TBL: You Need More Airplane Time (No Flight Required)

Years ago, when I was constantly traveling while building my business, I noticed a strange pattern every time I took a flight. Whenever I was on an airplane, I got much more work done than I did in my office.

When you think about it, this makes sense. When I was on a plane with no Wi-Fi or signal, there were no emails, no “just a quick question” messages, and no emergency meetings. For however long I was in the air, I could work distraction free.

Even though I was unreachable, the company didn’t collapse. Decisions either waited until I was available or were made without me. People who wanted my help with a problem used the time when I was unreachable to find a solution themselves. And because I wasn’t constantly reacting to my team’s needs and asks, I was consistently getting more done because I was playing offense, not defense.

That observation changed how I work. If airplane time was so valuable for me, then why did I only leverage it when I was actually traveling? I realized I could apply the same rules and limits of airplane time to my regular schedule.

Soon, I started booking blocks of “airplane time” directly on my calendar: hours where I would silence notifications, decline meetings, and make it clear that my team shouldn’t expect to hear from me until the time block ended. Airplane time became a fixture of my schedule, and it’s still one of my highest-leverage practices.

We’ve built work cultures that treat instant responsiveness as a virtue and confuse being reachable with being valuable. Unless you work in emergency medicine, almost nothing you work on requires a response within the hour, and every flight you’ve ever taken proved that point. Leaders do their best work when they can silence all distractions and dedicate chunks of time to strategic thinking and high-level deliverables only they can provide. The best leaders play offense more than defense.

No one needs more time on airplanes. But everyone needs more airplane time.

Here’s how to put it into practice.