Thoughts and Tips for Creating your Mobile Office


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Let’s face it, our digital era is moving towards mobile technology faster than we can keep up. Gadgets and doohickeys which were released 14 months ago are now considered extinct amongst the most techno-savvy. This is all part of a social evolution of sorts – with the smartest braniacs leading the herd.

Mobile isn’t just a realm of games and fun apps. It’s also a serious market for business networking and contacting clients. Smartphones offer abilities which we couldn’t have dreamed of 10 or 15 years ago.

I’ll be looking to sway many of you into examining this mobile lifestyle a bit more in context. What is really happening with this mobile revolution? And how would working and building on a mobile office structure really advance workflow? Feel free to scrutinize my thoughts, and share your questions/comments to the article below!

Constructing the Mobile Work Station

We aren’t to the point of projecting holograms in space yet, so we need to come up with a foundation for our business. You are probably most comfortable working from home at a desk with your laptop or larger monitor.

When collecting your mobile tool set it’s important to step back and recognize the techniques you’ll need to utilize. If you are focused in coding or frontend development it’s incredibly important to be working on a large enough screen and easy-fitting keyboard. Graphic designers will face a similar attachment to drawing tablets, external mice, and possibly some headphones.

Generally you’ll also want to include the accessories for all the gadgets stuffed into your bag. Notably your laptop and phone chargers should come to mind. Some type of wireless adapter or phone card may save you in places where free wi-fi isn’t available. However, if you don’t require Internet for work that’s one less item to worry about!

File Transportation

No matter what line of work you’ll be tackling it’ll surely involve some type of project files. These could be Microsoft Word documents, Photoshop graphics, or HTML web pages. Either way it’s important you have full access to the most updated versions of all your project work.

With technological advancements such as Google Docs it’s possible to store all your data in the cloud and pull down information as needed. This will of course require an Internet connection, which is a very common facet in our day-to-day society (even in public areas).

For Android and iOS devices it’s possible to access and edit your Google documents from nearly anywhere. Usage is still kept shrill, but the potential here is astounding and we can only see growth trends arising.

For those who are working with other file types it may be useful to carry around a USB drive. Many retailers offer these bits of portable memory for very cheap and can return large quantities of space. 1GB models are almost extinct whereas 3-5 years ago that’s all you could find!

Software Alternatives

If you don’t like the idea of fumbling with a small flash drive there are other alternatives for file sharing. Access through a personal Google Account allows you to store attachments in GMail and download them onto any computer.

Dropbox is another great option which requires a brief setup and some initial software to be installed. Once you’ve got an account it’s easy as pie to update and transfer files through the cloud into your very own personal storage facility. This is known as your dropbox and can hold whatever you’d like!

Both Dropbox and Google do hold limits on their accounts. It’s important to recognize these from the beginning and keep this in mind when moving projects back and forth.

Remove those Distractions!

One of the biggest benefits of working from a mobile office is the removal of distractions. When inside our home it’s easy to slip into “home-mode” where we just laze around and enjoy the freedom of not working. The temptation is there all day and can truly destroy any motivation to complete anything.

When you’re out at a coffee shop or cafe the setting is completely switched around. Everything is fast-paced and moving. Cars are passing outside and people are constantly filtering between modes of friendly banter and concentration. This is the setup under the classic struggling writer to escape the confines of his home to broaden his horizons.

You may be surprised come the end of the week to see how much you’ve actually accomplished away from home. Even if you perform a 2-3 split where you work out of the house 2 of the 5 weekdays this can provide tremendous benefits to your concentration and work schedule.

Embodying the Work-Life Balance

An essential skill to any human being is living within a work-life balance type of harmony. If you spend every waking hour toiling away there’s a good chance you’ll burn yourself out within a matter of months.

It’s also possible to lose dedication after an extended period of time and just give up on the issues. This doesn’t make for a satisfied working or home life. When getting yourself in tune and balanced with your ideal lifestyle certain events will just flow naturally and life will seem much smoother.

This is the true creation process at work. By focusing on the type of schedule and lifestyle you’d want to build it’s natural to begin adapting towards this mobile-centric view of working. This is especially the case concerning mobile e-mails and tasks to be completed within a few taps on your smartphone device.

Conclusion

The purpose of moving towards a mobile lifestyle is to simplify your job of making choices. Once you can get past the pre-conditioning and mental stimulus it’s very easy to accept work and move forward with projects. Getting into a new environment will also spur new innovations and creative juices like nothing else.

Consider these ideas on networking and collaborating with others in the business world. Many of us already work from laptops and it would be a simple step to adjust scheduled time for focused study.

Consider some of the tips above and offer your own suggestions for the community towards building a mobile office-styled idealism in the workplace. Everything begins with mindset and is then adjusted physically. If you’re getting caught up check out these great productivity tips for designers.


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