If you do a lot of business traveling for conferences, seminars, and meetings, it makes sense to travel light. The lighter you travel the easier it is to get on off aircraft, in and out of taxi cabs, in and out of the super shuttles, and through the hotel lobbies. It is also easier when you rent a Rent-A-Car if you are traveling light. Not long ago, I was discussing this with an acquaintance of mine in the IT business, they do a tremendous amount of traveling.
Indeed, they said to me that they’ve been busy the last few days at their office and at home preparing for their next trip. The reality is you should be able to pack your things within 10 minutes and go, you should not need to prepare or anything, no prepping is required. There are certain things you must not forget for instance; don’t forget your “charging plugs” – Laptop, and cell phone. You should have a checklist, 3 X 5 index card taped to the inside of your laptop back or travel on luggage. That’s what I do.
If you are traveling for personal business, or going on a retreat to catch your breath, and perhaps, come back into psychological balance; you know, the old mind, body, and Spirit rejuvenation type vacation then you will probably be leaving your laptop and smart phone at home. Most people these days don’t believe they can get by without their smart-phone, so they take that with them too. In this case then you won’t need your charging plugs, so ditch that advice. But if you are really going unplugged, you need to ditch the cell phone too.
Now then, there is a big difference between traveling for business, and traveling for personal. Some people just can’t be out of the pocket that long because they have too many responsibilities at work. But in this new day and age of fast-paced business travel, you have to go light, or you shouldn’t go at all. If you are taking a complete entourage with you, which is the case if you are doing group collaborative consulting, high-powered meetings, or if you are going to run your entire company on the road, then you need to encourage all the people on your team to also travel light.
Perhaps you should make little checklist for everyone, put them on laminated 3 x 5 index cards, and have them tape these cards to the inside of their luggage, this way no one is traveling without the things they need, and that means no one on the team will slow you down. The worst thing in the world for an executive is to have members of their entourage with personal issues, without their supplies, or without the things they need to do their job for you. Indeed, hope you will please consider this.
