We have owned Genisco in San Diego for just shy of 3 years now. This means I have been traveling back and forth on a regular, almost monthly basis for a little longer than that. I’ve got many elements down to a routine. The plan is to leave OKC early in the morning. (My Oklahoma team that occasionally tags along really likes those early flights!) Going west we can get there before lunch. I work that afternoon with the Genisco team then try to get back to the hotel relatively early in the evening since my body clock is still on central time. We work all day the next day and go out to dinner with the core team. It is during these dinners that many of the most important strategic, vision casting decisions take place. On the third day, I start early and work into the afternoon. There is typically a good flight leaving in the late afternoon that gets me back to OKC between 10 and midnight.

Each morning on these trips, and most times that first evening I work out.   Each night I continue to work: planning for the next day, catching up on email, writing blog posts, etc.

This trip structure allows me to maximize my work time and maximize my home time. I am able to stay home the night before the trip. I am also able to wake up after the third day at home, spending that time with my children. That extra work time each night allows me to get work done that then does not have to take place when I am home. Since I am unencumbered by other duties I can put in extra work or thinking time in the hotel or on the plane.

My wife thinks I am crazy for keeping this schedule. Those early flights seem too early and the late arrival too late. But those seem like small sacrifices to me. All part of the overall effort to get done as much as I can. The activities are never really finished, so it is not really a question of completion, but of maximization.

Just one strategy of many to maximize my effectiveness as an executive, a husband and a dad, simultaneously.