The combination of having two jobs, living more than half an hour from Barcelona and not having a car gives an inevitable result: I travel a lot by public transport. And the time that I spend mainly on trains is time that I prefer to take advantage of, so as not to fall into the endless scrolling that is vertical videos on social networks.
The tools I have to achieve this: my iPhone 15 Pro and my MacBook Air M2. But working with them as if you were in the office or at home is not enough: Here are some tips to make working while traveling more productive.
Using a Mac on a Plane or Train: Tips and Tricks to Make the Most of Every Minute
The main obstacle you will encounter if you travel by train or plane will be the lack of connections. Yes, it’s true that some airlines already allow you to use WiFi during the flight; or that on the AVE there are areas where the coverage is decent enough to work well. But a priori We must assume that we will not have this link.
Considering this, we can take several steps to avoid getting “stuck” in the middle of the journey.
- If your job involves being in constant communication with colleagues via email, WhatsApp or specialist services such as Slack or Microsoft Teams, let them know that you will be traveling and therefore your availability may be limited or non-existent. Provided that the trip is made during working hours, of course.
- If you have active sound-cancelling headphones like AirPods Pro 2, use them even without listening to music. The more silence around you, the better.
- If you’re working with files that you store in iCloud (or any other cloud), Download them before you start your trip. Save them to a local folder so you can view them without consuming data.
- If you don’t have Wi-Fi handy, remember that you depend on your mobile data. Therefore, if you are unsure, you should check your data plan and verify that you have enough GB left to “last” for several hours with them.
Services like Spotify allow you to download their songs and podcasts so you don’t have to rely on a connection when you’re traveling.
- For the same reason, avoid getting distracted by applications that consume large amounts of data like YouTube or Instagram. Their videos with real data devourers.
- If you want to listen to music with services like Spotify or Apple Music during the trip, download the playlists first that you use the most so that they consume more data. Oh, and don’t forget to charge your AirPods.
- You may have WiFi at the airport or in a hotel, but don’t rely too much on its security. In this case, a recommended measure may be to use a VPN.
- It doesn’t matter whether it’s the suburban metro or an AVE: traveling by train forces the iPhone to constantly search for coverage from multiple antennas as it passes them. Plus, it goes the extra mile by sharing the Internet with the Mac you’re using. Which does the battery discharges very quickly, so you would do well to take an external battery with you. Not all trains have grips in their seats.
Last but not least: invest time in find the most correct posture possible to work. Putting your MacBook on your lap may be fine for short trips, but your back may suffer on a multi-hour trip. If the seat doesn’t have a table or tray, a tip can be to place something between your Mac and your legs to elevate the computer and correct posture. Thick coats can help here.
Do you work while traveling regularly? Then you can adjust even more
If you live around Barcelona and travel on Rodalies, perhaps you have seen me one day writing articles in seats like this.
The trip you have in hand may not be one-off, but rather you do it daily or at least several times a week. If you have to get used to working more than an hour a day on a train as I did, there are a few additional tips to note.
Do it shuttle on the train, that means carrying a backpack with the Mac and its accessories, so make sure that Getting them in and out of the backpack is as quick and easy as possible.. The more comfortable it is to take your MacBook out of your backpack, the less lazy you will be to work with it. If you have an external battery, a good idea is to leave it in a compartment of your backpack but so that you can easily remove its cable to charge the computer on your lap if you need to.
And if you want to refine the game as much as possible, you can see how, by repeating the same route over and over again, you will learn which areas have the best data coverage. Enjoy perform tasks that depend on internet connection in these sections of the triplike sending emails, and assign other tasks like writing to times when the connection is weaker.
Above all, in any case, make sure everything is tidy if you use online storage services. Sometimes bad coverage can play tricks on us and waste time. So it’s a good idea to make frequent backup copies of your work.
Pictures | Generated with Bing, Lucía Garó
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