Canter Bridge

This comes to you from 35,000 feet.

I’m not kidding. Some of my most productive work time happens on business trips and in airplane seats. I used to think of business travel as the lost time between origin and destination. No longer.

Now travel means working from another office, one that is almost as productive as my regular office. Plus, they give you pretzels.

Here’s how to fly, and to do so productively:

One: Prioritize your reading and bring it along.

Airports and airplanes make great reading stations. Use them to work through your ‘read/review’ pile.

Two: Book a window seat.

Unless frequent restroom visits are a requirement, a window seat is a great workspace. You can easily alternate work with napping (of which more later) and even do a little staring into the blue when the yearning hits. When you do that back at headquarters, they think you’re daydreaming. You can get fired for daydreaming. Up here we consider it strategic planning.

Three: Stock up on laptop batteries.

Battery technology is the weak link of our mobile lifestyles. Bring plenty of batteries and remember to charge them up before you leave home. Three or four batteries may seem like overkill, but you’ll be glad you made the investment when your first two wear out over Kansas or the Pacific Ocean.

Four: Grab some space.

When business class is not an option, specifically request the forward rows of economy where many airlines provide extra leg space under configurations like United’s Economy Plus.

Why?

It’s obvious what it does for your legs. But those extra inches will also do two less evident but no less important things for your quest for a mobile office. First, they can make the difference between having room on your tray for your laptop or finding your trackpad on line with your esophagus. Second, they make it possible to do what you’re going to read about next.

Five: Be shrewd with the space you’ve grabbed.

When it’s safe to do so, place your briefcase or laptop bag under your legs in the space in front of the seat. With the proper pre-trip organization, you can easily reach down to remove and return documents and other items from your unzipped briefcase without elbowing your neighbor. Mobile office Nirvana happens when you can tell by finger contact which files, docs, or books you’re dealing with even when it’s not possible to see them clearly. Sight-impaired people do it all the time. There’s no reason why you can’t learn from them and do it, too.

Six: Fight traveler’s malaise by having two or three projects that you can alternate on long flights.

Let’s face it. Something in an airplane makes you want to zombie out. Maybe it’s the thin air. Maybe it’s the breath of the guy sitting behind you. You know the scene: three anonymous candidates, one culprit, like something out of a police line-up

Now there’s a time for zombying out. But it’s not when you’re trying to convert your travel time into an effective work day.

The cure for traveler’s malaise? Bring several projects that are different enough from each other that moving on to a new one provides the fresh start you need. Oh, and did I mention napping?

Seven: Nap like a champion.

Let’s face it. You work hard and you don’t get enough sleep. In fact, you need a nap in about five minutes.

You’d be embarrassed or worse to be caught napping at your desk back at the office. So take advantage of your anonymity and nap in your airborne office. Just don’t let it morph into purposeless dozing. And don’t take this airborne habit back to headquarters. It’s not safe there.

Eight: Tuck a small notepad into the seat pocket in front of you.

That holding space in front of you is good for something other than the movie list and the barf bag. Essential as those items can be, you need to have a notepad within easy each for those creative ideas that only occur to you at 35,000 feet.

There’s something about being vertically disconnected from the small things that can monopolize your thinking down at sea level. Some of your best ideas are going to be birthed up here. Don’t be caught without a place to write them down.

Nine: Catch up on your magazine reading during meals.

Let’s face it: airplane meals are not for lingering over and your neighbor in 23-B may not appreciate your chattiness over the chicken or beef question. This is an entirely functional food moment, not a sun-drenched café in Prague.

Catch up on your required magazine reading by mastering this veteran traveler’s move: hold the magazine with your left hand while you eat with your right. Or vice versa.

This doesn’t work with books and don’t even think about a newspaper. It’s also not great at home where your special someones may expect a little more engagement from you.

But this is a moment made for magazines. Plan for it, use it, and land informed.

I carry my stack of accumulated magazine reading onto long flights and then toss out all the mags I’ve scanned or read on the flight attendant’s last pass. When I stroll into the terminal, not only have I caught up on my reading, but my carry-on just got noticeably lighter.

Ten: BYOM (Bring your own music!)

In the iPod era, your concert hall fits in your shirt pocket. Bring it with you for mobile office ambience. Those generic airline headphones don’t fit you anyway.

Oh, and another thing. Wear a jacket with pockets. You simply take it off and place it in a plastic trough when negotiating your way through security. Your iPod and cell phone go in there, as do your metal pens and your foreign currency (in a labeled Altoids tin). You don’t want to take each one of those things out at the x-ray machine and then load them up again afterwards like some sort of badly lost geek. Just take your jacket off and put it back on. Your iPod earphones will eventually emerge from one of those pockets. The iPod itself stays pocketed.

Eleven: Up high is not off line

Some airlines are planning to bring back the in-air connectability that was pioneered by Boeing’s short-lived Connexion by Boeing service. This is definitely the shape of things to come.

While we’re waiting for this to become commonplace, do the next best thing. If your email host requires a live connection for full functionality, just create a file on your desktop called EmailsToSend. Write your important messages during your sky time, then hit the nearest WiFi hotspot upon landing and send them in seconds.

Twelve: Travel light and go

With some careful pre-trip thought to color coding, you can learn to get your stuff into a carry-on bag. I have a black & gray travel wardrobe and a brown & brown-ish travel wardrobe. While the dry cleaner has one, I have the other.

You land, you bypass the drama of the luggage carousel, you’re on to the next thing.

Learn how to fly. It’s just another day at the office.