The Importance of Travel Time
Pre-pandemic, most of our meetings were in person; however, once the pandemic arrived, this scenario flipped 180 degrees to where the majority of meetings were being held over applications like Zoom, Teams, and Webex overnight. While it may seem that only the modality of the meeting changed, we also lost something very important along the way: travel time.
As much as we bemoan the transit time between meetings in traffic, or having to hustle from one side of the building to another, I’d like to make the case for travel time. Due to being remote and having solely virtual meetings, it’s a lot easier for us to be booked back to back. Now understandably, you may have been someone who was booked back to back pre-pandemic, however you still had to get up and go to the next location for the meeting. As a result, we’re missing this travel time since we no longer have the need to either get in the car or go down the hall.
The first benefit of travel time is to give our brains a break. We need time for our brains to process, digest, absorb (pick your verb) the information we just heard about or shared. We need space to think of the connections between the people, conversations, processes, etc. that we just participated in. This mental transition time is essential for us to process and be able to act upon the information we gathered. When I’m working with leaders, I often hear the concern of being so overwhelmed and not having enough time to do anything. Yes, if you’re back to back in virtual meetings you probably aren’t having enough time to process and form an action plan to take the meeting forward.
The second benefit of travel time is connecting with our peers or team members. Naturally when you’re walking or driving to a meeting, there’s the opportunity to walk with someone in the hall or meet someone going to the next meeting you’re going to. This quick chance for connection often leads to stronger professional relationships along the way. You’re able to connect with that other person, hear what they have going on, and perhaps it’ll spark an idea or solution to a challenge either of you are facing. While I understand that some organizations try to build this into virtual meetings by having a casual component to the meeting at the beginning, there’s someone about that informal one-on-one connection that is missing in a structured all-group format.
The third benefit of travel time is the mentoring and coaching we receive from other leaders and colleagues. The connection mentioned above is for quick conversations between meetings and short chats in a hallway. When traveling either by car or other means of transportation with another person, you have the entire car ride to form a meaningful relationship with them. Perhaps with a supervisor, it provides you the opportunity to hear about how they prepare for this type of meeting with a client or the chance to get feedback from them about your participation in that meeting. With a colleague from another area, perhaps you have the chance to learn more about their experience with customers like the ones you’re visiting or to take a deep dive into the process they proposed to the client. Oftentimes, that trip to or from the office is never silent so I pose the question: What conversations are you missing when you’re not traveling to and from those meetings?
While many have grown accustomed to working remotely, I think that we need to think differently about the missed opportunities of not allowing for travel time. For now, I encourage you to add a little buffer time in your schedule and see what benefits might come from having just a little mental travel time between your back to back days.