Hey it’s the Road Warrior. Today I wanted to talk about how to work from anywhere. Over the past 15 years, I’ve been working on the road on average about 200 days per year. During that time, I’ve developed a sense of how to make myself portable so that my office is where ever I am. I wanted to walk you through some tips on how I get work done while I travel.
The first step in the process is getting your email in the cloud. I know that I used to use Microsoft Outlook to manage my email. About every three years, my computer would crash and I would lose a significant part of it because I just didn’t take the time to back up my files. I also noticed that I might be working on the job site and need a file in my email account but I wouldn’t have my computer with me. That was always a pain. By putting my email online and available anywhere I have computer access, I could then work anywhere I had a computer. I’ve done this at Kinkos, on cruise ships, in foreign countries. I’ve been doing this since 2006 and couldn’t be happier. Personally I use Yahoo! mail for my email. You can by Yahoo! Mail plus for about $20 per year. Money well spent. I know that a lot of people think they have to have a yahoo.com address but you don’t. I use my own domain name and forward it to my yahoo account. Accessing your email anywhere you might be working is fantastic. I am currently experimenting with Google apps and may switch shortly. I don’t know.
The next step in my ability to be portable and access my work from the road was to put some of my files and lists online. I use two things to do this. The first is Basecamp. I use it for all of my to do lists for GTD and also store documents I might need to access from anywhere. In addition, I use Google docs. Google docs is fantastic and so is Basecamp.
The third thing I did was set up MyFax.com account. This allows me to receive faxes right into my email. It costs about $10 buck per month unless you have a high volume of faxes. The other thing I did was buy a portable scanner so that I can scan in documents that I might need to fax. This service also works well to combat probably the number one adversary on the road and this is finding a printer that works where you are. You can just about count on the hotel printer not working everywhere you go. This is without a doubt my biggest beef with hotels. Printers are lousy. So, whenever I need to print something, I just fax it through my myfax.com account to the front desk and pick it up. This only works with a few pages. You can’t send 500 pages to the front desk. In all likelihood you won’t have too.
I guess it goes without saying that you need a notebook computer and a quality bag to carry it in. I also carry a bag that keeps my files and wires in. I strongly suggest you opt for a rolling bag. I carry my typically GTD files in the bag with a file market FILE OUT/SHRED that I then file when I get home.
In addition, I use a Blackberry Curve. I use this to receive email throughout the day but also for my calendar. Having your calendar online in addition to your email is another critical step you need to take to make yourself portable. Google and Yahoo! both have great calendars. I’m running a dual calendar system on both right now as I am testing Google’s over the air sync. So far so good.
Anyway, those are some tips on how I set myself up to work from anywhere.
Let me know if you have any suggestions for Working On The Go as well. I’m always looking for the best way.
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