A few days after I quit my last day job, I had a sudden rush of memories when I remembered my old office days. The dreaded commute in the initial days followed by the traffic jams when I drove to the office.
The grumpy bosses in the morning — most of them were the last to arrive at work. The horrible cafeteria lunch and the long hours spent at the desk. I used to feel like the day’s work would never get over.
It was all over now, or so I thought. I now work from home, or a home office if you would like to call it that. I‘ve always dreamt of being able to travel the world while working on my own(business). So I made a list of all those things I would need when I am on the move.
You could use these tips if you’re a traveling freelancer.
The first need is for a place to work from wherever you are in the world. I found out that cafes are a thing in almost every country the world over. I googled a few lesser-known places using the search phrase “cafe in (name of the city/country)” and something came up for each search.
In any case, I don’t intend to spend 9 to 5 in a cafe.
It would be more like a few hours, mostly 2 hours which is when I zone out and feel like going out somewhere else. I used to get this feeling every hour at my day job too. That’s when I used to make my way to the water cooler or feign going for a meeting when I would go somewhere else!
Thinking of it, it’s quite easy to work without an office or even a place with a desk or a table. The reason is that you can use most writing sites with the help of a large-sized smartphone. By large-sized I mean at least a 5 or 6-inch screen.
You need screen space when you write and browse the net for research.
There are a plethora of tools and apps that will help you in your freelancing effort.
What is always needed is access to the internet.
If you’re not in a hotel or a cafe where there is wifi available, you will have to rely on your mobile data signal. The downside is the limited amount of battery to keep the internet running.
That is when you pull out your handy dandy power bank, some of which now contain a charge equal to 2 or even 3 full recharges!
Of course, you can also plug your phone or computer into a socket in a cafe. But not all cafes may have a socket near your seat. Carry a power charger with a long cord, and hope no one trips over it when you’ve plugged it in.
Your laptop needs to lightweight so that it doesn’t add to your baggage allowance when you’re flying. You also don’t want to lift too much weight because you will be carrying other luggage with you.
A backpack or a strolley when you’re traveling would be ideal.
I know people who use an iPad for work. I’m not sure how suitable it is for long typing work unless you get yourself a special keypad. Or any tab for that matter, Samsung Galaxy Note if you’re a fan of Android.
If you’re in a group then the mobile hotspot feature comes in handy and everyone can work using one internet source. The battery will run out faster, so the power bank needs to be at hand.
If you’ve given your Skype or Whatsapp details allowing clients to call, you will need a quiet place. Cafes could be noisy and if you move out of a cafe which has wi-fi you will lose your internet connection.
Noise-canceling microphones and headsets can cut out the noise to a large extent. I have used some of the good branded ones like Logitech. They do a good job of making yourself audible to the person at the other end while cutting out the din.
To save time I use a speech to text software called Dragon Naturally Speaking. It is invaluable when you travel because you may always need to be on the move. Speaking is much faster than typing. Especially so, if you’re not a screen typer like me but look at the keyboard while typing.
Well, I tried but old habits die hard and I still look up after every typing every sentence looking at the keyboard. Sigh.
At least I’ve come a long way from the time I used a single finger to type — looking for the next letter on the qwerty keyboard!
There are plenty of apps for converting speech to text but it but they get quite a few words wrong. You can correct them by deleting and typing them but it wastes time. Dragon gets trained to understand the individual’s speaking style and accent. You can also use commands like “delete (word)” and “spell it”, which means you don’t have to use your fingers at all.
For time management my favorite app is Pomodoro which will enable you to focus on your work. It is based on the Pomodoro technique invented by an Italian named Francesco Cirillo.
Pomodoro is Italian for tomato since the technique involves using a tomato-shaped timer. The smartphone apps have a timer built into it, so you need not carry around a tomato-shaped timer.
To save your work, you can use either Dropbox or Google Drive, or both. I also use free email providers like Outlook and AOL Mail too, to save less important work as drafts.
But it is important to save your work in more than one place.
Western Digital’s Portable 1 TB storage is good enough as a backup.
If you are a stickler for managing money there are a variety of apps on Android and the Apple Store. You can also use Google Sheets because most people are used to Excel. I use Excel for almost everything related to maintaining records. That also includes maintaining details of my content writing, and even my keyword research results.
With so many tools and millions of apps available for almost everything, you will never be left wanting for anything that you would like to do while working on the move — until you have your laptop and a smartphone with access to the internet.
