Part Three of Productivity on the Road: Streamline Your Team's Communication Workflows

Layne Martin
Nov 3
4 min read

Updated: Nov 4

Welcome to Part Three of our Productivity on the Road series. 🌍

Part one of this series lives here if you want to revisit or catch up.

This week, we’re talking about one of the biggest success factors for remote teams: clear communication.

When your team spans multiple time zones, structure creates freedom. How? By helping everyone stay aligned, efficient, and focused on what really matters.

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3. Establish protocols to help your team communicate across mediums and time zones

When you’re traveling — or your team is scattered globally — the communication cost can soar.

But you can neutralize most of that with good structure.

Here’s how I do it:

Build a central knowledge base
- I like the free tool Notion.
- Include team guidelines, how-tos, workflows, and yes, communication protocols.
- I wrote more about why this is important here.

Define which tool people should use for which purpose:
- “Check Notion first” for standard instructions and FAQs.
- Use the #questions channel on Slack (or whatever your real-time chat tool is) if you can't find the answer on Notion.
- Use email (e.g., hr@companydomain.com) for time off requests and other topics that need formal approvals.

If a particular type of communication is error-prone, write a detailed guide.
- At Index Solutions, I implemented a task guide that explains exactly how to report bugs. It details all the different pieces of information that need to be included, such as:
  - A full-page screenshot of the problem you ran into
  - Instructions about how to take a full-page screenshot
  - The URL where the problem occurred
  - Explanations of: (1) what you were doing when you encountered the problem, (2) what you expected to happen, and (3) what happened instead.
- Before that, engineers got vague tickets like “the check-in button doesn’t work” and we wasted time chasing clarity.
- Put the prompts in place that will make sure you get enough info to solve every problem without back-and-forth.

Teach your team how to give difficult feedback. I use the Radical Candor framework (by Kim Scott) + the non-violent communication (NVC) formula:
- “When you did/said {INSERT FACTUAL/OBJECTIVE THING THE PERSON DID OR WHAT THEY SAID WORD-FOR-WORD, WITH NO INTERPRETATION OR SUBJECTIVITY}, I felt {EMOTION} because I need {THING}. Could you please {DO SPECIFIC FACTUAL/OBJECTIVE THING TO HELP OR RECTIFY THE SITUATION}?”
- e.g., ”When you didn't respond to my request for next week’s schedule for three days, I felt anxious because I need to get the whole team’s schedules gathered and turned in on time. Could you please help me by following this guideline to respond to messages within 48 hours going forward?” {LINK TO THE GUIDELINE}
- The non-violent communication formula works because it makes the message objective and about you (instead of them).

Summary (Parts 1-3)

To wrap up, my three keys to staying productive on the road are:

Be intentional about work-life balance and time management
Pack, buy, or borrow what you need to make your workspace comfortable
Establish protocols to help your team communicate across mediums and time zones

Why this matters

Intentionally setting your work structure (including adapting your routine for wherever you happen to be traveling) significantly boosts the odds that you’ll follow through on your tasks (FLOWN).
Investing in ergonomics and your workspace setup pays off — not just by preventing burnout, discomfort, and injury. But also by creating a significant productivity boost (National Library of Medicine).
Setting clear communication guidelines minimizes the productivity loss and frustration that comes from working across time zones (Harvard Business School Library).

Your travel-work checklist

Here’s the whole three-part productivity series distilled down into a quick and easy travel checklist to keep in your back-pocket:

On destination arrival: spend 1-2 days experimenting with ways to adapt your schedule to the local rhythm.
Sunday pre-week: sketch out your weekly calendar (include broad work blocks + exploration blocks).
Evening daily: block the next day’s schedule (5 minutes).
Pack or rent: laptop stand, Bluetooth keyboard & mouse, noise-cancelling headphones (and/or check your coworking network for nearby locations and equipment).
Update your team: share your new time zone, working hours, and days you’ll be out of the office exploring.
Publish a communication guide in your company knowledge base so everything gets communicated like clockwork.
Post-trip: reflect “Did I do justice to both business and life this week?” Then adjust the plan for your next destination.

Wrap-up

Travel and work don’t have to be in conflict. With the right structure, gear, and communication plan, you can stay in flow, deliver results, and experience your destination.

At Astrolabe Assistants, we believe that remote life isn’t just about flexibility.

It’s about freedom with discipline, presence with productivity, and making sure the business thrives and you live fully.

Schedule a discovery call now if you're ready to chat about what sort of systems we can help you set up in your business.

We want to help you automate, delegate, and liberate yourself from the grind as much as humanly possible.

Here’s to your next destination — may your calendar serve you, your workspace support you, and your days feel meaningful.

Safe travels + smooth workflows,

Layne

Founder, Astrolabe Assistants

🧭 Your business. Unburdened.