If you travel frequently, you lose hours of valuable time sitting in a cramped airplane seat dreading the pile of work awaiting you at home. It can be difficult to either sleep or be productive with the limited room and resources available, especially if you didn’t think about how long the flight would be until you buckled your seat belt (2 hours sounds like a much shorter time when you are surrounded by all the comforts of home.) Try these 7 tips to make the most of your flying time. You’ll be on the ground before you know it.

1. Sketch It Out

Use your air time as an excuse to unplug and put pen to paper to outline a new project. When we’re surrounded by technology at home, it can be difficult to take our eyes off of our screens. Sometimes the freedom of a pen and a blank piece of paper can get your creative ideas flowing.

2. Charge It Up

If you do want to use your laptop or tablet while inflight, there is nothing worse than getting on the plane and realizing you forgot to charge it. Don’t forget to charge your devices, and then turn off WiFi and dim the screen to save battery.

3. Pre-write Emails

Rather than lamenting the fact that you don’t have WiFi on your plane, why not use the time to craft a few lengthy emails you’ve been putting off? Then all you’ll have to do when you land is copy, paste, and push send.

4. Read

You no doubt already have a book in your bag or on your Kindle, but what about those proposals and trade journals in a heap on your desk? Everyone has that office pile of things we want to read, but never get around to. Throw a few in your bag before you leave and finally cross them off your list.

5. Organize Your Desktop

You might not be able to clean your physical desk while in-flight, but you can certainly clean your digital one! Use your flight as an excuse to delete old downloads, clean up your files, and remove old programs you no longer use.

6. Thank You Notes

An old-fashioned, hand-written Thank You Note will never go out of style. Expressing our gratitude takes only a few minutes, but somehow we don’t get around to this small task as often as we should. Next time you need to fly, grab a few note cards before you leave and write a few letters to those who have helped you recently.

7. Network

Planes are a great place to talk to people you might not otherwise have occasion to meet. Ask the person next to you where they are headed and what they do. You’d be surprised who you might end up talking to!

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