Most of us work in offices that we commute to. Some of us work from home. And, some of us are constantly working on the go — working wherever we can find an internet connection or a phone. If you are one of those people, welcome to club. I pull up a chair and work in restaurants, the car, hotel lobbies and just about any place I can find a table. It’s amazing but you can be highly effective and not have an office. I know that my mom still doesn’t understand it, but that’s not really important because I do. Many of you can probably relate.
One of the best things you can do is stop carrying all of your paper with you. Jot down what you need to do on lists and leave the paper at one location. Keep all of your critical must access stuff online in web based applications. All your email, calendar, files, etc. Then, whether or not you have your notebook computer with you, if you can find a computer, you can access anything you might need.
This will create a freedom you never knew you had once you compact down your office to a briefcase and a notebook computer. If they could only eliminate wires entirely, I would be able carry less. But, even those can be reduced a bunch. Paper, though, is your biggest enemy. Learn to tame it by processing whatever paper that comes into your life immediately. Once you start letting it pile up, you will lose trust in your organizational system. When that happens, you won’t feel as relaxed as if you had.
Once you have got a new attitude about working with a smaller “footprint” so to speak, you’ll question why you ever were working carrying so much stuff around in the first place. Even if you work from an office, you would be good to make your work accessible 24/7 where ever you may be.
Tags: mobile office, online applications, Productivity, work, working, working away from home, working away froom the office, working on the go
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