SPRI Xertubes

I'M IN THE MIDDLE of a short trip to the West coast and haven't much time to post. I did, though, want to toss this up: The SPRI Xertube. I keep a blue one in my bag and use it for resistance training in my room. They have a great feel, and are extremely versatile ... indeed, I've been doing military presses while sitting in my chair reading email. A great tool for travelers trying to stay fit.

Tags: spri, xertube, travel fitness

How To Sleep When Flying To Europe

I'M PREPPING FOR A TRIP TO LONDON and thought I'd post my hack for getting as much sleep as possible when making the overnight filght from the East Coast to Europe:

• No caffeine after your morning cup of java the day of the flight.
• About 30 minutes before departure, take two Tylenol PM. The painkiller helps with the leg and back aches that come from awkward sleeping positions, and the sedative makes sleep more likely.
• If you're in business class and they offer an early meal service (usually a salad served as soon as the plane reaches altitude), take it. If not, eat before boarding. Either way, the goal is to get through the interruption meal service brings as early as possible (or eliminate it entirely).
• As soon as you've eaten (or if you've skipped the meal, as soon as the door shuts), put on your eye mask and put in foam earplugs. Most flights offer them now; if not, they're usually available in the airport.
• Hit the rack.

I've found that on the 7-hour flight to the UK from Philadelphia I can get about five hours of sleep this way. Works well for the red-eyes from the West coast to the East coast, too.

If you have any "sleep more on overnight flights" hacks, I'd be interested.

Tags: travel

Google Mobile Website Formatter

THIS SITE IS A GODSEND. Courtesy Google, it formats any website to be quickly viewed on a mobile phone / PDA web browser. It's now the homepage on my Treo, which can now load the CNN home page in about five seconds. Wonderful.

Tags: google, mobile browser

How I Use My Levenger Circa Notebook

YEARS AGO I STARTED carrying a Levenger Circa notebook, and it's the keystone of my professional record keeping. It's a wonderful product -- great paper, nice leather -- but if I find the aesthetic of Circa most appealing, I find its flexibility most valuable.

In meetings I tend to get a lot of questions about the notebook and how I use it, so I thought I'd quickly profile that here.

First, I carry this one, although in a dark brown leather they no longer produce. I like the larger size and the leather, although they make notebooks with plastic covers that work just as well. In terms of use, I have the notebook divided (I use these rigid plastic tab dividers because they create a nice writing platform) into several sections, with a nice printed label on each tab:

• Getting Things Done: Given that most of my work time is spent on the road, I find it's much easier for me to review my calendar and commitments when in the back of cabs, on airplanes, etc. on paper rather than on my PDA or Laptop. So as the final step of my weekly review I print:
  • From Outlook, a list of next actions due over the next seven days (given that most of the next actions in GTD are undated, these tend to be reminders.)
  • From Outlook, two-page "week at a glance" calendars for the next four weeks.
  • From Outlook, monthly calendars for the next six month.
  • From Outlook, the full set of my next actions (organized by context: Calls, Agendas, Computer, Online, Home, Errands, Projects, Someday / Maybe, etc.)
  • From MindManager, my "flight panel" MindMap, which is basically a graphically-represented review of all the things I'm tracking at a higher level (maybe 20,000 feet) -- there's a post on this to follow.
  Thanks to the wonders of digital technology, I'm able to print this on one of our copy machines that allows me to combine all of this into a single, double-sided document. I then punch this document with a Levenger Circa punch and put it in the notebook in the GTD tab, right up front. That's my reference for the week, and I use the first page (which has the next actions for the next seven days) as a portable inbox where I write things down to enter later in the system on my PC.
• This Week: Notes for my meetings and projects this week, organized alphabetically by project. The great thing about Circa is the pages are easily replaceable -- you just pull them out and then press them back into place. So during my weekly review I pull the project files for work I'll do in the next week (most of which is meetings) and insert my prior notes into the notebook. At the end of the week I pull those notes and put them back in their appropriate files. I also keep a printout of my travel itinerary at the front of this section, along with a short list of key deliverables for this week (my "weekly radar").
• Reference: These are notes that I don't have commitments for this week but to which I might need to refer. Usually stuff from last week, where I think I might get a call this week.
• Other Notes: My place for keeping notes on the fly. This is where I might map out ideas or projects, or capture notes from unplanned meetings or calls.
• Paper: A tab where I keep blank paper.

