If you do any sort of traveling for your home business, you may find yourself having to work from a “home away from home”—whether it is a hotel or motel—keeping on task and motivated in a hotel room might be a bit of a challenge.
Some home business owners might find working from a hotel room a great reprieve. If you normally work from a bustling and busy household with all sorts of other obligations—you might find the peace and quiet of a hotel to be quite inspirational. OR—you might find it hard to concentrate outside of your element. There can be new, unfamiliar distractions that take you away from your work.
Make sure that you have all the amenities and resources you require when you book your hotel or motel room. If you need high speed internet, access to a computer printer or copier, or other equipment (and most hotels and motels now have these, depending on whether you are staying domestically or traveling internationally). You’ll also want to find out about phone use, fax, etc. (as well as if your cell phone will work and how you will be charged for that usage from your cell phone company) so you can stay as connected as you need to.
If you will be away from home and your family needs to get a hold of you while you are working, make sure you leave your contact information. BUT, you should also let them know your schedule and when you will be available to take calls, e-mail, fax, etc. You can lose a great deal of productivity with calls and requests from home while you are trying to attend to business “on the road.”
Whenever possible, get as much information as you can about where you will be staying to make sure it is compatible with your work and personal style. While adjustments and flexibility are always part of the deal when traveling for work—you’ll still want to make sure the trip will be worth your while and you can get your work done in the hotel room.
See Also: Living With Frequent Business Travel
Conflicted About Business Travel?