Need to work at home…while on the road? In self employment, it’s not always easy to get days off from the job or put projects on the back burner for a little while. In fact, it might even be impossible to ignore projects sometimes. But that doesn’t mean those who work at home have to stay chained to their desks. The mobile office is the perfect solution when work at home suddenly becomes work from a remote location.
How to Create Mobile Office
It’s important to have, and stick with, a budget for traveling office items, even if they seem quite essential to getting the job done. Remember, there is always the option of simply staying home. It’s not a good idea to go into debt to get work done, especially when self employment and getting paid can be a little tricky. To create the most cost-effective mobile office, there are a few items which will need to be purchased.
A laptop. It’s hard to be mobile without one of these easy-to-carry wonders, which can be purchased new or used for less than a thousand dollars (or much more, depending). Be sure to check product reviews, compare prices and purchase a machine that meets all working requirements (such as certain software needed to complete projects, or an Internet connection).
A flash drive. Anyone who has lost information on their hard drive knows it can feel like the worst of tragedies. Palm-sized convenient flash drives are ridiculously easy to use and offer a perfect storage solution, backup device or mobile computer command unit. Take any relevant information, data and files from the home office computer and place it on one of these drives. This way, it will be readily available for use with the more mobile laptop.
Password reminders. Everyone’s been there before. The office is far away, the computer isn’t set with password reminders and suddenly it’s impossible to access a must-see site. Do not ever write passwords down. This is a perfect way to become a victim. Instead, choose passwords (and don’t, by the way, always use the same password - that’s a terrible idea) that mean something personal and perhaps all carry the same theme. A variation on a single word (use foreign languages, different spellings, whatever), a collection of words with similar meanings, even the names of the 7 dwarves can be usable passwords that aren’t easy to forget but hard to crack for another person.
The in-computer scheduler. Keep track of deadlines, assignments, emails that need to be answered and calls that need to be made with a planner or calendar program on the computer. It’s easy to let assignments slip the mind when home is far away, but it’s hard to gain back trust once it’s lost with an employer.
