If you live in cities like New York, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC, among others, you’ve probably – at least on occasion – taken commuter trains to work. These trains, designed for professionals, should be havens for productivity. The key word here being “should.” The trick is to be smart about how you use your commute, whether it is 15 minutes or upwards of an hour.

Here are our tips:

- Designate specific jobs for the commute. There are certain tasks, like emailing, reviewing documents, or proof-reading, that are best suited for commutes. By setting aside specific tasks for the train, you can stay focused rather than trying to do too (and ultimately too little) much during the ride.


- Make sure these tasks are not urgent, since commutes can be unpredictable. Late trains, faulty wireless connections, and limited power-points mean you should factor in uncertainty when planning to work on commuter rail. As long as commute tasks aren’t pressing or extremely time sensitive, you should be fine.

- Sync your laptop to your desktop. Rather than wasting time updating your office desktop with all the work you do while on the train, sync the two. This way, the next time you are in the office, your desktop is completely up to date with any edits, new files, and deletions that you made during your ride. You can do this for your personal gadgets, or better yet, sync up the entire team. Consider software, like SYNCING.NET, to make syncing as seamless – and flexible – as possible.