Greetings!
As we approach the biggest travel day of the year, I have a quick question for you -- are you hitting the road? If so, this month's Timely Tip might save you hours, and is something I recommend for all road warriors to do prior to hitting the road (and it has NOTHING to do with GPS or Google Maps!)
Also, I want to share a quick tip on powering down and powering up your laptop or PC -- I've been using this tip for some time now, and it has definitely saved me minutes and hours of time.
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The Boy Scout Motto: "Always Be Prepared" -- That Goes for Thanksgiving Driving Too!
| This is ALWAYS the place to look for your Timely Tip!
This tip is a no-brainer if you are getting in your car and heading to or through ANY city of decent size during the holiday -- and it takes advantage of the OLD technology called AM/FM Radio (although Sirius/XM may be an option too).
As many of you know, I travel a bunch! I frequently drive to the Detroit Metro Airport to catch flights, as well as make road trips to client events in Chicago, Indy, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and other relatively near Midwestern cities. I NEVER get on the road without doing this one little thing (and no, it isn't printing out MapQuest or Google Maps directions [yes, I do that too, as well as bring my GPS]). Here's that thing:
I research what radio stations provide real-time traffic updates in the city I'm going to or through, and I make a list of those stations in a little memo on my BlackBerry, so as soon as I'm within "radio distance" (usually about 60-90 miles), I switch to that station to see if there are any traffic updates regarding my planned route. Usually, the most efficient way to find traffic radio stations in a specific city is to do a Google search on "Traffic radio station (city name)" for the city you will be driving to/through. There is also this list of radio stations that I found online, that allows you to search all radio stations in any given state and find the preferred station format (this site also gives you online links to web sites with city- and state-based traffic reports, but that isn't the safest or easiest thing to access when you are actually behind the wheel driving).
You may have to sample 2-3 stations to find the stations that provide the best/most frequent traffic reports. (I've found that the "News/Talk" stations that have the highly-opinionated political talkers tend to NOT have the most frequent traffic updates -- better to find stations that do straight news/weather/traffic/sports reporting on a regular schedule.)
I don't know how many times simply putting on 950 WWJ in Detroit has saved me from missing a flight or getting stuck in a 2-hour traffic jam on 696 or 275. If you are approaching a city and you have advance notice of a major traffic issue, you can certainly save HOURS by routing around and missing one of the most aggravating of all of life's events -- the traffic logjam! Add this Timely Tip to your pre-trip checklist, and you will certainly find additional time and sanity when making that trip "over the river and through the woods" later this week.
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Thanksgiving is a Time of Thanks!!!
And I want to give ALL OF YOU a big thanks for making this my best year yet -- I've already passed my best numbers for both bookings and revenues for my business with a full month left on the calendar!! Thank You!! I want to give a special thanks to my three primary booking agents: Andrea Gold with GoldStar Speakers in Tucson, Angela Cox-Weston with Midwest Speakers in Des Moines, and Carol Grainger with Creative Learning Links here in Michigan. The three of you have "rocked it out" this year, and I really appreciate all of the great clients and bookings you have arranged for me this year. We're already building a great schedule for coming months, with engagements at the Vermont Society of Association Executives next month, American Bus Association in Philly in January, Indian Hills RELI, Iowa Bankers, and NIACC in Iowa, Texas IMA, and University clients including Ohio State, U. Michigan, Michigan State, and UT Austin. I'm already scheduled to be in Vermont, Maryland, Ohio, Texas, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and, of course, Michigan soon, and we are working on engagements in California, Illinois, Indiana, and Colorado. Let me know if I'll be in your neck of the woods. Take some time to enjoy family, friends, and food in coming days (and maybe turn off your e-mail for a few days!), and have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. And look for my special year-end edition of Timely Tips next month. Until next time, Stay Timely!
Sincerely,
Randy Dean
Randall Dean Consulting & Training, LLC
or http://www.emailsanityexpert.com
PPS: Always feel free to use the "Forward E-mail" option below to share this info with your family, friends, & co-workers. |
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I'VE BEEN CARTOONED!!!
| This is SOOO FUN!! I was leading a session for one of my corporate clients a couple weeks ago in Utah, and one of the program attendees told me he was going to "spice up my PowerPoint" -- he then sent me these!
I've been accused of being a bit of "cartoon character" in the past, so this fits right in with that.
The artist's name is John Brady, and he can do cartoon work for you too -- I've given a link here to a sample page of his work with his full contact information. Let me know if you contact him for your next fun project.
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Another Handy Travel Tip -- Use a Handy Packing Checklist
| Since many of you are going to be traveling this week, here is a tip I've given before:
Keep a travel packing checklist handy for when you need to pack. Now, if you've attended my sessions in the past, you know that I keep SEVERAL packing checklists on my BlackBerry (synced to my MS Outlook and Google Docs) for different kinds of trips: business trips, presentation trips, personal trips, trips to the beach, trips camping, trips with the kids, etc. Then, when it is time to pack, I just pull up the list on my BlackBerry and gather together the items I need for my trip with my BlackBerry in hand.
There are actually some pretty good online resources to help you create these pack lists. Timely Tips reader and frequent contributor Rob Chabot shared this one recently:
http://www.onebag.com/checklist.html
Seems like a pretty good list for remembering what you need to remember. As Rob said, "
This one seems pretty complete. You cross off the stuff you don't need and pack the rest." Thanks for sharing Rob!
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Program Success!
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Randy - I'll be brief: a HOME RUN all around - thank you for your participation with NBTA! And I have thoroughly enjoyed your book and am applying your strategies to great results! What more can we ask for??! Best, Alana Alana Joyce Sr. Director, Global Education National Business Travel Association (NBTA)
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