The Minimum Travel Work Unit (MTWU)
The Minimum Travel Work Unit (MTWU) strategy has really helped me increase my productivity, ever since I started travelling to international and national conferences. I used to hate to spend time on a plane or a ferry simply because it meant that I had to interrupt my productive activities for a certain period of time. I’ve never been able to travel leisurely. For me, travel time *is* productive time too.
The best way for me to make a trip efficient in terms of getting work done is to break down my tasks into what I call the Minimum Travel Work Unit (MTWU). A MTWU is the smallest piece of work that, as a minimum I can complete and cross the task as being finished within the duration of a trip. So for example, this evening, my MTWU was – deciding what types of policies I was going to use as case studies for next term when I teach my Comparative Politics of Public Policy.
It took me less than the duration of a ferry trip to complete the list of case studies. Since I had completed my first MTWU, I felt that I had to complete another MTWU and so I did. I inserted the citations for the first six weeks of theoretical analyses. By the time I had finished that task, I had completed 2 MTWUs and I was at the Tsawassen ferry terminal.
So, next time you go on a trip, look at your list of tasks to complete, and make sure that you only attempt to finish an MTWU. Otherwise you might feel frustrated that you have arrived to your destination and you still did not complete your task.
Related posts:
- My 2011 in travel review: Great friends and wonderful destinations
- My impressions from Travel Blog Exchange #TBEX conference #TBEX11 Day 1
- Raul’s 2010 Year In Review: Travel
- Stage 2 of pre-travel clean-up
- Stage 1 of pre-travel clean-up
Raul, as someone with OPD (Obsessive Productive Disorder) I appreciate this type of planning for getting work done around even the smallest tasks. I will definitely try putting this to use on my next trip. Thanks for sharing.
Good idea, Raul!
Oh yeah, planes, trains & ferries are the best places to get work done. But I don’t feel the need to limit myself to tasks I can complete while on the trip. For example, if I can get through half of the pile of marking I need to do, or write some of a report I need to get done, I don’t feel frustrated that I didn’t get it finished, I feel happy that I got a big chunk of work done! I’d rather do some of a more important job than all of a job that’s not as important.
@ Beth – I feel frustrated if I don’t finish the unit (I think that a big chunk of work can be defined as your MTWU!)