Paula Rizzo shares practical tips for smoother business trips: use packing lists, keep a "next time" notes list, review event schedules, organize receipts with a Ziploc bag or the Shoeboxed app, and maintain a conference follow-up list in Google Docs.
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Hello there, welcome to Inside Scoop. I'm Paula Rizzo. I love to travel. I love to travel for fun, for business, for whatever, for leisure. And you know, it's the best thing about it for me is the planning. I love it. I love to do a little bit of planning because you get to kind of go on the vacation or go on the trip a little bit beforehand and lead up to it. Takes a lot of, you a lot of pressure off once you get there because you know you've done a lot of the legwork ahead of time. You found the restaurants you want to go to and all those things. But today I'm gonna stick to business trips specifically because I've been traveling a little bit for work. I'm actually not in my usual space right now, I'm traveling. And I picked up a couple of ideas that I thought I would share with you because, you know, we can all be a little bit more efficient, especially when you're far from home. So I know a lot about lists I love them. We're gonna talk about them a lot because I've written 2 books about lists, Listful Thinking and Listful Living. And I actually am a speaker actually right now. I spoke at a conference for LinkedIn, LinkedIn called Talent Connect 2022. And this is one of the first business trips I've taken since the pandemic happened. I took another one, but it was not, you know, for speaking engagements. It's a little bit different. You need different things on your packing list for these things. And I was a little bit rusty. I have to I have to admit, so I'm going to tell you some of the insights that I found on this trip. Uh, but first I have a little freebie for you. It is my checklist for your trips. If you go to paularizzo.com/travel, I have a couple of little insider tips there for you. And I'm a LinkedIn Learning instructor and I have several courses there to help you in all areas of your life. And one of them is about organizing your remote office for maximum productivity. Having your remote setup is really important and very, very helpful for you to be able to take that setup wherever you go. If you're on a business trip, of course, you'll be able to just replicate your home setup wherever you are. If you find that this is something that you think a friend or colleague will be interested in, please share the video, tag them below, leave questions throughout the video if you're watching the replay, and, uh, let's get right to it. Let's talk about packing lists. Okay, this seems really obvious, is that you should have a packing list. If you do not have a packing list when you're going on a trip, I would implore you to absolutely do that and, you know, run through all the things that you need: your medicines, your toiletries, things you need day to day. Of course, for a business trip, it's a little bit different. You're going to be adding some things in there like, you know, maybe your webcam and, uh, you know, some, some cords that you need to make sure that all of your attachments work for your computer. So you have a million things that you could be bringing, but you want to make sure you don't leave things behind. So another thing that you should be doing during the trip is keeping an ongoing notes for next time list. Okay, because in the moment when you're on this trip, things are gonna pop up. You're gonna say, oh, you know what, I actually, I packed 6 sweaters and I really only needed 3. Like, note to self that I don't need to go so crazy with all the things. I didn't use half of these things that I packed. Or I'm running out of face wash. I should refill the face wash next time I get home. Leave yourself a little memo, put it in your phone, leave yourself a little memo for when you get home to remind you so that when you get on the next trip, you're not like, "Oh, I forgot to replace this and I wish that I had it." You should have reminded yourself. So that next time list is really, really helpful for you to get into the groove when you're doing this a lot more, 'cause you'll be doing it more often, hopefully, now that the world is reopened again. The schedule. Schedule is really, really important. So whether you're attending a conference or a series of meetings, look through the schedule ahead of time. This helps you to plan out your travel from place to place, how long you'll be places, and also what you need to pack. Right? What you need to wear, where are you going to be? Are you going to be in a conference room where you're going to need a sweater because you know it's usually cold in those types of places? So thinking through that and making that list at the same time as your packing list is really helpful. A lot of times expense reports come up, right? You know, you're working maybe for somebody else or for your company and you have to keep track of those expenses. So I have a couple of tricks for this. I always keep a couple of little plastic bags in my suitcase at all times. Like little ones, you know, little, the little zip top ones, because you just never know. You might have some, you know, extra gluten-free cake that you really love that you're like, you know what, I need to take this with me on the plane. Guess what? You have a little Ziploc so you can do that. Or you can keep your receipts in there more importantly, right? So I keep all of my receipts in a little Ziploc bag. And then that way I have everything there. But what I also do is I put a note right on it, right when I'm doing the, the paying, and I say, I put the date on the back and I put what it's for, right? Lunch with Allie. Got it. Okay. So now I know exactly what it's for. There's an app that I started using on another business trip that I took recently, and it was called Shoeboxed, and it allows you to scan all of your receipts. And I did that each day after every day I did it so that I would have them. And it was really helpful. Because then when I got back, I was able to put that expense report together very quickly and get paid very quickly. That's the more important part, right? So definitely check those things out because I think it'll be helpful for you, whether you're gonna do it in a digital way or the old school way of having a little plastic bag. And then the last list that I'm gonna talk about is the follow-up list. This is really important for conferences. You know, when you're meeting a lot of people and a lot of stuff is going on, you're in the moment, you know, maybe you're in a different time zone and you can be overwhelmed. So as I'm going through a conference specifically, I have a list that I have ongoing. I use Google Docs for this. You can handwrite it if you want to, but it's a bunch of, um, follow-ups, right? So follow-ups as in, who do I want to follow up? Who did I meet at this conference and what do I want to talk to them about? And then also other follow-ups. What are some of the things that now I want to implement into my life or into my world or research for my company or for whatever it is? And that way I have that list. So when I go home, I don't have to then formulate it and be like, 'What did I learn? Who did I meet? Who was that person?' I've already done it in the moment. So future you will be very happy that you did this. It's a, it's a really excellent move, if I do say so myself. So I hope these things were helpful for you. If you have questions, please leave them in the chat boxes below. I want to tell you about that freebie that I have for you again. It is my travel checklist. If you go to paularizzo.com/travel, you can grab it there. If you have any questions, put them below. I hope to hear from you soon. Thanks for watching.
