Timely Tips MAY 2009: Three Great Air Traveler Tips

We are coming into those summer travel months, and since it has been a while since I've done some tips on effective travel time savers, I wanted to share three new ones I've been using this travel season.


1. Wear your suit/best outfit on your flight. I've simply found that my suit arrives in much better shape and much less wrinkled if I wear it on my flight vs. packing it (a nice bonus - you look good on your flights, which are very often filled with good potential business contacts - never hurts to look professional). Now, coming into the summer months and higher temperatures, I obviously don't like to wear it more than necessary, so I actually also pack hangars in my carry on bag, and then immediately change my clothes into something more comfy upon arrival at my destination airport if I'm not heading straight to a client event or meeting. I've also found out that P&G has produced a travel size bottle of Downy Wrinkle Reducer. Having that along with wearing the suit on the flight pretty much takes away the need to press or iron the suit upon arrival (and a little money saving tip: get a regular size bottle of the Downy Wrinkle Reducer to use for refills of your travel size bottle.)
2. If going to a conference and/or meeting by air, and you are expecting to be giving lots of program brochures, attendee lists, goodies, and freebies, consider packing a posted Priority Mail packet or box and/or UPS, DHL, or Fedex box/mailer, preaddressed to you. That way, you can pack light enough to avoid checking bags (often saving 15-45 minutes on each side of your flight), but you'll still have the capacity to send some of that stuff back to you upon your return trip. You can easily collapse down a flat-rate Priority Mail box and ship a pretty significant amount of stuff home too.
3. Are you an electronics or laptop lover when you travel? Find and pack a small multi-outlet electrical power strip in your computer bag. Very often, most airports only have a few power outlets available for charging, but if you have a multi-outlet power strip, you can walk up to a person that is already using the outlet to see if they'd be willing to share. And if you get to that outlet first, you'll be really popular with the other road warriors around you when you plug in your power strip and let others share your strip.



Program Successes Continue

What a past 9 months this has been - the Taming E-mail, Finding Extra Hour, and Optimizing Outlook courses have all been performing great, and I've been BUSY (I've even already reached enough miles to renew my frequent flier elite status for 2010, and it isn't even the end of May yet!) I've received great reviews and comments from my recent sessions at the NALP, HSMAI Affordable Meetings, Michigan Recycling Coalition, and yesterday's session at the Law School Admissions Council in San Antonio (great city by the way - make sure to visit the Riverwalk!)

Deborah Peters, CMP, from SoigneCelebrations.com had this to say about my recent Affordable Meetings Taming E-mail conference session:

"Your workshops during Affordable meetings were exactly what I needed to get my e-mail and electronic files organized. After attending your workshop, now I feel confident in organizing my files and have found additional time to spend on more important matters."

Please keep me in mind for your upcoming meetings and events. Compared to many of the speakers out there, I provide excellent value for the dollar, with very timely and useful content delivered in an engaging and often humorous way. And from a training perspective, most people report that my content is immediately usable, thus providing an instant return on investment.

Look for me at Michigan State HRD, the Michigan Society of Hematologists, a Michigan Chamber of Commerce webinar, and the National Conference of the Institute for Management Accountants here in June, and the Indiana Society of Association Executives and American Dental Association Executives Conference in July. And watch for the Taming E-mail Amazon launch info coming VERY soon.

Until then, Stay Timely!