The Red Sox New Commute May Be 70 Hours, But Here’s How They Can Make It Work

Talk about a brutal work commute.

Imagine 70 hours of total travel time, 36 of them in the air, twelve time zones crossed (including the international date line), and all for less than eight hours of official work. 

Even if that work is playing a game, it is not easy being the World Champion Boston Red Sox, or their opponent the Oakland A’s, this week. That's because the two baseball teams traveled to Japan to play a rare overseas season opening series, March 25 and 26.

While the Red Sox commute is enough to make experienced road warriors cringe, according to travel experts and professional organizers there are a number of practical ways to make even the most arduous trek to work time well spent.

The first step to getting more out of extended travel time is learning to change your mindset. “People say all the time that ‘I don’t have enough time, I don’t have enough time,’ well here you go, you’ve got the time,” says Monica Ricci, an Atlanta-based organizing advisor for Office Depot and author of Organize Your Office in No Time. To maximize this time requires a little planning. “I take 10 to 15 minutes before leaving for the airport to make sure I have everything I need,” says Denise Caron-Quinn, founder and president of In Order to Succeed, a professional organizing and time management firm in New York and Connecticut. 

This planning time should be spent making sure you have extra batteries for the laptop or PDA (but don’t forget to charge them!) and packing the reading materials you need in your briefcase, or downloading it to your computer. You might also consider making a to-do list of these tasks, Caron-Quinn says. “That’s one thing that I always tell my busy executives,” she says. “I’m a huge proponent of carrying a master list with you, it’s a quick thing that goes a long way.”