This photo, taken with my phone, does a poor job of showing how this looks, but you can get the idea.

I've found it very useful ... especially having a paper record of my Getting Things Done world that I can refer to and easily see in an instant. I don't worry much about it getting out of date ... while my support staff updates my calendar on the fly, that syncs to my phone in real time and I check it to confirm any calendar questions. Having the printouts of calendar and next actions is only so I can easily review lists and commitments and strike next actions on-the-fly; my PC (with Outlook) remains my "trusted system" and single source of truth.

 

Technorati Tags: levenger, circa

One Bag

I FOUND ONE BAG while plumbing resources for the Frequent Flyer Wiki. Essential for those who travel and prefer to carry on. I carry on whenever possible -- indeed, it's a point of pride that Kate and I took our honeymoon (10 days in Italy) out of two rollaboard bags -- and One Bag has hints I'd never thought of.

Technorati Tags: Frequent Flyer, Carry On, Travel 

* Scheduled post, written earlier.

Frequent Flyer Wiki

I'VE CREATED A FREQUENT FLYER WIKI at pbwiki as a place to capture tips and notes about the airports I frequent, and thought it might be a nice collaborative effort. You can see the wiki here, and if you'd like to contribute, email me at alan dot l dot nelson at gmail dot com and I'll send you the password (the site is available to everyone, but you need a password to edit or create pages).

What's In My Bag

I ENJOYED READING THIS MICHAEL HYATT POST from this past Spring about "what's in your carry on." As a frequent traveler, every so often I'm asked what I take on the road, and in the spirit of Michael's post, here are my standard carry-on contents.

First of all, I carry the Tumi Gen 4 Expandable Computer Brief in napa leather. It's the top of the line, but with luggage I've found you very much get what you pay for. Tumi's reputation is the best, and it's well deserved. The bag is functional, has many pockets (including rubber-lined pockets for a water bottle and wet umbrella), and most important, it has a sling compartment that saves your laptop from shocks. Critical if you're living on airplanes or mass transit. When expanded, it can carry a huge amount of material--especially important if you do multi-city, multi-meeting trips as do I. I love the leather, but candidly, I hate to see it weather. My next (and third) Tumi bag will likely be ballistic nylon.

In the bag I typically carry:

• One book for reading, and sometimes two. Currently: The Metaphysical Club.
  
  
• A large-size Moleskine ruled notebook, which I use as a personal journal. Moleskine makes a wonderful journal. I first saw them in the news shop at the Savoy in London in 1999, and finally picked one up early this year. They're great.
  
  
• An iGo charger, which I use to charge my laptop. The nice thing about iGo is you can use interchangeable tips to charge other items, like your phone or camera, and only take one charger on the road. So far, I've not gotten other tips. The iGo comes with an airplane and car adapter as well, so you're pretty much good to go for charging anywhere.
  
  
• A Bosca Flight Attendant travel wallet. Carries all my travel documents, frequent guest/flier cards, cash, etc. with ease. My grandfather worked in a Bosca plant in Springfield, Ohio, and in addition to being a fine piece of leather, it's a sentimental favorite.
  
  
• An older iPod with Etymotic's er6i headphones. I've posted about these headphones before; they're spectacular for air travel, exercise ... they do it all.
  
  
• Airplane sleeping comforts: An eye mask, earplugs (if I don't want the Etymotics in), and some Tylenol Cold. I don't sleep well on planes ... too tall to be comfortable ... but a combination of these three makes most red-eyes bearable.
  
  
• A 1 gig jump drive, which I use to backup the current year's files on my PC. It's also useful for giving documents to clients, admins, TelePrompTer operators, etc.
  
  
• A Hitachi 2 gig microdrive and it's PCMIA adapter. This slips into the PCMIA slot on my laptop and is the drive on which I keep all my personal computer documents (the more you work off your PC's hard drive, the sooner your hard drive dies). The adapter also lets me slide any other compact flash-format card into the laptop, like the memory card for my digital camera.
  
  
• A Treo 650 Smartphone. Very nearly the perfect all-in-one PDA, phone, email, web browser tool. I also carry a charger (I should really get the iGo tip) and an extra battery. An example of its handiness: On Friday I needed to send a document to a client but didn't have access to wifi at the airport. So I saved the file (MS Word) on a secure digital card, popped the card in the phone, wrote an email to the client, attached the doc, and sent it along. Seamless. (In fact, as the phone came with DocumentsToGo, I could have edited the document on the phone, if I had so wanted.)
  
