With summer conference season in high gear, workshifters are finding themselves away from their home base more than ever as they hop from one learning experience to the next. Whether you are a speaker, a conference attendee or part of the press, you'll still need to find ways to get things done while you are there.

I find that having a set list of items in my laptop bag for each of my various roles at conferences helps make my time as productive as possible. I also block out areas of time where I plan to disappear from the conference radar for about 15 - 20 minutes. This allows me to catch up on important texts, direct messages, phone calls or emails that may have popped up while I was attending, leading or covering a session.

One of the key components to a successful working conference is communication. Do not underestimate the power of letting your clients know that you will be at a conference in some capacity, and provide them with an idea of when they can get your attention if needed. If you have deadlines, take care of them before you go if at all possible (the increase of planes, trains and buses with WiFi makes this easier than ever before). Keeping everyone in the loop can avert many "fires" before they start.

At the end of the day, no matter how many to-do lists you make, reminders you set on your phone, brief blocks of time you set aside, emails you send or deadlines you meet before you go, you still won't be productive if you don't bring the right tools.

Attendee Bag

Your attendee bag is the most basic, and its contents should be your base in the other bags as well: pen or pencil, paper or notebook, cell phone for arranging quick lunch meetups or recording someone's contact info on the fly (volume turned to off), mints (you never know when you or someone you know will have horrendous coffee or garlic bagel breath), and a laptop if you have one.

Press Bag

The press bag has to keep you sustained for several sessions in a row, as you are usually there on assignment with a list of speakers as well as product or company launches to cover for your print or digital publication. In addition to the attendee bag items, the press bag should contain snacks (in case you have several back to back sessions and can't get to the snack area), water, a spare battery or power cord for your laptop and cell phone and some kind of camera (cell phone with camera, flip cam, digital camera - it doesn't matter).

Speaker Bag

For me, the speaker bag is always the heaviest. The most important part of productivity when you are a speaker is making sure you have everything you might need for the actual presentation you are making. Why is this so important? If you don't bring everything you need, you waste your 15 - 20 minute blocks of time hunting for someone who has a spare whaddayacallit, or trying to recreate slide decks or solve other problems and not doing your work!

Your speaker bag should include the following in addition to the attendee bag items: whatever AV connector your laptop needs to get your slides from the laptop to the screen; whatever obscure connecting able you don't think projectors use anymore, just in case; flash drive containing multiple formats of your slide deck; extra business cards for those after-presentation connections for further speaking gigs.

If you have the right gear and the right mindset, as well as a great to do list and straightforward schedule , your work will still get done, even if you are pressed for time at a conference.

What's your favorite way to keep track of your to-do list and keep focused when you are on the road at a conference? What's your essential "in bag" item to make it all happen?

Photo by: penguincakes