Community Voices: 5 Time-Saving Tips for Travel Advisors

It's easy to see why travel advisors’ time is under siege. Since the pandemic, clients are in constant need of reassurance, looking for answers that the internet cannot provide. Combine that with the fact the entire world is short-staffed, and it’s no wonder most agents are working harder to complete every transaction. 

After two years in a chaotic travel industry, we are craving routine. And now, more than ever, we seek opportunities to save time, reduce steps, leverage momentum and stop the energy leaks that drain us.  

Here are five suggestions on how to invest your time wisely in 2023. 

Decide What You Want

When you have clarity on what "better" looks like for your business, in vivid detail, deciding what to do next becomes much easier. For example, perhaps you’ve decided that you want to make a shift toward specializing in selling luxury travel. Instead of simply setting the goal to sell “more luxury travel,” decide specifically how much more luxury travel, and the type of luxury travel you’ll be selling. Who will be your target customer? How many do you have in your database, and how many new clients will you need to find?  

The cost of indecision is that your thought cycles take the time you cannot spare. According to the National Science Foundation, the average person has between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts per day. Of those thousands of thoughts, 80% were negative, and 95% were exactly the same repetitive thoughts as the day before. It becomes much easier to achieve goals when you understand the full scope of what making that decision entails. When you lack clarity, you create indecision.

Make a Choice to Prioritize

There are unlimited actions that will generate progress toward your goals. All of the emails, e-newsletters, social media posts, live events, promotions and training opportunities that agents are exposed to flood the brain with ideas that all promise to improve business. 

But the challenge becomes finding the right combination of the most important actions, done at the right time. Prioritization separates the important from the unimportant, and the urgent from the time wasters. 

Prioritization separates the important from the unimportant, and the urgent from the time wasters.

Each day, choose one thing that will make the most progress toward your goals. 

Get Organized and Manage the Day Hour by Hour

After nearly three decades of taking different productivity systems for a spin, I now pick and choose the elements of time management that work for me. Your list may be different. 

The key is to create your own system. Otherwise, the chances of you using it are slim. 

First, get the optional activities out of your head and onto paper. I start every workday the same way: I write everything down that I can think of, and then I keep pushing for more, asking myself, “What else could I do?”  I let my mind wander and squeeze every ounce of ideation out of my brain. 

In the book “Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Disruption,” author Chris Bailey calls this intentional mind-wandering “scatterfocus.” When you intentionally get all the ideas out at the beginning of the day, you are less likely to follow squirrels or chase rabbits during the day. 

Next, “hyperfocus” your thoughts by grouping similar tasks together and narrowing the list to no more than three to five priorities. The goal is to create “the perfect day,” with a realistic shot of completing the entire list. (Hint: Think “Do List,” not “To-Do List.”) 

I’ve also found that adding time estimates are critical for improving productivity. We always underestimate how long things take. Putting a time limit on activities helps raise awareness of how fast it flies by, improves our speed and releases our need to be “perfect.” Implement the “good enough” rule: Why research 30 hotels, when five is good enough?

In the 2008 book “Brain Rules,” biologist John Medina reports that it takes 50% longer to complete work when we switch tasks.

Be sure to always finish what you start. In the 2008 book “Brain Rules,” biologist John Medina reports that it takes 50% longer to complete work when we switch tasks. As a travel advisor, if you start research for a client, finish it by sending it to the client. 

Finally, I like to end every day on paper. I take great pleasure crossing things off my list, and jotting down ideas that have popped up throughout the day. Knowing exactly where I need to start the next day allows me to officially “leave work” at the office. 

Energize Yourself By Adjusting Your Environment 

I always recommend blocking time in the calendar to reflect how you energetically respond to tasks. For example, if you are a morning person, choose carefully the type of work that will be reserved for those precious morning hours.

I recently set my Calendly availability from noon to 4 p.m. on Tuesday through Friday, so that my morning hours were not interrupted by incoming meeting requests. My mornings, instead, are reserved for client work. I also don’t take any meetings on Mondays so that I have a full day for working on strategy and projects. 

Another important point for energy management is to change the environment. For example, you could make a point of getting outside at least once or twice per day.

I also suggest taking regular breaks every 90 minutes by setting an alarm on your phone.  Since working from home can be isolating, work in a new place (such as a coffee shop) from time to time. 

Improve by Continuously Seeking Better, More Efficient Ways of Processing Work

Improvement comes by finding new ways of doing things and measuring your results. 

For example, after every sales conversation is complete, ask yourself: “What went well? What would I do differently next time?” I use a sales scorecard that allows me to make my own assessment. Sometimes we can be so hard on ourselves when a small tweak for next time is all that’s needed. 

Finally, always be relentless in finding ways to improve productivity through leverage. The rule is to create it once, and use it often. Create checklists, FAQ documents, email templates, proposal templates, itinerary builders and a quoting framework that you can use again and again. It’s a journey that will pay off in the greatest gift of all — a better use of your time.