  
• A large leather Levenger Circa notebook. I'm going to write a separate post on how I use my Levenger, but suffice to say it's a wonderful tool. I started using Circa four or five years ago, and now they're the tool of choice across the firm.
  
  
• Cords: A charger for the iPod, a sync cable and charger for the Treo, a short Ethernet cable, a dial-up cable, and here's one most people don't carry: a headphone-to-RCA jack cable that lets me plug the iPod into any stereo. Nice if you have a stereo or radio in the hotel room with RCA jacks as you can listen to your music on the road without headphones. Incidentally, these cords all fit nicely in a mesh cord pack that comes with the Tumi bag.
  
  
• The road warrior's greatest companion: The IBM ThinkPad X40. Again, a pricey solution (like the Tumi), but with laptops, too, you get what you pay for. With the X40 you pay for small, light, and rugged. I and others in the firm have carried other laptops -- they just don't hold up like ThinkPads (although anybody can abuse a laptop into submission if they're not careful). Battery lasts forever. Wifi works seamlessly. It's a great traveling PC. (That said, if the world were a perfect place, I'd carry this ...)
  
  
• A packet of iKlear Apple Polish and klear kloths, which I use to keep the screen on the ThinkPad clean and bright (DON'T use water, ammonia, or alcohol ... they trash LCD screens).
  
  
• Client files and project materials. Anything I don't need on a given travel day I pack in my rollaboard suitcase (again Tumi: a Gen 4 Wheeled 22-inch Frequent Traveler ... absolutely incredible bag, especially for packing suits ... again, you get what you pay for), keeping my brief a bit lighter.
  
  
• Supplies: Index cards and pens. I'm very picky about pens, and my current favorite is the uni-ball Signo 207. It's a great gel pen; only downside is no cap, but I don't typically carry a pen in my pocket, so it's not a big deal. It's even refillable.
  
  
• Stationary. In the back pocket of my Levenger I carry some stationary and envelopes that I liberate from hotel room desks. Not a lot; maybe four or five of each. I'm a big believer of high-touch in a time of high-tech, and having some stationary on-hand makes it very easy to jot a handwritten note or letter to someone on the fly. Mailing is easy: just give your letter to the front desk of whatever hotel you might be frequenting and they'll send it for you (and usually not bother you for the postage). I also carry some office stationary in a plastic folder that I can use to print "official" documents on the road, should the need arise.
  
  
• Two clear plastic tie-top folders, both of which are part of my Getting Things Done system: One that's labeled "Home Inbox," where I put anything I want to process at home, and another labeled "Work Inbox," where I put anything I collect on the road that I should process at the office (receipts, business cards, notes to myself, etc.).
  
  
• Two standard plastic file folders, one labeled "Reference / Pending" where I stash any non-client-file materials I'll need for tasks during that trip, and one labeled "Read / Review" which is my read and review file.
  
  
• A book of crossword puzzles for times when I'm toast and don't feel like reading.

It's a lot, but it keeps me productive. When packed, the bag looks something like this. What's in your bag? I'd be interested to know.

Passengers Per Slot & Systems Theory

Getting out of Philadelphia International two nights ago was an absolute nightmare. My flight was 3.5 hours late getting out, and we were lucky that a "slot" in the ATC system opened for us to take at all.

PHL is notoriously unreliable -- I'll have to fact-check, but I recall hearing it's the least reliable major airport in the country for on-time departures / arrivals and baggage. So unreliable, in fact, that I've become sufficiently frustrated as a frequent traveler that last night I seriously considered launching a "PHL Sucks" blog just to record the disruption PHL's operations wreck upon everyday travelers.

I've always felt the primary factors were (1) being squashed between the arrival / departure routes for New York and Washington, and (2) only having two runways capable of serving large jets (one for arrivals and one for departures). In light of this, I've long felt it was irresponsible of the airport to follow it's current course of adding more gates (and as a result, more arrivals and departures). I mean, at some point here, the system is going to have to self-correct, and my concern has long been that it will correct because of a safety issue.

