hours are chocked full of meetings so it is hard to get “work” completed on those days. Arista (my EA) and I try to schedule focus time twice a week but critical meetings do creep in frequently. As such, I have to find times when I can get things done whether that is writing this blog, working on proposals, sales and marketing activities, etc.
When I am up in the air, there are no interruptions, no distractions (other than the occasional drink or meal service) and I can tune out the world and produce work. Whenever I have a flight scheduled, I have a list of tasks that I want to get done on the plane. Even though the list is often longer than the time available during the flight, it keeps me on-task.
My other “special time” for getting work done is early in the morning. I am 100% a morning person. Regardless of when I go to bed (usually by or before 10:00), I am always up sometime between 4:45 and 5:30. My time before 8:00 is when most of my “work” gets produced when I am not on a plane. It’s also the time I try to exercise, which sometimes conflicts with a heavy “to do” list. Still need to figure that one out.
This approach works best for me but clearly, won’t work for everyone. It is important for each of us to find times that work for us as an individual. If you are not a morning person, getting up early won’t work for you. In fact, you might be better served by setting aside time late at night (when I am particularly useless). No matter what your current situation is, you need to experiment and find the times that work for you to get things done. Otherwise days, weeks or months can pass and you will be no closer to achieving your priorities.