Sitting on the plane Wednesday night, though, I chatted with a pilot who was flying home to Dallas, and he gave me another, more immediate reason for the decreasing reliability at PHL: regional jets. US Airways, like many airlines, has moved aggressively to small RJs that carry some 30-70 people for many of its routes (including, unfortunately, long routes like Philly to Minneapolis and Atlanta).

Here's the consequence of that move (other than less reliable regional airline service and small, cramped interiors): It takes three RJs to transport the same number of passengers as one 737. More RJs means more departures. More departures means an ATC departure and arrival schedule that gets more cramped, and less safe, more quickly. And that means delays for the smallest possible interruption in the system.

To me, it's another indication of real fissures in the system: US Airways has to move to RJs (and their lower operating costs per passenger) just to stay in the air. In doing so, they also decrease the passengers per departure slot from PHL, causing a downstream consequence in the system that creates many negative consequences for everyone going in and out of PHL, and as a result, very often people trying to travel anywhere in the North East.

Systems theory is pretty clear about two things:

1. Systems tend to calibrate to the lowest standard in the system (when a highway gets jammed at rush hour, we all go as slow as the slowest car, not as fast as the fastest).
2. Systems hate to be out of balance, and they'll find a way to return to equilibrium, very often with system perturbations that bring with them negative, disruptive consequences.

The system at PHL, and the ATC and air travel systems in general, are increasingly out of balance. As much as I hate to type it, I dread seeing what calibration and perturbation might look like in the airline industry. Frankly, if it only involves a huge shakeout of poor performers with a few strong players left standing, we'll be lucky.

(And follow that Tom Barnett link: if you're not reading him, you should be.)

Walk, Don't Wait

A little life hack for life on the road: I'm in airports nearly every week, sometimes three or four times. And when I arrive at a gate with time before boarding, I've made a habit of taking off for a walk around the terminal. It's a great way to get closer to 10,000 steps, you can rip off some calls from your @Calls list while you're at it, and it beats standing idly in the gate area listening to others have too-loud and self-important cell phone conversations (unlike, of course, your and my cell phone conversations, which are appropriately subdued and humble).

Technorati Tags: Life Hacks 10,000 Steps

Cabbie Theft

Here's one to look out for. Earlier this week a lunch mate told the story of how her laptop was stolen the night before by the cab driver who took her from O'Hare to downtown Chicago. His method: when he put her bags in the back of the cab, he slipped the laptop out of her briefcase and stashed it somewhere in his trunk. She didn't notice until she got to her room, and by then it was, of course, too late.

I keep my briefcase in the seat with me simply so I can get to my phone, files, etc., but this is another good reason to do so.

FitDeck

Here's a great little tool for exercising on the road: FitDeck. A deck of 50 cards, each with a  different upper, lower, core, or full body exercise and three different intensity levels for that exercise. The exercises require no equipment, and each takes approximately one minute to complete. Shuffle the deck and pull a card for each minute of workout you want to do ... have 10 minutes, pull 10 cards.

Kate and I have each had a set for a few months, and we love them. Because you're shuffling the deck each time, you never have the same workout twice. They're literally the size of a deck of cards (I leave mine in my suitcase), and they're perfect for strength training in a hotel room or outdoors. And here's the kicker: whatever intensity level you choose, the exercises will kick your butt ... likely because the creator is a former Navy SEAL who has drawn on the workouts SEALs do in the field for the portfolio of exercises in the deck. (That said, there's no workout here than anyone of any fitness level couldn't really do.)

Great if you work out at home; essential if you work out on the road.

As an aside, the founder, Phil Black, is a pretty amazing guy as well. How's this for a resume?

• 1988-92  Yale University
• 1992-94 Goldman, Sachs & Co. (Banker)
• 1995-99 Navy SEAL Officer
• 1999-00 Navy SEAL Instructor
• 2000-02 Harvard Business School
• 2002-03 Goldman, Sachs & Co. (Money Manager)
• 2003-04 FitDeck, Inc. (Founder and President), Certified Personal Trainer, EMT

A Nice Touch

Here's something cool: Hilton has replaced their alarm clocks with a model that has an audio input jack for your mp3 player. I'd heard about the new clocks but not been able to play with one first-hand until this week. While the audio is fair at best, it was nice having my full music library at my disposal, on the road, sans earphones. It's not enough to make me pick Hilton over other chains, but I'm willing to wager it opens a new front in the amenity creep war ...